In the business world, you’ll hear the term ‘digital marketing’ an awful lot. But if you aren’t familiar with the phrase or working in the industry, you might not know exactly what it entails. You may need a digital marketing 101 crash course.
The truth is, how people buy stuff has changed drastically over the last ten years. The ten before that saw the beginning of technology and the internet changing the world as we know it. Now, with powerhouses like Amazon leading the way, digital marketing is truly a new animal altogether.
So whatever line of work you’re in, it’s probably a good thing to know a little bit more about digital marketing. Even if you don’t do it for a living, it’s constantly being put in front of your face.
Let’s look at some digital marketing examples as well as what the role of digital marketing is in this quickly changing world.
What Does a Digital Marketer Do?
To define digital marketing, think about all the electronic devices in our world that we use today. Think about the ones, specifically, that are connected to the internet. Businesses use digital marketing on platforms like search engines, social media, and email marketing to meet with and connect potential customers.
Digital marketing is also rapidly expanding. Keep in mind that not everyone doing it has much experience. The term ‘digital marketer’ is also one used by a lot of people looking to break into the self-employed/freelance space.
Suffice it to say, a digital marketer, as an employee, should have specific skills in one area of digital marketing.
For example, he or she might be well versed in email marketing. This is the process of creating forms and lead pages to collect email addresses, so business can promote their services through email.
There are plenty of qualities of a digital marketer you should know, and you can read more here about them.
Why Digital Marketing?
It’s simple: the world is changing and evolving.
You need a digital presence online if you hope to beat your competitors out and get sales to keep your business alive. The role of digital marketing in your business is to create specific assets (email lists, social media accounts), that you can leverage to engage with your customers.
Types of Digital Marketers
As we said, there are a few types of digital marketers. Calling yourself just a DM is a little vague.
Here are a few roles you may find someone in the digital marketing space occupying.
Content Marketer
Typically a content marketer works with you to build up your social media platforms or email list. As the name implies, they help you to create content that’s engaging and useful, and it should help build trust with your audience on platforms like Instagram, Facebook, or Email.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Someone versed in SEO practices helps your website rank higher and be discovered by search engines like Google, Bing, and more. Through a number of strategies (for example, creating engaging, SEO-friendly, well-researched blog posts that Google can read and understand), you can generate more traffic to your website.
This type of digital marketing doesn’t happen overnight. It’s more of a long-term investment, but it’s vital for any small business.
Website Marketing
They say that with the rise in social media that websites have ‘died,’ but that is not be the case at all. Especially if your business is built online (such as a blog or portfolio), it’s vital that you have a website in the event that your social media or other platforms ever go away.
After all, if you build 100k followers on YouTube and then YouTube changes everything overnight, you will be left with nothing. So it’s best to have a well-designed website. A good website marketer can help you with that.
Affiliate Marketing
Websites like Amazon make it easy for people to build an extension (or whole) business off their current assets by aligning their products with your site. Not just Amazon, but a whole slew of other affiliate sites make it possible for you to partner with them in as little as twelve hours.
There are plenty of mistakes to be made with affiliate marketing. A digital marketer versed in this area will help you avoid them, so you can start working towards the long-game partnership you’re creating with your new affiliations.
What Else?
There are a few other roles that digital marketers may take on for you or your business. Instead of being specific job titles like SEO expert, however, they may be more about one particular skill set.
For example, a good digital marketer may specialize in making your online presence and sales funnels automated. Automation is the process of getting a high percentage of people to click through your work without you having to do much work.
When sites talk about passive income, this is an example of where that comes in. It would take a long time to break down the list of everything the work could entail, but keep in mind you may also be hiring someone solely for their specific skill sets, and not as a full-time job.
Contact Us for More Digital Marketing 101
In general, all you need to remember about digital marketers is that they make the process of navigating this ever-changing, technologically driven business landscape much easier. And the best ones, an important distinction to make because of how many of them there are, will come with a specific set of skills that you’ll be able to utilize for building assets for your business.
That’s a wrap on digital marketing 101. For questions, don’t hesitate to contact us. Thanks for reading!
