DIGITAL MARKETING

what is digital marketing? 

(learn it from here)

Do you want to learn digital marketing?

Well, before we go into the basics of digital marketing and even the advanced tactics, let’s first go over what digital marketing is.

That way we’ll be on the same page before we dive into step-by-step strategies.

What is Digital Marketing?

Digital marketing is the act of selling products and services through channels such as social media, SEO, email, and mobile apps. Basically, digital marketing is any form of marketing that involves electronic devices.

It can be done online and offline, and in fact, both kinds are important for a well-rounded digital strategy.

Why Digital Marketing Matters

Remember billboards? I do.

As a young kid in California, my experiences from the back seat of our car mostly alternated between: “Mom, when are we there?” and “Uh, look, McDonald’s, can we go?” whenever one of those 10-foot billboards popped up on the side of the road.

Growing up with Indian parents, the answer to both of those would, most times, be the same: “not yet.”

Sometimes, big brands would even start a billboard war, like this one between Audi and BMW, which got quite a few laughs:

In 2015, a ton of my clients still spent hundreds of millions of dollars on billboard advertising.

Unfortunately or fortunately, billboard advertising is mostly dead.

Just think of it this way: Google and Facebook generate more revenue than any traditional media company because they control more eyeballs. That’s why digital marketing matters; it’s where the attention is.

The reason why billboards, like the ones above, will die, is because the future of driving will look like this:

Online Digital Marketing Summary

The 2 main pillars of digital marketing are online marketing and offline marketing. That said, since I’ll talk about online marketing in a separate guide, I’ll only mention the different areas of online marketing here for the sake of completeness.

The History of Digital Marketing

Although it was first popularized as a term in the early 2000s, digital marketing has actually been around much longer.

Like, WAY longer. About 100 years longer, to be exact.

Here’s a pic of the first digital marketer in history:

His name: Guglielmo Marconi.

What? Marconi?

Yup. In 1896 he was the first human to demonstrate a “public transmission of wireless signals.”

This dude invented the radio.

Shortly after his little demonstration in England, morse signals were transmitted across open water.

While it would take another 10 years for the radio to reach the general public, it sure didn’t take the creators long to realize they could use it to sell stuff.

Intro to Digital Marketing

There are four big categories of digital marketing: enhanced offline marketing, radio marketing, television marketing, and phone marketing.

Enhanced offline marketing is a form of marketing that is entirely offline but enhanced with electronic devices.

For example, if your restaurant uses iPads for your customers to create their orders on, then the offline experience of say, eating Thai food, is enhanced with this electronic device.

People have been using digital media to enhance their marketing for decades (you’ve only forgotten in what ways, as you’ll see).

Radio Marketing

Over 100 years have passed since that original first live broadcast of the opera performance at the Met and guess what: radio is still here.

In recent years, radio made a smart move: having the hosts read out advertising sponsorships at the beginning of shows. This is where the host of the radio program reads out a script you or they have written that promotes your product.

For example, if your company sells maternity products, you want to find a radio program whose average listener is a female between the ages of 24 and 40.

TV Marketing

Television marketing is such a Goliath, it’ll likely never go away. It’s also easily the industry where the most money is burned each year.

Though cable TV ads are harder to target the right audience, have a low ROI compared to other forms of digital advertising, and seem generally irrelevant in the digital age, there is one type of tv ad that may still be worth it; but it will cost ya.

Phone Marketing

Nearly 75% of Americans own a smartphone and, in 2014, we crossed the tipping point where more people are accessing the internet from their phone than via a desktop PC or laptop.

Mobile marketing is here, and, in 2015, the amount spent on mobile ads first exceeded the amount spent on desktop ads.

Let’s look at some offline ways to market your products using phone marketing.

There are 2 apps that are grossly underestimated, yet they are on every phone, smart or not:

Calling and Texting

Cold calling is the act of calling a person with no prior contact and trying to sell them something.

While at roughly 3 sales per day (marketers call 52 people a day, on average, with about 17 calls until they find a buyer), it doesn’t have the scalability of social media or email, it’s still a valid approach to marketing.

The tactic works, but doesn’t scale very well when selling to end customers (B2C) and making contact before trying to sell helps to close the deal (especially in B2B, which is all about connections).

What works better is marketing via texting, an “app” that is also available on each and every single phone out there.

(Here is all about it)