What is Digital Marketing?

Digital MarketingThe Internet in recent years has become a central battleground for new consumers and improved customer relationships, and that means digital marketing has become one of the fastest-growing business segments in developed economies all around the world, according to SAS. Despite its growth, this field remains something of a mystery to most people. Its name isn’t necessarily very descriptive, and most people aren’t sure exactly what digital marketers do, how they do it, or why they’re so involved with the Internet and digital resources. This mystery is exceedingly easy to solve, however.

If It’s Electronic, Digital Marketing Has a Hand in It

Digital marketing is essentially the act of promoting a product, service, or customer relationship, through digital media like social networks, smartphone applications and advertisements, website advertisements, and search engine placement. This makes the field very comprehensive: Whether it’s a desktop or laptop, a smartphone or a tablet, digital marketing professionals have a hand in turning that device into a promotion vehicle for company slogans, demographic targets, and analytics success. They do this in a variety of ways, for a variety of different websites and ultimate goals, on behalf of corporate employers who increasingly need a digital voice amid the noise on social media sites.

The First Frontier: Search Engines and Result Placement

The first place that digital marketing really took off was in search engine listings like those on Google. Websites found that they could take advantage of targeted keyword recognition, user interaction levels, and content authority, to propel their site to the top search result, or at least to the first page of search results. For the decade or so, this has been the most active area of development, research, and refinement. Digital marketers have mastered product-centric landing pages, contextual search engine advertisements, the use of keywords in blog posts, and other mechanisms that position their client site exactly where it needs to be for maximum visibility. It’s worth noting that this maximum visibility increases clicks and ad impressions, boosting revenue in the process.

Social Media and Mobile: The Next Generation of Digital Marketing

In recent years, digital marketing has become known increasingly as “social media marketing,” but this is a bit of a misnomer. Instead, digital marketers are merely bringing their existing set of skills to the thriving social media sites that take up so much of the average user’s online time. Instead of optimizing only for keywords or relevant links, digital marketing professionals use advertising tools provided by the social media site to target specific demographic groups or people with highly specific interests. They then display contextual advertisements and promoted product posts that will be most relevant to those users, hoping for “likes” and “followers” and “retweets” that can build a company’s marketing base and provide it with renewed sources of long-term revenue.

Recognition of Technology Trends and Viral Content

Finally, digital marketers need to be aware of tech trend and things like memes, which go viral over a short period of time. Part of their job is to make sure that their employer or their client can go viral with their own catchy YouTube video, Instagram post, Facebook meme, or quirky tweet. If the company can achieve such success, the hard work of product promotion and marketing will be done by all of those who share, retweet, or like the viral content. In a way, this approach helps digital marketing be low-impact on the budget, but high-impact on the company’s bottom line.

Related Resource: Market Resource Technician

Digital Marketing is a Strong Field in a Connected Age

Growth of social media sties, mobile applications, and search engine usage means that companies need to target users in new ways. Digital marketing seeks to do just that, through search engine optimization, promoted posts, and viral content that starts trending almost as soon as it’s made public.