Digital marketing (or online marketing), is the promotion of businesses to connect with people (potential customers) using the internet and other forms of digital communication.
This includes email, social media, web-based advertising, and text and multimedia messages as a marketing channel.
Essentially, if a marketing campaign involves digital communication, it’s digital marketing.
As a marketer, it’s important to take advantage of the digital world with an online advertising presence, by building a brand, and providing a great customer experience that also brings more potential customers and more, with a digital strategy.
A digital marketing strategy allows you to leverage different digital marketing channels–such as social media and email marketing–to connect with existing customers and people interested in your products or services.
As a result, you can build a brand, provide a great customer experience, bring in potential customers, and more.
But before we continue, if you’re looking for a top-notch blog dedicated to content marketing, we highly recommend ContentMarketing.
ContentMarketing is one of the best resource sites dedicated to content marketing and related topics, including digital marketing, blogging, SEO, email marketing, website building and affiliate marketing
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Inbound marketing vs digital marketing
Digital marketing and inbound marketing are easily confused, and for good reason.
Digital marketing uses many of the same marketing tools as inbound marketing—email and online content, to name a few.
Both exist to capture the attention of prospects through the buyer’s journey and turn them into customers.
However the two digital marketing approaches take different views of the relationship between the tool and the goal.
| Inbound Marketing | Digital Marketing | |
| Approach | Follows a customer-centric that focuses on creating valuable and high-quality content to attract customers | Uses a broader approach that includes both inbound and outbound marketing strategies |
| Goal and Timeline | Building trust, authority and long-term relationships with customers | Reaching a large audience quickly and efficiently. The timeline could be both short-term and long-term |
| Target Audience | Specific, targeted audience based on buyer personas | Can target both broad and specific audiences depending on the digital marketing strategy |
| Cost | The cost is less than digital marketing as it focuses on organic growth only | The cost can soar high due to paid advertising campaigns |
The most important thing to remember about digital marketing and inbound marketing is that as a professional marketer, you don’t have to pick between the two.
They work best together. Inbound marketing offers structure and purpose for effective digital marketing to digital marketing efforts, making sure that each digital marketing strategy works toward a goal.
Why is Digital Marketing Important?
Any type of marketing can help your brand thrive.
However, digital marketing has become increasingly crucial because of how accessible digital channels are.
In fact, there were 5.45 billion internet users globally as of July 2024.
From social media to content creation, there are many ways to use digital marketing techniques to communicate with your target audience.
Additionally, digital marketing has minimal upfront costs, making it a cost-effective marketing tactic for small businesses.
B2B vs B2C Digital Marketing
Digital marketing strategies work for business-to-business (B2B) as well as business-to-consumer (B2C) businesses, but best practices differ significantly between the two.
Here’s a closer look at how digital marketing is used in B2B and B2C marketing techniques:
| B2B | B2C | |
| Target Audience | Business | Individuals |
| Decision-Making Timeline | Longer as it involves various stakeholders | Shorter |
| Content Type | Detailed, longer formats (whitepaper, case studies) | Engaging and appealing (ads, social media posts) |
| Sales Journey | The funnel is longer and involves various touchpoints | Involves lesser touchpoints |
| Lead-gen | Focuses on quality leads | Focuses on numbers of leads, and attracting a wider audience base |
| Budget Allocation | Higher budget per lead, focusing on high-value accounts | Smaller budget per customer, focusing on volume and reach |
Of course, there are exceptions to every rule.
A B2C company with a high-ticket product, such as a hosting service or WordPress theme, might offer more informative and serious content.
As a result, your digital marketing strategy always needs to be geared toward your customer base, whether you’re B2B or B2C.
Take a look at your current audience to create well-informed and targeted digital marketing campaigns.
Doing so ensures your marketing efforts are effective and you can capture the attention of people (potential customers).
How Digital Marketing Works?
While digital marketing offers numerous benefits, understand that each type of digital marketing functions differently.
Businesses should assess the bigger picture before determining which forms of internet marketing to invest in and which platforms to use.
It’s generally recommended to crawl before you walk–start small with your digital marketing strategy and grow as the business becomes accustomed to different areas.
Digital marketing is hugely helpful to companies because it allows them to grow their audience as far as their budget allows.
Conversely, online marketing allows companies to focus clearly on marketing to the right audience.
In other words, a company may reach the perfect target clientele locally, nationally, or internationally while staying on budget.
How Can You Become A Digital Marketer?
To begin with, you can sharpen your digital marketing skills by enrolling in a digital marketing specialist program.
This program will help you master various marketing types like SEO, affiliate marketing, blogging, social media, PPC, and much more.
You can also network with other professional marketers in the same field to learn more about digital marketing, the latest trends, what’s happening, and take a sneak peek at the current industry.
Benefits of Digital Marketing
Digital marketing has become popular because it reaches such a wide audience of people.
Today’s customers and clients spend more time online, and they expect their favorite companies to be online, too.
The internet landscape might seem intimidating, but effective digital marketing can be an enormous boon for business.
With careful marketing strategy and implementation, the benefits of digital marketing on business include the expansion of the audience, meeting target customers where they’re spending their time, and achieving this for a far more affordable price than traditional marketing methods allow.
While there is an unending list of the advantages of digital marketing, here are a few of the benefits of digital marketing:
Cost Efficiency
Digital marketing is often more affordable than traditional methods, making it accessible for businesses of all sizes.
Overhead costs for newspaper ads, television spots, and other traditional marketing opportunities can be high.
Additionally, they give you less control over whether your target audiences will see those messages in the first place.
With digital marketing, you can create just one piece of content that draws visitors to your blog as long as it’s active.
You can create an email marketing campaign that delivers messages to targeted customer lists on a schedule, and it’s easy to change that schedule or the content if you need to do so.
When you add it all up, digital marketing gives you much more flexibility and customer contact for your ad spend.
Customer Engagement
Digital marketing facilitates direct customer interaction through social media networks, emails, and other online platforms, building stronger relationships.
Think about your social media marketing strategy.
It’s great when your target audience sees your latest social media post, but it’s even better when they comment on it or share it.
It means more interaction between consumers and your product or service, as well as increased visibility every time someone joins the conversation.
Interactivity benefits your customers as well.
Their level of engagement increases as they become active participants in your business’s story.
That sense of ownership can create a strong sense of brand loyalty.
Measurable Results and ROI
With digital marketing, campaign performance can be tracked and success measured accurately, resulting in higher ROI.
Global Reach
Digital marketing allows businesses to reach a worldwide audience, breaking geographical barriers.
This makes it easy to grow your brand’s market reach and connect with a larger audience across different digital channels.
Easier Personalization
Digital marketing allows you to gather customer data in a way that offline marketing can’t.
Data collected digitally tends to be much more precise, which will enhance customer experience.
Additionally, this can lead to higher conversion rates since you will be delivering personalized and relevant messages to the right audience.
Competitive Advantage
By building strategic digital marketing campaigns, you can analyze the insights, track data, and use the right marketing tools to outperform competitors.
Higher Conversion
Digital marketing increases conversion rates by delivering personalized and relevant messages to the right audience.
Get Instant Feedback
You can get immediate customer responses and feedback, that will help you make quick improvements and informed decisions.
Challenges in Digital Marketing
A few known challenges include:
- One of the most common challenges of digital marketing is the increasing competition. As more and more businesses have started investing in digital marketing strategies, it has become harder to stand out.
- Additionally, ad blockers pose a significant challenge, reducing the reach of paid advertising and pushing marketers to find alternative methods to connect with their audiences.
- Next up is content saturation! It means creating valuable, high-quality content that captures attention in the digital space is increasingly difficult.
- Maintaining brand consistency, managing online reputation, and offering personalized experiences at scale is another challenge.
- Additionally, balancing digital marketing automation with a personal touch is another ongoing struggle.
Types of Digital Marketing
There are as many specializations within digital marketing as there are ways of interacting using digital media.
Here are a few key examples of types of digital marketing techniques.
Search engine optimization
Search engine optimization (SEO), requires you to research and weigh different contributing factors to achieve the highest possible ranking on a search engine results page (SERP).
Today, the most important elements to consider when optimizing your website and web pages for search engines include:
- High-quality and unique content
- Optimization of key elements for the targeted keyword (URL, title tag, H1, sub-headlines)
- Level of user engagement (time on page, bounce rate)
- Number and quality of backlinks
- Internal linking
In addition to the elements above, you need to prioritize technical SEO, which is all the back-end components of your website.
This includes mobile-friendliness and loading times. Improving your technical SEO can help search engines like Google better navigate and crawl your website.
Google and other search engines change their algorithm almost constantly, so SEO is a never-ending progress.
And your competitors most likely also invest in SEO. What you can do is closely monitor your web page’s performance and make adjustments as needed.
Content marketing
As mentioned, the quality and uniqueness of your content is a key component of an optimized web page.
As a result, SEO is a major factor in content marketing, a strategic marketing approach based on the distribution of relevant and valuable content to a target audience.
As in any marketing strategy, the goal of content marketing is to attract leads that ultimately convert into customers.
But it does so differently than traditional advertising.
Instead of enticing prospects with potential value from a product or service, it provides value for free in the form of written material, such as:
- Blog posts
- Social media posts
- E-books
- Newsletters
- Whitepapers
- Infographics
Content marketing matters, and there are plenty of stats to prove it:
- 84% of consumers expect businesses to produce entertaining and helpful content experiences
- 62% of businesses that have at least 5,000 employees produce content daily
- 92% of marketers believe that their business values content as an important asset
As effective as content marketing is, it can be tricky.
Content marketing writers need to be able to rank highly in search engine results pages while also engaging people who will read the content, share it, and interact further with the business.
When the content is relevant, it can establish strong relationships throughout the pipeline.
To create effective content that’s highly relevant and engaging, it’s crucial to identify your target audience.
Who are you ultimately trying to reach with your content marketing efforts?
Once you have a better grasp of your target audience, you can determine the type of content you’ll produce.
You can use many formats of content in your content marketing, including videos, blog posts, infographics, and more.
Regardless of which content you produce, it’s a good idea to follow content marketing best practices.
This means making content that’s grammatically correct, free of errors, easy to understand, relevant, and interesting.
Social media marketing
Social media marketing means driving traffic and brand awareness by engaging people (potential customers) in discussions online.
You can use social media marketing to highlight your business, products, services, and more.
With billions of people spending their time engaging on social media networks, focusing on social media marketing can be worthwhile.
The most popular digital networks for social media marketing are Facebook, X, and Instagram, with LinkedIn and YouTube not far behind.
Ultimately, which social media networks you use for your business depends on your goals and audience.
For example, if you want to find new leads for your FinTech startup, targeting your audience on LinkedIn is a good idea since industry professionals are active on the platform.
On the other hand, running social media ads on Instagram may be better for your business if you run a B2C focused on younger consumers.
Because social media marketing involves active audience participation, it has become a popular way of getting attention.
Social media marketing provides built-in engagement metrics, which are extremely useful in helping you understand how well you’re reaching your audience.
You get to decide which types of interactions mean the most to you, whether that means the number of shares, comments, or total clicks to your website.
Direct purchase may not even be a goal of your social media marketing strategy.
Many businesses use social media marketing to start dialogues with audiences rather than encourage them to spend money right away.
This is especially common in businesses that target older audiences or offer products and services not appropriate for impulse buys.
It all depends on your company’s social media marketing goals.
To create an effective social media marketing strategy, it’s important to follow best practices.
Here are a few of the most important social media marketing best practices:
- Craft high-quality and engaging content
- Create a social media posting schedule
- Reply to comments and questions in a professional manner
- Hire social media managers to support your marketing efforts
- Post at the right time
- Know your audience and which social media channels they’re most active on
Pay-per-click marketing
Pay-per-click (or PPC), is a type of digital marketing in which you pay a fee every time someone clicks on your digital ads.
So, instead of paying a set amount to constantly run targeted ads on digital marketing channels, you only pay for the ads individuals interact with.
How and when people see your ad is a bit more complicated.
One of the most common types of PPC is search engine marketing, and because Google is the most popular search engine, many businesses use Google Ads for this purpose.
When a spot is available on search engine results page (SERP), the engine fills the spot with what is essentially an instant auction.
An algorithm prioritizes each available ad based on a number of factors, including:
- Ad quality
- Keyword relevance
- Landing page quality
- Bid amount
PPC ads are then placed at the top of SERPs based on the factors above whenever a person searches for a specific query.
Each PPC campaign has 1 or more target actions that viewers are meant to complete after clicking an ad.
These actions are known as conversions, and they can be transactional or non-transactional.
Making a purchase is a conversion, but so is a newsletter signup or a call made to your home office.
Whatever you choose as your target conversions, you can track them via your chosen digital marketing channels to see how your marketing campaign is doing.
Affiliate marketing
Affiliate marketing is a digital marketing strategy that lets someone make money by promoting another person’s business.
You could be either the promoter or the business that works with the promoter, but the process is the same in either case.
It works using a revenue-sharing model. If you’re the affiliate, you get a commission every time someone purchases the item that you promote.
If you’re the merchant, you pay the affiliate for every sale they help you make.
Some affiliate marketers choose to review the products of just 1 company, perhaps on a blog or other third-party website.
Others have relationships with multiple merchants.
Whether you want to be an affiliate or find one, the first step is to make a connection with the other party.
You can use digital marketing channels designed to connect affiliates with retailers, or you can start or join a single-retailer program.
If you’re a retailer and you choose to work directly with affiliates, there are many things you can do to make your affiliate program appealing to potential promoters.
You’ll need to provide those affiliates with the tools that they need to succeed. That includes incentives for great results as well as marketing tools and pre-made materials.
Influencer marketing
Like affiliate marketing, influencer marketing relies on working with an influencer–an individual with a large following, such as a celebrity, industry expert, or content creator–in exchange for exposure.
In many cases, these influencers will endorse your products or services to their followers on several social media platforms.
Influencer marketing works well for B2B and B2C brands who want to reach new audiences.
However, it’s important to partner with reputable influencers since they’re essentially representing your company.
The wrong influencer can tarnish the trust consumers have in your business.
Native advertising
Native advertising is digital marketing in disguise.
Its goal is to blend in with its surrounding content so that it’s less blatantly obvious as advertising.
Native advertising was created in reaction to the cynicism of today’s users toward ads.
Knowing that the creator of an ad pays to run it, many users will conclude that the ad is biased and consequently ignore it.
A native ad gets around this bias by providing information or entertainment before it gets to anything promotional, downplaying the “ad” aspect.
It’s important to always label your native ads clearly.
Use words like “promoted” or “sponsored.” If those indicators are concealed, consumers might end up spending significant time engaging with the content before they realize that it’s advertising.
When your readers know exactly what they’re getting, they’ll feel better about your content and your business.
Native ads are meant to be less obtrusive than traditional ads, but they’re not meant to be deceptive.
Email marketing
The concept of email marketing is simple—you send a promotional message and hope that your user clicks on it.
However, the execution is much more complex.
First of all, you have to make sure that your emails are wanted. This means having an email marketing service that offers the following is important:
- Individualizes the content, both in the body and in the subject line
- An email signature that provides a clear unsubscribe option
- Both, transactional and promotional emails
You want your readers to see your campaign as a valued service, not just as a promotional tool.
Email marketing is a proven, effective technique all on its own, but it can be even better if you incorporate other digital marketing strategies such as marketing automation, which lets you segment and schedule your emails so that they meet your customer’s needs more effectively.
If you’re considering email marketing, here are a few tips that can help you craft great email marketing campaigns:
- Segment your audience to send relevant campaigns to the right people
- Ensure emails look good on mobile devices
- Create a campaign schedule
- Run A/B tests
Mobile Marketing
Mobile marketing is a digital marketing tactic that allows you to engage with your target audience on their mobile devices, such as smartphones and tablets.
This can be via SMS and MMS messages, social media notifications, mobile app alerts, and more.
It’s important to ensure that all content is optimized for mobile devices.
How to Create a Digital Marketing Strategy
For many small businesses and beginner digital marketers, getting started with digital marketing can be difficult.
However, you can create an effective digital marketing strategy to increase brand awareness, engagement, and sales by using the following steps as your starting point.
Set SMART goals
Setting SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and timely) goals is important for any marketing strategy.
While there are many goals you may want to achieve, try to focus on the ones that will propel your marketing strategy forward instead of causing it to remain stagnant.
Identify your target audience
Before starting any digital marketing campaign, it’s best to identify your target audience.
Your target audience is the group of people you want your marketing campaign to reach based on similar attributes, such as age, gender, demographic, or purchasing behavior.
Having a good understanding of your target audience can help you determine which digital marketing strategy to use and the information to include in your marketing campaigns.
Create a budget
A budget ensures you’re spending your money effectively towards your goals instead of overspending on digital marketing channels that may not provide the desired results.
Consider your SMART goals and the digital marketing channel you’re planning to use to create a budget.
Choose your digital marketing channels
From content marketing to PPC campaigns and more, there are several digital marketing channels you can use to your advantage.
Which digital marketing channels you use often depends on your goals, audience, and budget.
Refine your marketing efforts
Make sure to analyze your marketing campaign’s data to identify what was done well and areas for improvement once the campaign is over.
This allows you to create even better campaigns in the future. With the help of digital technologies and software, you can obtain this data in an easy-to-view dashboard.
Digital marketing creates growth
Digital marketing should be one of the primary focuses of almost any business’s overall marketing strategy.
Never before has there been a way to stay in such consistent contact with your customers, and nothing else provides the level of personalization that digital data can offer.
The more you embrace the possibilities of digital marketing, the more you’ll be able to realize your company’s growth potential.
In our blog library, you can find numerous articles on all aspects of digital marketing.
What is Digital Marketing: FAQs
What are the 6 main types of digital marketing?
Digital marketing can be categorized into several types of marketing.
The 6 most promising and popular types of digital marketing include:
- Content Marketing
- Social Media Marketing
- Search Engine Optimization
- Search Engine Marketing
- Email Marketing
- Affiliate Marketing
What skills do I need for digital marketing?
Here are some top skills that a professional digital marketer needs:
- Communication Skills
- Writing Skills
- Creativity
- SEO Knowledge
- Design Knowledge
What is the main purpose of digital marketing?
The purpose of digital marketing is to promote products and services on the internet through different channels like social media, ads, etc.
Is digital marketing a good career?
Yes, digital marketing is an excellent career due to its high demand, diverse opportunities, and potential for growth and creativity.
Why is digital marketing so powerful?
Digital marketing is powerful because it allows precise targeting, real-time engagement, measurable results, and a global reach, making it highly effective for companies of all sizes.
How do social media platforms fit into digital marketing?
Social media platforms are integral to digital marketing, providing channels for brand awareness, customer engagement, content distribution, and targeted advertising.
How can I measure the success of my digital marketing efforts?
Success can be measured using metrics such as website traffic, conversion rates, engagement rates, ROI, and key performance indicators specific to each campaign and platform.