Digital Marketing is the process of promoting and selling products and services with digital marketing tools. In itself, digital marketing is a huge umbrella term, involving concepts such as social media marketing, search engine optimization, native marketing and others.
But, putting it simply, it’s the process of leveraging digital platforms and strategies to promote a business online. Nowadays, everyone’s customers are online: hanging out in social media, staying updated on news sites and blogs, and searching online when they have a specific need. With the internet taking flight and becoming a must in people’s everyday lives as the years went on, businesses identified a unique opportunity to market themselves to their target audiences in the digital world.
But, how does digital marketing work?
Let’s go back to the last time you purchased something. This product or service you acquired had to come from a thought in the first place. You had a need or a desire, and you wanted to fulfill that. And from here, there are two possible scenarios you went through.
Scenario #1
You had little to no knowledge of a product or service that you could get to meet your needs.
Scenario #2
You already had a specific product or service in mind that could meet your needs
If you were in the first scenario, you probably didn’t have enough knowledge about what product you needed. Your first instinct would’ve most likely been to try and obtain said knowledge and, while you could’ve asked your friends or your family about potential solutions, you probably just dived into the internet to research for yourself.
The AVL Websites that can help consumers make educated decisions on their purchases. Whether you’re looking for an office chair or a gaming console, researching online has many benefits. Once you type your question into that Google query, you’re in for a trip through various informative business websites that educate your respective topic and even YouTube reviewers making introductory videos on potential products you need.
Once you have more basic information on potential products, you can be redirected to the second scenario: You have a specific product, or a range of products in mind, to complete your purchase. Whether you just completed some basic research on your topic or you already had previous knowledge of a product that will meet your wants,
you might likely want to learn more about it. So, you start a more in-depth search for product details and information that help you make a more educated choice when purchasing. Third-party opinions from reviewers online can help you look in-depth about any product or service you want and about the different options that are available to you. Whether you’re looking for detailed specifications of said product or reviews of the product or service, you most likely will come across lots of these things due to digital marketing, much likely interacting with it every step of the way. from the moment you introduced your first search query, the search engine you used activated its optimized algorithm to produce relevant results to your question.
There are many strategies businesses use called “Search Engine Optimization” to organically appear relevant to searchers and promote the relevant services and products you’re searching for to you.
Once you click on a search result, you’re led to a website that’s designed to be as informative and relevant to your need as possible, offering solutions and options in the form of products and services.
If you decide to click out, though, and check out the other results, the same process will repeat until you find the best option for you. Even if you postpone your search and go back to your usual social media routine, you’ll likely see relevant ads about products you’ve searched for or websites you’ve clicked, or even ads about their competitors.
At the end of the day, whether it’s through an ad you saw on a blog site or a Youtube video comparing various options,digital marketing takes place in every step of your consumer journey so businesses can offer their products and services to you.
Search Engine Optimization & Marketing
Think about it… how many times a day do you think people use search engines like Google to find a product or service?
There are approximately 5.6 billion Google searches a day. And that’s just on Google!
Now imagine just being able to capture 0.00001% of those searches. Through Search Engine Optimization and Marketing, we help make that possible. We provide services that help you rank on search engines, and get in front of customers looking for your product or services. We also help coordinate paid placement on search engines, through targeted advertisements.
Content Marketing
“Content Marketing” describes a few different channels of marketing. Primarily, they are things such as social media posts, blogs, videos and other web content. A good content marketing strategy implements various channels, to gather interest about their company or product.
After gathering interest about your company or product, how does it convert into a sale? By gathering interested people’s contact information, you get a potential lead.
With our content marketing strategies, we design sale funnels specifically for your business that convert “Internet window shoppers,” to product sales or paying customers.
Word of Mouth
This one is a little different than the other strategies provided above. Word of mouth is one of my favorite methods of driving business. Word of mouth is a trickier method to nail down though. There are a couple of ways to generate word of mouth about your business.
First, you can generate it through online promotion of your business. This kind-of involves content marketing too! Posting on social media for your business, generates eyeballs on what your business is and does. People share cool and interesting social media posts all the time! The question is, how do you get people to share your business’s social media posts with their friends?
Second, is simply by providing a good product or service. If an individual or business is really good at what they do, people tend to share their great experiences with friends and family, potentially leading you to new business. Unfortunately though, people tend to share their bad experiences even more! How many of your friends have told you: “don’t eat at this restaurant, they suck!” Versus. “This restaurant has the best food in town! Go try it!”
But What Should You Do?
With so many marketing methods out there… it makes it difficult to decide how you should pursue.
Thankfully, we have some answers for you. We would love to sit down with you (a small business owner) to at the very least, give you some pointers. We have a great list of services to help your business’s online presence. If you’d like to learn more about our services, ask a couple of questions, or get some pointers, get in touch with us. We are always happy to help fellow small business owners. We are located in Asheville, North Carolina, but we service worldwide!
Author: Business Brain Squad
