What is Digital Marketing and its channels ?

Traditional Marketing

Traditional channels have been used to promote products and brands for centuries. Companies spent millions on Print media, banners, signboards, radio jingles and TV commercials. These were the mass market channels which helped them reached the potential audience. During the 1900s, people spent a lot of time on these channels for entertainment. Hence, it made perfect sense for brands to fight for that prime time slot or front page advertisement. 

But, the companies found it difficult to understand the effectiveness of their ads in these channels. Also, in case of traditional advertising, only a small portion of the total money spent helps you reach the target segment. For eg: If Apple want to give an ad for selling an iPhone, it would ideally wish to pay for that ad to be seen only by the affluent segment who can afford it. But that was not the case. The companies are charged a fixed amount for a TV slot or an newspaper ad regardless of how large or small the target segment is.

Digital Marketing

                        

To begin with, Digital marketing is the promotion of brands and products using digital channels like SMS, Social media, apps, Email, Search engines, blogs, etc. With the advent of smartphones and internet, the world is seeing a shift from traditional marketing to digital marketing. Customers are spending a lot of time on these channels for entertainment, researching about products, buying new products and giving feedback about them. Hence, it makes all sense to brands to target these channels more. The five major benefits of digital marketing are listed below:

(a) Precise targeting: Digital marketing allows brands to advertise only to their target segment or those who intend to buy. For eg: If Apple serve an ad in Google search, it will be shown only to those customers who have searched for iPhone on the site. Similarly, if Oakley wants to advertise its sunglasses on Facebook, it can select its audience basis their demographics, interests, etc. 

(b) Cost effective: By allowing the ads to be served to only the target segment, brands save a lot of money since they are only paying for the number of times an ad is shown to or clicked by the prospective buyer. Whereas in the traditional channel, they had to pay a fixed fees regardless of who saw the ad.

(c) Measurable ROI: Digital marketing channels like Adwords, Facebook advertising, etc. allow the brands to see how much traffic/sales/engagements are happening because of an ad. This was very difficult to track in case of traditional channels.

(d) Dynamic: The performance of these digital ads can be tracked every minute. These ads can be changed basis their performance by editing the keywords, audience, messaging, etc. Compare it to a newspaper ad where once a print is released, there is no going back.

(e) Call to action: I feel this is the most important aspect in digital marketing. An ad can redirect you to its website/app/social page to buy a product, download an app, like a page, etc. A traditional TV or print ad definitely increased the brand recall among the customers. But didn't direct them to take an action. Whereas, a digital ad can both increase the brand recall and direct the customers to take an action.

The video below from SAS gives a very good overview of digital marketing for beginners.

Because of emergence of these new channels and their benefits, companies are spending a significant amount of their advertising budgets on digital marketing. As can be seen from the graphic below, digital forms a considerable share of the overall ad spend. Though, the traditional channels still remain big, digital channels are likely to close this gap year on year.

Now that we have discussed the meaning and benefits of digital marketing, let us see some of the major channels which brands use:

(a) Search Engine Marketing

(b) Email marketing

(c) Search Engine Optimization

(d) Display Advertising

(e) Social media marketing

(f) Content marketing

(g) Affiliate marketing

(h) SMS Marketing

In the subsequent posts, I will pick each of these topics, discuss the details and techniques for using these.