Come on, tell the truth. How often have you searched on Google past the first or second page?

If you said "never" or "rarely," that's digital marketing in action. Digital marketers know how to get their products or services to appear on a search's first page. But they don't just do that. Digital marketing now includes a wide range of specialties, from search engine optimization to content marketing (SEO).

Want to know more about digital marketing and why it's so important? If so, read on.

What Is Digital Marketing?

Digital marketing sells or promotes a product or service using digital channels or technologies. Digital marketing includes content marketing, email marketing, pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, and search engine optimization (SEO). To put it more simply, digital marketing is at work when you are pushed to buy something online.

Why Is Digital Marketing Important?

Digital marketing helps brands reach the people they want to reach and get the word out about their product or service. Even though this is also the goal of traditional marketing campaigns, digital marketing makes it possible for brands to reach a more specific or niche audience. When you connect with customers online, you can reach more people who trust your brand. Digital marketing is beneficial for small businesses and can use without the help of a marketing department or agency.

Digital Marketing Important

How Do Businesses Use Digital Marketing?

Let's use Zac, a made-up middle-level salesman at a paper company, to show how businesses use digital marketing. He wants to start a small business on the side. He makes an app called "Woof!" that lets a person or company simultaneously send the same message through text, email, Facebook, and other channels.

Zac has a small marketing budget, so he will use systems and methods that give him the most reach for the least amount of money. He will use his money to raise people's awareness. Content with value will be enough to move his business forward. As he may lack an in-house marketing team, he plans to employ the services of digital marketing agencies or freelancers who are well-versed in social media marketing. He might do the marketing through social media by himself.

As his small business grows, he might hire a digital marketing company to handle content marketing and the other pillars. Until then, he takes these free online marketing classes to improve his skills and teach himself how to become a digital marketing manager.

He can do the following to promote his app:

  • Content marketing. Zac can write about his product in things like blogs and guides. He could also start a YouTube channel with demos of his products. These kinds of content help people understand what their product is worth.
  • Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Zac has all this content, but it's lost in the vastness of online searches. When people need communication tools like his, he checks the internet to see what they're looking for. That's why he's employing these terms as keywords in his website's optimization efforts: to raise the visibility of his posts in search results.
  • Email marketing. Then, Zac makes a long list of potential customers who want to buy his product. He makes an email list to send information and resources about his product to those on the list.
  • Advertisements. Zac has been building his customer base by making content and using it differently. Now that he wants to try advertising, he pays for ads to get people to visit his website. This will require money to buy ad space on websites or social media for text, video, and image ads.
  • Social media marketing. Zac has researched his audience and found out they only hang out on Instagram. So, he makes an Instagram business profile where he can talk about his product without sounding too "sales," which helps him connect more closely with his audience.
  • Influencer marketing. Zac could promote his brand with the help of his influential friends like Kelly, Pam, and Andy. Pam is a business communications consultant helping her audience learn how to use new ways to communicate. She tells her followers to buy Zac's product, so they go to his website and use Pam's referral code to buy the product. Pam gets paid a fee.

Importance of Digital Marketing

Digital media have a vast reach so a business can reach many people with its products and services. Compare how far an ad in the local paper and a post on social media can reach. That ad will only be seen by people who subscribe to the newspaper, and every day it runs costs you money from your marketing budget. Anyone on the platform can see the post, and you don't have to pay for each day that it's on your profile.

Importance of Digital Marketing

Let's look at a made-up guy named Zac to learn more about how important digital marketing is:

Digitalization (Users/Customers Are Online)

Zac can reach customers no matter where they are with digital marketing. He only needs their email addresses, phone numbers, or addresses later in the funnel). All he has to do is be where his customers are, like on a social media site or a search engine.

Targeted Audience Reach

With digital marketing, Zac can reach only his ideal customers or the people most likely to buy his communication tools. By posting high-quality content and tracking who visits his website or interacts with his posts, he can figure out his target audience and make his ads more relevant. Does he have to show his ads and posts to older people who only use the phone as their primary way to talk? No. So his marketing strategy can include something other than older people.

Targeted Audience Reach

Quickly tracking, keeping an eye on, and improving (Results of Various Campaigns, etc.)

With the right digital marketing tools, Zac can keep track of many metrics that give him a good idea of how well his digital marketing campaign is doing. He can track in real-time, so he can change the campaigns in the middle to improve them. He knows how much each digital marketing campaign makes back.

digital marketing campaign

When he advertises offline, he doesn't have this choice. If he puts an ad in the paper for a month, he can tell how much the ad helped or hurt his sales.

Allows brands to offer a more engaging interactive experience through digital marketing channels.

Zac can connect with his customers in different ways through digital marketing. He could, for example, talk to his customers about his product and goals in a live stream on the Instagram page for his business. These digital experiences are subtle ways to get people to pay attention to ads.

Cost-Effective Over Outbound Marketing Methods

Traditional marketing methods like cold calling and advertising on billboards are hard to track and often cost more than digital marketing methods. Content marketing, for example, costs 62% less than traditional marketing. For cold calling to work, someone must always be on the job. You need to track how many people see the billboard or pamphlet and decide to buy his tool. So Zac uses digital tools for marketing because they cost less.

Ability to Change Quickly (Easier To Adapt and Change the Strategy)

Zac can keep changing his strategy based on how his campaigns are doing in real-time. When Instagram isn't bringing him leads, he doesn't have to keep using it. He can try something else. Because digital marketing can change and adapt quickly, he is getting the most for his money.

Customer Engagement and Retention

Customer Engagement and Retention

Personalization is a key part of getting and keeping customers. Zac gives his clients online content regularly. He gives them chances to interact with the brand through social media. He also has an email newsletter that he sends out every day. His customers are often reminded of the brand, which helps keep them as customers.

Remarkable ROI

Different digital marketing pillars give varying ROI levels. These impressive ROI numbers can be reached by putting a plan into action.

Remarkable ROI

When you put these numbers in the context of how digital marketing can be used and how long it can last, you can see how digital marketing can change your business.

Stay Competitive

More prominent companies and brands have substantial marketing budgets daily, but Zac can still compete with them. Zac can grow his audience and search engine visibility by planning how to use his marketing resources, like strong SEO strategies, consistent social media campaigns, and a strong content marketing strategy. Google will decide who to rank based on who has good content that matches what people are looking for, not who has the most money.

How Much Will Digital Marketing Cost Your Business?

Digital marketing can cost anywhere from nothing to thousands of dollars a month. It depends on your business, preferred marketing method, skills, message, digital marketing strategy for connecting with consumers, and goals you want to reach with digital marketing.

Small businesses will spend less, but even among small businesses, budgets can be very different depending on the niche, location, competition, and goals. This graph shows how much money businesses in the UK, Germany, France, and North America spend on different kinds of digital marketing:

Digital Marketing Cost

Let's look at the prices of some different marketing packages:

  • Essential Digital Marketing Package: $2000-$6000

During the first few years of his business, Zac will likely choose simple digital marketing services because he wants to get as many benefits as possible without spending much money. This could mean hiring a freelancer to run his business Instagram account, a content writer to write frequent blog posts, and a one-time investment in website design, since SEO and UX design overlap.

  • Intermediate Digital Marketing Package: $10,000-$20,000

If Zac's business grows, he can use intermediate digital marketing services. In that case, he might choose SEO writers. This social media manager can handle multiple platforms, a website designer who works on a retainer, and a couple of affiliate marketers who work on ongoing contracts.

  • Advanced Digital Marketing Package: 9-10% of Total Revenue

Michael, who runs a much bigger business than Zac's, is his main rival. So Michael's budget is likely based on how much money he makes. 9–10% of a big company's total revenue goes to digital marketing, which includes Google ads, content marketing, social media, and SEO.

Digital Marketing FAQs

We can answer your most important questions about digital marketing:

How Do Businesses Monitor the Success of Digital Marketing?

How well your digital marketing strategies work depends on the key performance indicators (KPIs) you use and the tools you use. You can track these KPIs and get actionable insights with analytics tools like Google Analytics and Heap. Important website metrics include overall traffic, bounce rates, and average time per visit. A company with a more potent social media strategy might use metrics such as reach and impressions, engagement rate, and click-through rate.

What Is the Heart of Digital Marketing?

Knowing your audience is the most important part of digital marketing. No matter how much you spend on digital marketing strategies or what you do for digital marketing, it will only help if you do it. Your business is only possible if you know who your audience is and what their pain points are. It's important to connect with people through content geared toward them. This is true no matter what format, platform, or Google trend you look at.

How and Why Digital Marketing Is Growing?

The owner of a business wants to meet with customers. Online channels are where people spend more time and money than ever before. They look at ads on websites, apps, and social networks. Businesses need to tailor their content to the people reading it. Digital marketing is growing because this group of people spends time online. It's also increasing because the digital marketing business is doing so well. Here is a guide to digital marketing salaries that shows how digital marketing is growing in terms of jobs.