What is Digital Marketing & Why do we need it
The Complete Beginner’s Guide to Digital Marketing. If you Read one Article about Digital Marketing read this one. Obviously, Welcome to Digital Marketing Blog in Bangladesh by Tajul Islam.
Today, we discuss, What is Digital Marketing and Why go Digital? Why Digital Marketing is the Best Thing. So Let’s go for it and Don’t forget to order a coffee. Because this article is about 2500+ words long and If you really want to learn Digital Marketing then you have to read it at last.
Did you Google something today or check your Facebook? maybe did you see that funny video that went viral yesterday? Or did you read the tweet by that famous cricketer? if you did, then you are a part of the digital world. Along with 3 billion other people which are 40% of the world’s population.
Wow, that’s a large number and wherever there a huge number of people there is a huge marketing opportunity.
- Understand what digital marketing is?
- Identify the need to go Digital
- Digital Marketing Objectives and Best Practices
What is digital marketing? its scope the channels identify the need to go digital. Why companies have to include digital marketing as part of their overall marketing strategy? and of course, the basic objectives are digital marketing.
What is Digital Marketing?
What it’s used for as I mentioned before there are 3 billion people who are online today which is close to 40% of the world’s population who are these people what are they doing how are they doing it.
We’ll take a look at that 43% of these people are browsing the internet through their computers or desktops. 52% which is again a huge number are scrolling through their mobile phones. The smartphone revolution has made this possible and 4% do so through tablets.
You will be surprised to know that off the total time spent on media on electronic media or otherwise, 54% of the time is spent on online media. 28% the social marketing which is in most cases Facebook, 13% is microblogging which again is on Twitter and the rest of the activities are a mix of updating blogs, reading news, watching TV or online and other activities.
What does it mean when people are spending so much time on media? There is a huge opportunity for you to reach out to them during that time.
This is a result if you will see this graph you will notice. That budgets for paid search advertising and display advertising both of which are fundamentals of digital marketing have been increasing over the years this year.
It is estimated that there will be a spend of 225 billion dollars the increase in digital spend is almost three times the increase in the total ad expenditure. For marketing when we spoke about search advertising, where is this money being spent this again is related to?
Where is the time being spent? This graph shows you that the Google search engine has the largest chunk followed by Baidu and Yahoo and Bing. When people invest in search advertising they put up ads on the Search Network.
I’ll show you what I’m talking about this is a Google search engine results page for a query office box for women or Online shopping in Bangladesh. You will notice that apart from the organic stuff that you see on the page actually, which is way down the page the ads dominate the page. These are sponsored results and you will see a slight.
A yellowish orange tag indicating that they are ads what happens if I have found a website that I want to go to. And then I leave the search engine page this is what happens in this case.
I was looking for sites about ‘Breaking News of Bangladesh’ and I came to this website but there’s an opportunity for me to see an ads here on Priyo.com
As well so there you go how’s this for intention, 28% of your time is spent on social media. Facebook has space for ads too.
Email marketing is another important branch have you ever got emails about muktipin from priyo.com or online shopping on Daraz. If you have you know what I’m talking about why are 3 billion people online.
Why Digital Marketing is the Best Thing & Why go Digital?
What is this thing about digital media that is attracting everyone? let’s see that in detail.
Multiple channel and Devices-
- Wide range of site, Social Media
- Cross-Device Integration
A user the digital media offers multiple channels and devices to do. What they want to do they have a wide range of sites the social media to connect with to maintain relationships. This cross-device integration you can start on a desktop go through a mobile and end on your tab.
Better Decision Making-
- Lots of choices
- Deep discounts and offers
There’s also better decision-making this huge number of choices. Wanna buy a bag there ten sites that’ll offer you one with five sites probably offering you better discounts than what you can get at the store.
Easy to Buy and Return-
- Quick Purchase
- Multiple payment options
- Door Delivery and Easy Returns
Of course, they are easy to buy and return you’re going to come home and deliver to you and if you want to return it in most cases. They gonna pick it up as well and of course with one. It’s another payment gateway buying online is easier than ever before.
For a marketer, there are lots of reasons.
Relevance– I will compare this aspect to traditional advertising if you are driving down a road and you see a hoarding about let’s say jewelry you may or may not be wanting to buy jewelry at that point. You may not have the money for it or may not be in a mode for it. But if you are looking online and say want to buy your rings online I want to buy jewelry online and you see ads that are relevant to you. From a jewelry store that has an extremely high degree of relevance as compared to the hoarding that you see on the road.
Personalization cases– Google and Facebook and other sites that you use collect a lot of information about you which is legal but they can use this information to create a better advertising experience for you.
You can even see emails where your name is highlighted. For example, I see emails that read hello Tajul would you like a loan today or you could see ads that could be based on your previous browsing history if you have been shopping for diapers for your kid. you could see ads that say maybe you should buy a new diaper.
Back again Cost-effectiveness: is a big driver for digital marketing traditional media over time has become super expensive. placing an ad in the newspaper or buying a holding for a month is a large outlay of money. Whereas digital marketing can probably be started off with one-tenth of that investment.
High Mesureability- The digital media is also an extremely measurable medium going back to the example of the road and hoarding you may not have an exact count of how many people actually saw the ad on the touring. You will not know how many people went into your store because of that wording. You will never know how many people bought that particular item? Because of what they saw on that particular Road unless of course, that was the only marketing media that you were using at that point in time.
But digital media, you can track this to the very last click. You will know how many people came to your site from where they came, what they saw on your site, and what they bought. What was the value of that purchase and will they come back again? You can track that as well.
Scalability- Digital campaigns are extremely scalable campaigns. If I create a campaign for Bangladesh today. I can easily replicate it for India tomorrow. There are no permissions involved. There’s no time involved. It’s all done within a few clicks.
Scope for higher Engagement- How engaged can you be with the holding on the road? Can you talk about it and change it? You can’t but you can be super engaged with an interactive ad that you see on a website. We will see examples later where you can actually make the ad work for you. you can make characters in the ads. Do different things by clicking a mouse around that is engagement.
Level playing field- What do I mean by a level playing field? if I were a small little business, obviously I will not have the money involved to compete with a large player, a national player, but you can do so in digital marketing. You can actually decide where your ads will show, how many people they will show, and if your ads are of high quality you might actually end up paying lesser then the bigger players in your market.
Ability to go viral– Of course there is the ability to go viral. how many of your friends ever passed down a paper cutting to you and said wow look at this ad not likely but a lot of them must have shared a wonderful ad on their Facebook profiles and that multiplies that is free advertising.
Digital Marketing Objectives and Best Practices
According to Neil Patel, when you will go to identify the specific marketing objectives or digital marketing objectives channel in order to support your long-term marketing plan, it is common practice to apply the widely used SMART model. But today I am going to brief something new, which I learned from my career and experience with the brands like Bata and VisitVikings. Let’s look at the objectives of Digital Marketing.
- Awareness (Increase brand Awareness)
- Acquisition (Click on your websites)
- Convert (Drive Sales and Leads)
Awareness
If you’re a small brand or have a huge plan that nobody knows about. You are introducing a new product, a new addition to your product line and you want to increase brand awareness. Digital marketing is the answer. So in digital marketing objectives, Increase brand Awareness is one of the parts of it.
Acquisition
For businesses that are not really selling a product and don’t need sales or leads or not advertising a product. But just want people to come to this site, could be a new site, could be a blog about Digital Marketing in Bangladesh, could be something about the business news that you want to talk about. Basically, you’re driving people to your site and this can be done to digital marketing.
Conversion
This is direct response marketing where your campaigns will get people to buy something from your website. In some cases, they may not want to buy something but probably convert to a lead. Where they will sign up for news or sign up for a subscription.
What are the best practices of digital marketing and user behavior?
User behavior is an important factor in Digital Advertising. There is a difference between how it is treated in traditional media and digital media. Let’s look at a few factors that matter in digital marketing.
So here is the list of best practices and user behavior for Digital Marketing-
- First page of the Results
- First Fold of website
- Right mix of text and Images
- Clarity of content
- Clear Call to Action
- Quick and Easy Navigation
- Security
- Responsiveness
The first page of the Results
There’s a Digital marketing quote that I have read the other day, that the best place to bury somebody is on the second page of results. Because they’re never going to be found. If you are not on the first page in search engine results, nobody is ever going to click in and see your ads.
So it’s important to be in the midst of action which is on the first page.
First Fold of website
The first fold is that part of the website that you see without scrolling down. Again most people are not involved enough to scroll down and therefore if you want your message to be heard, it’s important to be in the first fold.
The best place to hide a Dead body is page 2 of Google Search Results
The right mix of text and images
We need the right mix of text and images. Too much text will make it look like a newspaper, too bookish, and too many images will look like clutter. In fact, there’s a term called banner blindness where the brain is attuned to tuning out stuff that looks like too much of ads. So you need to have the right mix of text and images.
Clarity of content
Somebody who comes to your website needs to understand what your website is all about. He shouldn’t have to be clicking through five or six links to get a gist of what your site is about it, needs to be there upfront, clear, and easy to understand.
Clear Call to Action
A call to action is a signal to the user about what he has to do, what you want people to do? when they come to your site. Do you want them to buy something? Do you want them to sign up somewhere? Do you want them to give them your email id? What do you want them to do? Unless you tell them clearly, they are not going to be able to understand. So please use Clear Call to Action button.
Quick and Easy Navigation
Quick and easy navigation is a very important fact. Have you ever been to websites where you try hitting the back button but you come back out of the site if you have that’s terrible isn’t it? A user needs to understand how he or she can move from one page to another page on the site. i.e Home Button, back button, all this will help.
Security
Security is a major concern because there are lots of commercial transactions happening on the web where you have provided your credit card details. You don’t want to be hacked also you don’t want to end up spending a lot of money unintentionally. Security is important in US resources in creating a secure atmosphere for your users.
Responsiveness
Responsiveness in this world of social media. But people expect you to talk back to them. Brands have a very important responsibility of responding back to the user. If somebody posts on a brand’s page that I didn’t get this product or it was bad. It becomes important for the brand to respond back and say “we’re sorry” or “we will look into it” if you don’t respond that leaves a very bitter taste in the users’ mouth so watch out for responsiveness.
Online user behavior and how their expectations must be incorporated into Digital Marketing. So guys, don’t forget to share it on Social Media. Oops, please comment below on what you want to learn next in Digital Marketing.
