Simplified digital marketing: A step-by-step guide
Digital marketingAnother one of those trendy new words that you should use to sound intelligent in meetings, or is it reality?
A better question might be: what is digital marketing?
This digital marketing guide will show you what it's all about.
First popularized as a term in the early 2000s, digital marketing has actually been around for much longer.
Genre, longerAbout 100 more years, to be exact.
Here is a photo of the first digital marketing specialist in history:
(Image source: Wikipedia)
His name: Guglielmo Marconi.
What? Marconi?
Yes. In 1896, he was the first human to demonstrate a "public transmission of wireless signals".
This person invented the radio.
Shortly after its small demonstration in England, Morse code signals were transmitted across the open waters.
And, although it took ten more years for radio to reach the general public, creators quickly realized that they could use it to sell things.
The first live broadcast was from an opera performance at the Met, and guess what people did afterwards?
They bought show tickets!
The digital marketing strategy was born...
I bet you're surprised. I haven't mentioned smartphones, apps, Facebook ads, or blogs at all.
It's because digital marketing has nothing to do with the internet.
Definition
If you're wondering what digital marketing is... it's advertising that is done through digital channels. Channels such as social media, mobile apps, email, web apps, search engines, websites or any other new digital channel.
Or a simpler version..
Digital marketing is any form of advertising products or services involving electronic devices.
This is the reason why it has been around for decades (because electronics made it happen) and why it doesn't necessarily have anything to do with content marketing, Google ads, social media, or retargeting.
Digital marketing can be done both online and offline.
And these two types of products are important for a well-balanced digital marketing strategy.
Why is digital marketing important?
Rememberbillboards?
I am doing it.
When I was a child in California, I experienced moments in the back of our car, alternating between: "Mom, when are we going to get there?" and "Um, look, McDonalds, can we go there?", every time one of those 3-meter high billboards appeared on the side of the road.
Growing up with Indian parents, the answer to these two questions would most of the time be the same: "Not yet".
Sometimes, big brands even engage in a display war, like the one between Audi and BMW, which was quite amusing
Image source: BMW's blog
In 2015, one of my clients still spent hundreds of millions of dollars on billboards.
Unfortunately or fortunately, he is dead.
Think of it this way, Google and Facebook generate more revenue than any traditional media company because they control more eyes. That's why digital marketing is important, that's where the attention is.
The reason why billboards, like the ones above, die, is perfectly illustrated by a single photo of a Volvo.
Because, honestly, the future of driving will look like this:
Image source: Dullonet
Not a single passenger will spend their time looking at the road.
Do me a favor, next time you drive and take a friend, take a look at the passenger seat.
Just a second...
Even now, there are chances that they are looking at their phone.
In a world where 9% of drivers are on the phone in one way or another (sending texts or making calls),at any time during the dayHow can we believe that billboards have a future?
If even the driver no longer looks at the road, who is supposed to see these advertisements?
And, that doesn't even take into account self-driving cars, which both Apple and Google are working on (you know that's going to happen)..
Elon Musk suggests that they will be here around 2020. Only in a few years...
This means you don't have much time to understand these digital marketing tricks before you can turn off your old printing press and close shop.
The proportion of people spending more time using electronic devices is only increasing from now on.
With Americans spending over 11 hours a day on electronic devices, there is not much left. That is, until we spend ALL our time in the digital world.
And, if so, online marketing is the reason why 25-year-olds can now sit in their living room and earn 2 million dollars a year by playing video games. Offline marketing still has its place.
Let's take a helicopter and go around to get an overview.
Overview
The two main pillars of digital marketing areonline marketing and offline marketingThat being said, as I will be discussing online marketing in a separate guide, I will only mention the different areas of online marketing here, for the sake of completeness.
The 7 main categories of online marketing are:
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Search Engine Marketing (SEM) Marketing
Content marketing
Social Media Marketing (SMM)
Pay-per-click advertising (PPC)
Affiliate marketing
Email Marketing
Unbounce has created a large infographic that summarizes all types of online marketing in a neat graph.
Image source: Unveil
The beginner's guide to online marketing, on Quick Sprout, is an excellent place to start.
That being said, what other digital marketing is there? There are actually many.
Here are the 4 main categories of Offline digital marketing.
First of all, there is what I callImprovement of offline marketingThis is a form of marketing that is entirely offline, but enhanced by electronic devices.
For example, if your restaurant uses iPads for your customers to place their orders, the offline experience, such as eating Thai food, is enhanced thanks to this electronic device.
People have been using digital media to enhance their marketing for decades (you just forgot in what way, as you will see).
Image source: San Diego Tribune
Next, there ismarketing radioThe next time you hear a boring and overly enthusiastic car dealer shouting every word of his advertisement, thank Mr. Marconi.
Of course, we cannot forgettelevision commercializationTelevision commercials have been around for over half a century (and in color since 1953 as well, on a national scale - Yes, there was a time before color television).
Finally, the most important offline marketing field and the fastest growing one, with many failures, busts, and setbackstelephone marketing.
Let's examine the 4 domains in more detail.
Improvement of offline marketing
What is the difference between a billboard somewhere in the Arizona desert and a billboard in Times Square in New York?
The size? The product?
3 letters: LED. Light Emitting Diodes.
All the billboards in Times Square are electronic!
Image source: Adweek
Why? Because in the Arizona desert, no one is competing to attract people's attention. If you have a billboard, you win.
But, at Times Square, attention is probably more valuable than anywhere else in the world. Over 330,000 people cross it every day.
If you want to be distracted, there are buses, taxis, promoters shouting and then, of course, the electronic billboards.
Some are even interactive, showing live images of people in the square or photos of customers.
Renting an advertising space on Times Square, for one year, will cost you a whopping 1,000,000 to 4,000,000 dollars.
Does this seem expensive to you? Wait until you know the prices of Super Bowl advertisements.
What are the other forms that enhanced offline marketing takes?
What do you see when you enter an Apple Store these days?
Image source: Wikipedia
People are leaning over their iPads, Macbooks, and iPhones.
If you have an electronic product, whatever it may beAny product demonstration is an important element of your digital marketing strategy.
Alright, the next one is good. If you remember it, you can consider yourself a very lucky child
Image source: Emuparadise
This is a demo disc for the original PlayStation and many of them were distributed with other games or sometimes even magazines.
It was the same with PC magazines. Do you remember when they came with CDs (and later DVDs) and you couldn't wait to throw them into your disc drive to see what samples they contained?
A little different from a demo, these aresamples of products in digital format.
People still do it. Think about all the aspiring rappers or rockers in your hometown, who are handing out mixtapes and CDs, and now probably USB drives, to make you listen to their music.
Very well, it is time to delve into the category of digital marketing which has probably existed for the longest time.
Radio marketing
Over 100 years have passed since the first live broadcast of an opera performance at the Met and guess what - The radio is still here.
The radio has managed to transition to the internet quite successfully, but it has not experienced as much success as television. And even traditional radio still holds its importance.
Some facts:
Radio still reaches 85% of the American population every week
Listeners listen on average 2 hours per day
40% of the advertising expenses of radio stations worldwide come from the United States
Approximately half of the population of the United States listens to Internet radio at least once a month
Today, while profits have decreased, The radio is not deadThanks to Pandora's 80 million users, there are still about 4 billion dollars in profits generated each year.
But, apart from creating a creative radio advertisement that rocks and performs well, what else is there?
Recently, Internet radio made a good choice by doing what most podcasts do: Advertising at the beginning of shows.
If you host a show that revolves around a specific topic, such as coaching, you can plug in programs and products, just before and at the end of the show.
Social media being the darling of marketing these days, it should be fairly easy to find a local radio station. People who are not citizens of the European Union can participate in a show, be interviewed, or negotiate a deal with them.
Once you have done this, make sure to get sponsorships to ensure that you are a preferred candidate for the station and that they give you the best time slot and the best possible airtime.
In most cases, doing well on the radio meansto be entertaining.
Cadillac and Dairy Queen are two brands that regularly feature strong radio advertisements.
You can listen to some examples here.
Television Marketing
Television marketing is such a Goliath, it will probably never disappear. It is also easily the sector where the most money is burned every year.
Since Google Video transformed into Youtube, the effectiveness of television ads has quickly decreased.
Who wants to watch a crappy MTV host review a game he has no idea about, when they can join 40 million subscribers (!) watching PewDiePie not only rock video games, but also deliver hilarious commentary.
All of this, for free, of course.
So, why are TV ads almost worthless, when the average American still watches 4 hours of television per day?
They are not specific.
Television advertisements are not specific. In a world of search engines, retargeting, social media, and email marketing, we are soAccustomed to being marketed around products that are already close to our heartsthat we blatantly ignore anything that does not concern us directly or indirectly.
If one can even bother to watch a movie on TV because it's not yet on Netflix, a company that makes an annual revenue of 5 billion dollars at the moment. So, what are we doing?
We record it and quickly review all advertisements.
We are used to having complete control..
Marketing specialists must be smarter and more flexible.
Television ads reach everyone.
One could see an advertisement for a cream against hemorrhoids, followed by an advertisement for Oreo and a spot for a hamburger, all while being overweight, diabetic, and 22 years old.
Such a person would be a terrible target to watch these ads. But, with television, you never know who you are going to reach, only how many eyeballs you are going to get.
So, aside from a few insomniacs watching infomercials late at night, making sure that Dr. Ho is still selling some of his decompression belts, is television advertising dead?
Not quite..
There is still a type of TV advertising that is worth airing, but it will cost you a lot.
Do you remember when I said that renting a billboard in Times Square for a year will cost you a million?
A 60-second commercial spot aired during the Super Bowl costs 4.5 million dollars.
Thanks to their cross-pollination effect, often viral and memorable advertisements are still profitable.
Approximately 10% of all actions related to TV advertising on social media come from Super Bowl ads. The same goes for around 8% of all views on Youtube that go to TV commercial videos.
If your advertisement ends up on the blacklist (the ads that the channel decides not to broadcast on television), the viral effect is usually even stronger, like this Carl's Junior ad, which made a lot of noise this year
Cursed Charlotte McKinney
Super Bowl ads have the highest retention rate, as shown in this infographic. More than half of the participants surveyed remembered the Budweiser "Puppy Love" ad.
Moreover, these advertisements become online assets, generating millions of views over time, like the famous Star Wars ad by Volkswagen, which has generated 62 million views to date.
Will the force be with him?
Unfortunately, the advertising hype of the Super Bowl is probably more of a vestige of a period of success that is about to fade.
The 200 billion dollars that companies still spend each year worldwide on television advertising is hardly justifiable, as one in ten people in the United States has a Netflix account, and it's not over yet.
Television, in the form that we know it, will die and make way for more personalized experiences that we are already accustomed to.
Therefore, if you are considering doing digital marketing offline, I suggest dedicating your time and money to a platform or channel of the future.
Like this..
Telemarketing
We still do not realize it and we do not give it enough credit.
Smartphones are killing it.
Today, more than 80% of internet users own a smartphone and, in 2014, we crossed the tipping point where more people access the internet from their phone than from a desktop PC or laptop.
Mobile marketing is here, and in 2016, the amount spent on mobile ads will first exceed the amount spent on desktop ads.
In 2020, we will spend as much money on mobile phone advertising as we currently spend on television advertising. How does this translate to rapid growth?
But before we look at the type of phone marketing you can do for smartphone users with an internet connection, let's look at some offline ways to market your products.
There are two apps that are grossly underestimated, yet they are present on all phones, whether they are smart or not:
Call and send text messages.
Cold calling is the act of calling a person without prior contact and trying to sell them something.
While about 3 sales per day (marketing specialists call 52 people per day on average, with about 17 calls until they find a buyer), it does not have the scalability of social media or email, it is still a valid approach to marketing.
The tactic works, but does not spread very well when selling to end customers (B2C) and establishing contact before trying to sell helps to close the deal (especially in B2B, which is a matter of connections).
What works best is SMS marketing, an "application" that is also available on all phones.
Online or offline, an SMS is almost a guaranteed read.
While MMS clearly failed after the advent of the web and the low cost of using mobile data, texts remain a good way to reach people and provide value in 160 characters or less.
While you should absolutely get permission first. For example, if your customers send a certain word by SMS to a phone number, there are several providers that offer large-scale text marketing.
Here are some examples of how you can take advantageSMS marketing:
Image source: Tatango
Special offers, coupons and discounts are an excellent way for restaurants to attract additional customers and turn passing customers into regulars.
You can see more examples of successful SMS campaigns in restaurants here.
The DVD rental service, Red Box, also conducted a successful campaign. They allow their customers to send SMS DEALS to 727272 in exchange for a bet.
They would receive a random discount on their next rental, between $0.10 and $1.50.
In just 10 days, they were in contact with 400,000 clients and generated over 1.5 million text messages.
By usingSMS reminders as a customer service It can also improve your mobile marketing, as Walmart does. They notify customers when their order is ready for pickup. To date, they have sent 1 billion SMS reminders.
Another option is to create aloyalty program where your customers can exchange the points collected in an application or during payment by phone. Only 13% of retailers have one, so it is an option that can help you stand out.
Since 98% of all SMS messages are opened and 90% of them are opened within 3 minutes of arrival, SMS messages are also a great opportunity to promote a productgiveaway that you do.
By using a tool like Heyo, you can easily create a mobile optimized gift that works well on Facebook and other social media platforms, like this one
As an expert in SEO, I can translate this website content into English. The text is from a source on Facebook
However, there is one area of mobile marketing that you should probably avoid: QR Codes.
These barcode-like images were appearing everywhere a few years ago and while some merchants swear by them, they are practically dead.
Example of QR code via Wikipedia
In 2011, only 6% of mobile phone users in the United States had scanned a QR code throughout the year. And in 2012, 97% of consumers didn't even know what a QR code was.
Although I cannot be 100% sure of the reason why they were not the great success that some wanted them to be, I suspect it is because the system was too complex.
To scan a QR code, you always need to download a specific application, such as Barcoo.
Next, the corresponding content would open in the application, which was often not optimized for mobile.
Major brands have also not respected the context of QR codes, placing them in very unfortunate locations, such as subway stations without mobile phone reception or television advertisements, where they were only visible for a few seconds.
Therefore, do not waste your time with QR codes, it is better that your time and money be spent elsewhere.
Conclusion
This is the scoop of digital marketing. As you can see, the Internet is not by far the only place where marketers can be successful, even today.
Of course, no one can afford to miss out on the opportunities provided by the web, and ultimately, every marketer will have to master online marketing.
However, using some of these offline marketing tactics can help you not to put all your eggs in one basket and diversify your lead generation beyond social media, content marketing, and others.
Moreover, the online and offline worlds are colliding. Traditional devices such as refrigerators, ovens, and even billboards will all be modernized to take advantage of digital media.
Here is once again the collapse of digital marketing
Online Marketing
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
Content marketing
Social Media Marketing (SMM)
Pay-per-click advertising (PPC)
Affiliate Marketing
Email marketing
Offline Marketing
Improvement of offline marketing
Electronic display boards
Digital product demonstrations
Digital product samples
Radio marketing
Radio pubs
Sponsorship of shows
Marketing TV
TV Shows
Home shopping
Ads for the Super Bowl
Telephone marketing
Cold calling
SMS Marketing (gifts, coupons, loyalty programs)
QR Codes
I hope this guide has broadened your perspective a bit and shown you that digital marketing goes beyond just Facebook ads and social media blasts.
Will you use any of these tactics in your business?
Which of these elements do you remember from that time? Did I forget any?
Share your greatest discoveries with me in the comments.
General FAQ
What is digital marketing?
Digital marketing is advertising delivered through digital channels. Channels such as social media, mobile apps, email, web apps, search engines, websites, or any other new digital channel.
What is the future of digital marketing?
The online world and the offline world are colliding. Traditional devices such as refrigerators, ovens, and even billboards will all be modernized to take advantage of digital media.
Why is digital marketing important?
Google and Facebook generate more revenue than any traditional media company because they control more eyeballs. That is why digital marketing is important, that is where the attention is.
What are the channels that make up digital marketing?
Search engines, social media, blogs, online advertising, affiliate marketing, emails, and mobile applications.