Every day we find brands in a fierce fight to get our attention. Especially in the digital field, we find remarkable examples of content marketing.
Examples of digital marketing
To sell a headset we got a story that defies gravity and the stunning noise of the city.
The exaltation of the values of a community acquire the flavor of a beer, and even political connotations.
What’s going on? How did we get into this rain of stories to sell products? For how long will digital marketing be booming and reinventing?
Let’s talk about the term: “digital marketing.”
Digital marketing is a term that is attracting more and more interest in the business world. As you can see in this Google Trends graph, the evolution of search volume has an increasing trend and will continue.
Evolution of searches for “digital marketing”
What is the growing interest in this term due to?
The answer is clear, we have become Homo digitalis. Our world is full of screens, over-information, transparency, accessibility and a growing connectivity that invites us to share everything from anywhere.
In the last ten years, the time we spend on the internet has doubled. According to Statista , we spend an average of 118 minutes a day on online social networking and there are close to 2 billion users on social media.
Growth of users in social media (Statista)
In these new circumstances, what role does digital marketing play ?; How does it influence the communication and marketing of products? What characteristics of digital marketing have introduced certain advances and also challenges for marketers?
We will try to answer these and other questions with this article.
what is the digital marketing?
Digital marketing is the promotion of products and services through electronic means. Its main attraction is that it allows organizations to analyze the results of their marketing campaigns and understand – even in real time – the interactions of their audiences with the content that is published.
Characteristics of digital marketing
Digital marketing maintains aspects in common with offline or traditional marketing. The objective of both is to generate more sales with tactics of attraction and “pressure” (push) in their communication.
However, certain characteristics that define digital marketing have led the way:
- It requires the use of digital platforms and technological devices to access the content.
- The interaction is not temporally conditioned.
- The interaction is not restricted by the physical location of the user.
- Supports a high level of segmentation and personalization of messages.
- It offers a clear fingerprint (digital analytics) that allows user tracking.
- Communication is focused on the client (their needs, beliefs, expectations …)
To put it into practice, certain supports are required: corporate website, blogs, ebooks, infographics, videos, forms, surveys, just to name a few.
Disciplines that digital marketing encompasses
And also this broad umbrella that is digital marketing, includes other disciplines such as those that follow.
Content Marketing : which consists of the creation of strategic content and here I explain more details about it: “Content Marketing: definition, examples and advantages”.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) : which allows an increase in the number of visits to your website by improving your position in the results of the SERPs.
Social Media Marketing : thanks to the use of social media and its tools it is possible to impact a greater number of people.
Blogging : regular publication in a blog with content organized chronologically or thematically.
Inbound Marketing : the methodology that allows you to generate a conversion funnel that attracts strangers and generates satisfied customers. Marketing Automation : consists of automating interactions with users throughout the life cycle to achieve better results.
Paid campaigns (PPC) : generate a significant volume of traffic from ads where you pay per click on creatives. Email Marketing : email will be a star support for online communication for a long time and get it to encourage visits to your company’s website.
Affiliate marketing : in which case affiliates receive commissions or incentives for advertising third-party products on their websites.
Evolution of digital marketing
Digital marketing is relatively new. In the eighties with the arrival of PCs to companies and also to homes, digital marketing expert in delhi began its journey that we still do not know where it will lead us.
Nineties
In the 90s, the world acquired a single socioeconomic color with the fall of the Berlin Wall, and while the overvalued democracy spread, the Internet on its side flourished with the appearance of search engines (Yahoo, AOL, Altavista …)
Search engines open the door to paid advertising in various formats. With the lists comes the urgency or need to be the first, and that is how Search Engine Optimization or SEO was born . Towards the end of the nineties, the dot-com bubble explodes and we realize that it is time to rethink online business models.
From 2000 to 2010
At the beginning of 2000 changes are introduced that make search engines even more sensitive to the characteristics of the webs. Don Google trains us and baffles us with his successive algorithm updates and we indulge in a game where the rules are not clear. In 2005 Google Analytics emerged and social networks began to model interactions and engulf relationships.
The last years
Since 2010 the Internet boom in the mobile field ( mobile friendly ). New social media are arriving (Google+, Pinterest, Snapchat), networks that are more sensitive to the visual. And the expansion of Inbound Marketing also begins.
Now in 2017 our understanding of the user is growing. Data opens new horizons thanks to Analytical Marketing or Marketing Analytics .
Closer to everyone
To make matters worse, digital loses its prison behind the screen and is gradually incorporated into everyday objects. Phones, glasses, watches, appliances and other devices that measure, predict and assist. It is the sensitivity of the Internet of Things that bursts in to facilitate the consumption and exchange of information.
We have welcomed a new generation of “everything” meters . People who count the number of friends on Facebook and contacts on LinkedIn. They evaluate your sugar level, heart rate, calories gained and burned, quality of sleep …
Techies count whether they have read 10 or 20 pages a day. They know the hours they spend in X or Y activity. They calculate in their app the miles they fly by plane to accumulate points that are converted into discount coupons. They follow your buying habits euro by euro. They lose kilos and measure them (permarexia) with applications for exercising and dieting …
We navigate a sea of visible and accurate data that makes it easy for us to go in search of the best version of ourselves. Exceeding our own numbers is the goal-horizon.
All of the above configures new ways of doing marketing today :
- Communication focused on the education of the client or user eager for knowledge.
- Integrated multi-channel and multi-device dialogue.
- Marketing compatible with personal assistants (Plen Cube, Mykie, LG Hub Robot or Gatebox).
- Play with the empowerment of the user who becomes an information producer.
- Win the acceptance of users who give their opinion, value and recommend.
- Accept that the customer / consumer is now a co-creator of products and services.
And the best thing is that digital marketing with the right statistics helps us make better decisions.
How do companies use digital marketing to sell online?
Content marketing works for all types of companies …
For B2B companies, capturing leads online is a challenge. The process involves the capture of qualified leads that are gradually prepared ( lead nurturing ) to speak with a salesperson and the sale is closed. Thanks to LinkedIn this process is easier and we have discovered a system that facilitates the process called LinkedInbound .
For B2C companies, everything is simpler. Depending on the type of product, the sales cycle may be more or less long, but the purpose is to publicize the brand and buy your products either online or in the physical store.
The key in this case is to generate content that encourages trying, buying quickly and repeating (loyalty) or increasing the average ticket with the purchase of related products (cross-selling and up-selling).
Now, to get those qualified leads and those recurring customers, what should we do? Well, there are general keys that determine success, perhaps they do not apply to all types of companies or products but I hope they serve as a starting point.
