Digital Marketing: A simple overview for beginners !!

You wouldn't be knowing it that even you are a part of some or the other Digital marketing campaign running in some part of the world. Digital Marketing has become so common in our lives but yet many of us don't know much about it. That is why, in this article of mine I thought of  giving you an overview of one of the commonest things in our life which is 'Digital Marketing'. But before giving you the overview of the subject, I'll like to tell you that Digital Marketing is not the kind of subject which needs too much of brain-storming, it just needs good presence of mind,common sense and a habit of researching. If you feel a little interested in this subject after reading this article, you must continue re-searching on the subject and if you are stuck, then feel free to ask your doubts by e-mailing me on suvenjagtiani@gmail.com or you can ask them in the comment's section!!

First of all, what is this Digital marketing?

Digital Marketing is simply, 'marketing on the digital platform'. Digital platforms may include websites, apps, videos etc. You all would be knowing that nearly every person on Earth is there on some or the other digital platform, so doesn't it make sense for a company to advertise digitally. 

I'll give you an example: 

Suppose there's an educational institute at Mumbai which wants to advertise for some of it's courses.

Conventional Marketing method: Put a big advertisement just outside Bombay's most crowded railway station (possibly, Andheri or Thane). How many people do you think would see the advertisement per day? 

50000,75000,1 lakh......Ok, let's take 2 lakhs

But, how many people do you think, would join the course or even go on that institute's website?

The answer is, not even 0.5 %

Damn, you spend so much but then too the conversion rate is not even 1%. This happens because conventional marketing methods target irrelevant people in great numbers.

"The best part about Digital Marketing is that it targets relevant audience unlike Conventional Marketing methods"

Where can you find your audience on the Internet?

You now know that Digital Marketing is effective, but a question arises,"Where to do digital Marketing?" As we know that the internet is very vast, so you need to select the platforms where you market your product or company or even yourself.

List of  common platforms:

• Facebook
• LinkedIn
• Pinterest
• Google
• YouTube

You yourself would be visiting these websites very frequently like billions of people in the world. Hence, for any digital marketer, it's very important to advertise on these platforms. Now, let's look at each of these platforms individually.

Marketing on Google: 

I asked this question to one of my neighbors - What is Internet?

He simply answered - Google

I was like this:

---

2 minutes silence for every other search engine:(

Yes, Google is as big as the internet for many of us. Therefore, marketing on Google is the most important in Digital marketing. 

Google Adwords: 

It is a tool made by Google. It allows you to make Ads on it so that you can put it on various websites of the Internet and even on the Google search engine. Adwords ads are not free to make, it works on the pay-per-click method. Ads made from Google Adwords can be classified as:

•  Search Ads: The Ads you see on the search engines are called search ads. They appear when people search the kinds of business you have or the kind of product you sell. These ads help you come higher in the search so that there are more chances of a person clicking on the website of your product or business.

• Display ADS: You may have seen some Ads of a product on different websites in the form of banners. These banners act as hyperlinks. 

• Video marketing: YouTube has become very common in our lives for video streaming. You would have seen Ads at the start of some videos. These ads are a part of video marketing.

Social Media Marketing: 

Social media is the biggest platform for any individual organization or brand to propagate it's name.The audience reach is phenomenal as compared to any other advertising medium. The benefits of Social Media Marketing are :

i)  Reach and Visibility for engaging real time audience.

ii) Cost Effective with maximum ROI achievement

iii) Measure ability and Easy Performance tracking 

Although traditional advertising mediums are still being used by bigger age old brands and many SME's too however start-ups are more conversant with the Social platforms to bring more enthusiasm in their brand positioning and reaching the targeted audience.

Many a times you have the flexibility of scheduling the ad as per your requirement at the budget you want to promote it for which gives added productivity to return on your investment.

As a strategy usually ad managers couple Adwords with Social media to enhance the brand visibility and awareness amongst targeted audience.

Various platforms such as LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest ,Instagram etc. can be used effectively to create ads or simply boost posts to reach a higher percent of audience interested in your product or service.

_thought by an experienced Online marketer

Blogging: 

Ha!Ha!Ha This proves that even you are a part of a digital marketing programme. Blogs, as may people think are not just things which just people read. It's much more for Advertisers. A company which wants to advertise can appoint a blogger and make him/her write flowery things, degrade competitor companies with his/her writing skills. 

Even you would have searched on the net before buying a phone for yourself and landed up on a blog which would have convinced you to buy a particular phone. Many blogs including the one which you are reading now, have true content but there some others which are a part of some advertisement programme. 

Blogging is by far the cheapest method for digital marketing and making a blog is also quite simple. You can make a blog on any of the free tools like Blogger,WordPress etc.

Digital marketing has a hell lot of things. In this article of mine, I have mainly targeted Search Advertisement, Display Advertisement, Social Media Marketing and Blogging.

Please don't forget about what I told you at the start of the article. 

Thank you for reading!!

Do you want to learn Digital Marketing?