When it comes to digital marketing most small business owners/ bloggers think that all they have to do is get a website and it will bring in millions of customers. How amazing would that be if that is all it takes?

This post contains affiliate links. For more information, see my disclosures here.

Digital marketing in fact takes a lot more than just building your website and sitting back and waiting for the money to roll in. Today we are going to look at what digital marketing is, why it is important and what digital media channels you can use to show up where your ideal customer is.

What is Digital Marketing?

Marketing is the promotion of one’s business through a means of advertisement materials. We generally think of marketing as advertisement on TV, radio, billboards, flyers or in magazines. 

However, with the invention of the internet in the 80s we started seeing more and more advertisements online.

Digital marketing put simply, is online marketing using the internet to market your product or service to reach your ideal customer. Digital marketing is delivered through digital channels such as 

• Search Engines
• Social Media
• Websites
• Email
• Web-based advertising
• Messaging – text, direct through apps etc

There are so many avenues for digital marketing that the options are limitless.

Why is Digital Marketing important?

Technology and especially the internet plays a major part in the world today. From Youtube to Tiktok, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and other social media channels, text messaging, emailing, everyone is online in some way, therefore we want to take advantage of digital marketing to get our message across to our potential clients.

On a daily basis, individuals are using their phone, tablet, laptop, and computer instead of browsing through the yellow pages, a magazine or even watching Ads. This means that the majority of individuals will check their social media pages or conduct a Google search to find whatever it is that they are looking for. According to HubSpot Research, 77% of customers will research a business online, so for a business owner to improve their brand awareness it is essential to be seen on the internet. If you are not seen online you will lose out on a potential customers.

There are a number of factors that make up marketing as a whole such as having good testimonial reviews, the way your brand looks, your business’s customer service, your pricing, packages, products etc however if you are not using digital marketing you will miss out on achieving your business growth goals.

List of Digital Marketing Channels

Let us chat about the types of online marketing you can use. This is how you can reach your ideal client and show up where they are.

1. Search Engine Optimization- (SEO) This is how your webstite ranks in search engines in the organic free results . For example, if you have a candle shop and someone types in candles for sale on Google or Bing or another search engine you want to be showing up at the top of the search page.  

There are many factors when it comes to SEO to be ranked in search engines, this includes things like the content on your website, links on your website, technical website issues, website speed, the look and feel of your website, and other factors like how long a customer stays on your website. Search engines sets and follow rules called the algorithms which they change constantly depending on how audiences find and search for things.

Follow us on Instagram for tips on SEO. You can also pay for Google ads or PPC to have an ad up the top of Google listings.

1. Google ads Pay Per Click (PPC) This is paying a search engine like Google a cost per click to their website. You create a dedicated ad for a particular product or service and link it to a landing page on your website where customers can read more and potentially buy that service/ product or contact you about it. You can get your ad to appear to an audience you choose, e.g. a location, age range, gender, keywords etc. This is great for getting clients fast however only if you have a good website, a product your customers want, a great ad and have the right keywords and audience. 
2. Content Marketing. This is all about the content on your website, the wording, the images, video content and other graphics. You need to include fresh and natural sounding content for all of your pages and also continue to add content to your website such as new blog posts, update products/ services etc. You can use this information to then share on your social media as additional content.
3. Social Media Marketing. Social media is everywhere and literally in our hands and at our fingertips. Social media platforms include Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Youtube, Linkedin, Twitter and more. You can post on these platforms for free or use paid ads set to your audience. Just like SEO their are social media algorithms to follow to get maximum views and comments that lead to potential clients.
4. Email Marketing. Having your customers on an email database is essential to send them out product updates, news, information and more, providing just enough information to keep them following and remembering you so when they are ready they will buy from you. Using an email marketing program like Mailierlite, Mailchimp, Convertkit is a great marketing tool to collect and store clients contact information. 

Conclusion

As you can see digital marketing is important in the 21st century as the majority of our audiences can be found online. By using the different channels you are able to reach your target audience and also reach further than ever before. 

We can help you when it comes to your digital marketing from website creation and SEO and we can certainly point you in the right direction with setting up a digital marketing plan.

Reach out today to get started.

Hi there, I’m Jacinta, Australian web designer, digital marketer, mocha lover, mother, wannabe digital nomad, and an introvert at heart.

We help small & medium-sized business owners like me, in Australia and New Zealand by providing affordable website and digital marketing solutions and help them conquer their website worries and turn them into secure money-generating machines.

We aim to work with our clients in an encouraging and supportive way.

We start by sending you a list of things we need to start your website or by doing an audit on your website and breaking it down into actionable steps to make it secure and start earning you more money than ever before.

Work with us Today.