Understanding Digital Marketing: Beginners guide!

Are you a beginner in digital marketing? Have no clue from where to kick start your journey with digital marketing?

Well, all these questions might have landed you here because you are someone who is just introduced to digital marketing and want to dive deep into it or someone who is already a successful entrepreneur but have lost the track of some fundamentals about marketing.

In this article, I am going to talk about the basic understandings of digital marketing which include its fundamentals, importance of communication, niche selection, and personal brand development.

What is digital marketing?

The concept of marketing is in existence since the day products are sold, it has just evolved itself to digital platforms. Since nowadays, everything around us is getting digitalized, there is a growing need for manufacturers to promote their brand or product using digital media. Digital marketing is a very dynamic field as the techniques and ways to reach more people keep on changing rapidly.

“Marketing is no longer about the stuff that you make, but about the stories you tell.”–Seth Godin, Bestselling Author, and Blogger

(When your brand or product tells a fantastic story, consumers begin to trust and like you. That emotional response of the consumers is key to conversion in the modern marketing world)

Now, to understand marketing in depth, we must first know its basics.

The fundamentals of digital marketing

If you search on the web, there would be uncountable websites/blogs briefing you on the same. According to my research and experience, I have compacted all the points into six essential key points.

1. Digital Visibility

Your business or your product requires digital recognition to stay at the top in this competitive market. Whether you are a small business owner, a freelancer, a restaurant owner, or someone from the education industry everyone requires online visibility. It may be in the form of websites, YouTube, blogs, LinkedIn and much more. Being active digitally and creating user-centric content will lead to reaching more and more people, eventually growing your business. If you are launching your website, hosting makes all the difference. In simple terms hosting means creating a space for your website, without it your website would not survive. Picking a hosting platform with the right resources for your business will set the stage for your website and business in the digital world.

2. Targeted traffic

After making a presence on the digital platform it is essential to gather some viewers to come to the notice. Traffic is considered as the number of viewers that visit your website.

But, wait what is targeted traffic then?

Let's say for example your website got 1000 views, but, you were only able to sell a few numbers of your products. This is because the traffic which visited your site might be a potential buyer but he/she was not in search of your product or service. Targeted traffic means the visitors who are actively in search of your products or service and most will end up buying them.

There are two types of targeted traffic: Inbound and Outbound

Inbound traffic means when the visitors come to your website/blog from the Google search page itself, you didn’t pursue them to visit your site.

Outbound traffic means when your website can convince the visitor to hit the sign up/ subscribe button or click a link, such traffic is attracted by your website.

3. Measurement

Targeted traffic is attracted through various ads on Facebook, Instagram, or any such platform. But there must be precise data to know how many visitors are catering to your website from which platform. There must be a strong analysis done so in the future you get an idea on which platform you must invest more on. There plenty of online analytics tool available which can be used for this purpose, for example, Google analytics.

4. Engagement

After being able to successfully generate targeted traffic for your website or blog, it is also necessary to have a healthy engagement. Engagement is done from both ends are from the consumers and the producers. Engagement from visitors includes commenting, sharing, asking a query, and many more. Engagement from the other side is considered as most important as it builds trust among your customers. There must be around 70% engagement rate from the company’s side, which includes relying on the visitor's comment, thanking the consumers for sharing their product, and solving their doubts.

5. Leads generation

It is a complete process that starts from initiation and capturing of a customer’s interest or an inquiry for the sole purpose of developing the sales ratio.

There are two categories in lead generation: Outbound and Inbound

Outbound lead generation means attracting potential customers through direct means that is by cold calls, e-mail marketing, or sending direct emails.

Inbound lead generation is done through social media posts or stories or SEO.

6. Optimization and Re-marketing

After being able to successfully run a website with a custom audience, it is necessary to calculate the number of visitors getting converted to sales and hence making good profits for the company. If the company is not getting a good amount of profit then a re-marketing strategy to increase sales is to thought.

For example, if 1000 visitors are coming to your website and only 200 of them are getting converted into customers, then there is surely some loophole in the marketing strategy due to which visitors are not being converted into prospects.

Digital marketing v/s Traditional marketing

Traditional marketing:

It is a type of marketing which we see on daily basis and it's not in our control, everyone sees the same product ads even if you like/want it or not, it doesn’t have a customized audience as it is shown on bigger screens. Traditional marketing can reach thousands of people at a single time which is never possible for digital marketing. Offline marketing includes marketing through TV, radio, Print media like newspapers, magazines, hanging huge banners on billboards, telemarketing, SMS marketing, by sending direct mails like the company or brand’s catalog or postcard.

Traditional marketing has evolved over the past few decades, but the fundamental aspects will always remain the same. The selling techniques that we use today heavily rely on the infamous four P’s of marketing: product, price, place, and promotion.

Product: It refers to the goods or services that a brand or company offers to its customers. A product/service must be able to satisfy existing demand or have the ability to generate a new damnd in the consumer’s mind.

Price: It is the amount that consumers pay in exchange for the product or service. Pricing of a product is decided considering the competitor's price, supply costs, and discounts. While offering seasonal discounts on products may invite more customers to buy them but at the same time, it can leave an impression on customers that this product is not selling, not valuable and hence they are availing discounts.

Promotion: It includes advertising, public relations, and promotional strategy. The central aim of promoting a product or service is to reveal to consumers why they need a particular product, why they should pay a certain price for it and how is it better than the same product manufactured by other companies. If the promotion is done strategically can lead to a huge increase in sales.

Place: This is a vital step in marketing, the company decides where the product is to be launched and how to deliver it to the market. The main aim of determining a suitable place is to launch in such a community where the consumers will buy the product as soon as they see it.

Digital Marketing:

As long as the internet is enlarging, digital marketing will continue to grow. Digital marketing includes social media posts, websites, banner ads, blogs, and YouTube videos. It is quite similar to traditional marketing but just uses a digital platform. Online marketing is a form of inbound marketing, and its main aim is for customers to find you.

Marketing your business through social media channels becomes easy like online organic search, paid search, or by reading content online like articles or blogs. The audience becomes familiar with your content as and when they keep seeing it, which helps build trust.

Digital marketing can reach a lot of targeted audience, according to a persons web search ads are popping up on their screen which leads to more successful lead generation. The results can be measured and analyzed quickly. Brands can tailor their campaign according to their audience.

What is Niche and how can you select it?

A niche is a focused area of yours that you serve particularly well. It is small (and the smaller the better). You might be good at any one to these email marketing, content writing, SEO, Social media marketing, etc. You must find out which area of marketing triggers you the most and makes you a better version of yourself.

Here are a few tips which will be helpful when finalizing your niche:

1. Look for your interests and passion, make a list of them, and out of that list pick out the top 3 interests in which you want to excel. If you choose the current trending niche even though you have a little interest in it then your chance of quitting it will increase greatly. Hence select niche wisely.
2. Identify the interests in which you could solve all the problems of it, it is not possible to excel in all top of your 3 passions, you must take a set of 15 problem questions for your every interest and try to solve it. The area of interest in which you were able to solve the maximum number of problems effortlessly and correctly is the best niche for you.
3. Now, the most important factor comes that is competition. Always do a brief research on your competition. Never choose a niche that is too narrow, it would lead to difficulties in finding desired clients. Choosing a broader niche is also not beneficial as a beginner, as it would take away all the best opportunities in some better and experienced hands.
4. Examine the profits you can make from your niche. It is important to get an idea of how much money you have the potential to make in your niche. So, browse the top products and services in your category. If you can’t find any offers, that’s not a good sign. If your search does turn up a decent number of products, but not an overabundance of products, you’re in luck.
5. Now start testing your ideas. To become the best in your niche it will be a series of failures at first and then success. Even if your product or service is not selling largely, it might be because of your poor advertisements or lack of content on your website. Gradually you will be able to measure where you were lacking and accordingly you can make a re-marketing strategy.

Now, since we are done with niche selection, we must also know how to implement it in a way that can be a permanent source of income for us

Are you someone who wants to grow business online and earn actively just from the internet?

If yes, then the next section of this blog is the most essential for you.

There is a framework known as CATT Marketing funnel which is helpful for bloggers, website owners, or freelancers to analyze the impact of your product or services on Internet users.

CATT is content, attention, trust, and transaction

Your niche is the major factor when it comes to your business being successful.

Wealth = n ^ CATT

(n) is Niche: your success and wealth depend on the niche you select.

(C) Content: Create meaningful content that attracts people from your niche. Blog posts, videos, seminars, live webinars, etc.

(A) Attention: Drive targeted traffic to your content using SEO, Social media, paid Google and Facebook ads, and referrals.

(T) Trust: Build trust with your audience by two-way engagement, marketing automation, and re-targeting.

(T) Transaction: Convert your leads into life long customers with natural sales methods.

What is integrated Digital Marketing?

It is where a blend of all marketing strategies takes place in order to achieve a Cohesive online approach.

Instead of concentrating on one field to grow a business, we can use all marketing methods together to be more effective.

There are a lot of ways marketing can be done, the top methods are depicted in the below image.

Importance of a Personal Brand

You must evolve yourself gradually as a personal brand since people trust brand names. For example, Google, Zoom has gained success in creating brand value. Nowadays people say search it on Google instead of saying go browse the web. Similarly, when an online meeting is scheduled, people refer to it as Let us join in zoom meeting instead of saying let's join a video conference online on Zoom.

A personal brand becomes an influencer and a brand ambassador for the companies that you run.

The evolution of a Personal Brand also known as Mass trust blueprint

1. Learn: Develop a new skill through concepts, facts, and procedures. Understand the concepts, remember the facts, and practice the procedures.
2. Work: Implementing the theories you have learned into the real world will give you a thorough understanding of the skill. Look for internships, jobs, become a freelancer, and start taking up your own projects.
3. Blog: Pen down whatever you have learned and experienced through your work. When you write, you will understand better and also will start building your personal brand. Let people know about your skill so if they are also from the same background, it would benefit them too.

4. Consult: Now that you have a personal brand through your blog, you have work experience and have learned the basics, start consulting other businesses instead of writing for them.

5. Mentor: Guide others who want to become like you. Mentoring will help you scale your understanding to a whole different level.

6. Startup: Start your own product or service business with the understanding that you developed about the market, the problem, and your own skillset.

If you are reading my blog till this point, you happen to be genuinely interested in Digital Marketing. Thank you for being patient enough to read the whole blog. I hope you enjoyed reading it and helps you in your professional world.

To summarise what I said, you must have strong fundamentals in order to survive with Digital Marketing in a long run. Additionally, if you possess excellent communication skills, it would lead to greater reach in the market. This was a very compact blog where I tried to explain everything in a short yet informative.

Do let me know what you felt about this blog, below in the comment section.

Wishing you the best!

Bhumi Modi