Summary: Digital marketing is the promotion of products or brands via one or more forms of digital technologies to attract, engage and convert customers online. Digital marketing is fast becoming an important medium for SMEs (Small & Medium Enterprises) to compete with larger well established brands. Digital expert Sandeep Raut explains the basics of digital marketing, its challenges and tips to make it work for your business.

For a business to succeed in the digital world, it is really important to have a strong digital footprint on the internet to establish better visibility. With today’s sophisticated digital lifestyle, customers are likely to be on various social media, browsing their email inboxes or searching for products and services on a search engine.

Digital marketing differs from traditional marketing as it leverages all electronic devices like PCs, tablets, smartphones, digital signage or billboards, smart TVs to provide an experience in real time, that influences a desired audience to buy your product, read your articles or engage with your content. Marketers  use these omni-channels, which can track the customer’s journey and give them the ability to engage with the consumer online.

Components of Digital Marketing

• Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) – Make your brand appear at the top of Google, Bing, Yahoo and other search engines
  
  

• Search Engine Marketing (SEM) – With pay per click and Google AdWords allow your website to emerge on paid listing of different search engines.
  
  

• Social Media Marketing (SMM) – Advertising on social media channels such as Twitter, Facebook, Google +, LinkedIn and YouTube. Get maximum number of 'likes' and shares on these social media channels.
  
  

• Mobile Optimisation and Responsive Websites - When you take a look around a room, nearly everyone is on their smartphone. The numbers of people browsing on mobile overtook desktop users a while ago. Therefore, businesses can benefit from having a mobile-first digital strategy and optimise their websites and communications for mobile devices.
  
  

• Video Marketing - This is one of the best ways to engage with millennials. Facebook live streaming, Periscope, Snapchat, and YouTube are on the rise now, more than ever.
  
  

• Web analytics – Collection and analysis of web usage data can yield vital insights on customer behaviour and preferences.
  
  

• Content Marketing - eBooks, White Papers and Infographics to inform and engage with customers and establish yourself as an expert in your domain
  
  

• Email Marketing – Sending emails to customers directly

Challenges for digital marketers

• Explosion of digital channels - Consumers use a variety of digital channels and devices to interact with brands in different ways and for different purposes.
  
  

• Exploding data volumes - Consumers leave behind a huge digital footprint on these channels. It’s extremely difficult to get a handle on all that data, and find the right data that can help you make the right decisions.
  
  

• Increasing competition - Digital channels are relatively cheap, compared with traditional media, making them within reach for practically all businesses. As a result, everyone is trying to capture consumers’ attention.

How to succeed in Digital Marketing?

• Avoid overwhelming 'in your face' marketing
  
  

• Respond to dynamic customer interactions
  
  

• Extract value from big data to make better decisions faster
  
  

• Leverage customer feedback for future digital campaigns for cross-selling (selling a different product to an existing customer) or up-selling (persuade a customer to buy something more additional or more expensive).

People want brands they can trust, companies that know them as people, communications that are personalised and relevant, and offers tailored to their needs and preferences.

Digital is now the first touch point for the consumer and a channel where the consumer has greater control over what they see and when they see it. Do share your digital marketing tips in the comments section below.

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