What Is Digital Marketing?
The term digital marketing refers to the use of websites, apps, mobile devices, social media, search engines, and other digital means to promote and sell products and services. Digital marketing started to become popular with the widespread adoption of the internet in the 1990s.
Digital marketing involves many of the same principles as traditional marketing and is often considered an additional way for companies to approach consumers and understand their behavior. Companies often combine traditional and digital marketing techniques in their strategies. But digital marketing also comes with its own set of challenges.
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KEY TAKEAWAYS
- Digital marketing promotes products and services through channels such as websites, mobile devices, and social media platforms.
- Digital marketers have a number of tools to measure the effectiveness of their campaigns.
- One of the biggest challenges digital marketers face is how to set themselves apart in a world that is oversaturated with digital ads and other distractions
Companies once focused on marketing through print, television, and radio because that was all they had. Although those options still exist, the internet gave companies another way to reach consumers and gave rise to digital marketing.
The new technologies and trends forced companies to change their marketing strategies and rethink their budgets. Email became a popular marketing tool in the early days of digital marketing. Then the focus shifted to search engines like Netscape, which allowed businesses to tag and keyword items to get themselves noticed. The development of social platforms like Facebook made it possible for companies to track user data and deliver their messages to very specific audiences.
Smartphones and other portable devices now make it easier for companies to market their products and services to consumers wherever those consumers happen to be. A 2022 Pew Research Center study found that 76% of American adults had made online purchases using their phones.1
Digital marketing can be interactive, unlike traditional print or television advertising.
Types of Digital Marketing Channels
Digital marketing channels have evolved since the 1990s and continue to do so. Here are eight of the most common channels in use today.
These campaigns can segment users based on their demographic characteristics (such as age or gender), or their particular interests or location. The most widely used services for PPC are Google Ads and Facebook Ads.
Content Marketing
The goal of content marketing is to reach potential customers through the use of written, visual, or video content that interests them. That content is usually published on a website and then promoted through social media, email marketing, search engine optimization, or even pay-per-click campaigns. Content marketing attempts to be more subtle than advertising, and the product or service the sponsor is attempting to market may or may not be conspicuously highlighted.
Email Marketing
Email marketing is still one of the most effective digital marketing channels, though many people associate it with spam and treat such messages accordingly. Many digital marketers use their other digital marketing channels to collect names for their email lists. Then, through email marketing, they try to turn those leads into customers.
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