Learn digital marketing skills

 

What is Digital Marketing?

We can define digital marketing as all actions that use the internet or electronic devices to promote a product or a brand. Currently, it is one of the main strategies to reach and relate to potential customers.

But the way this is done has changed a lot over time, following technological advances and the habits of the population. In this sense, we cannot ignore that, currently, a large portion of the population is connected and uses the internet to buy.

The internet brought to the consumer several purchases options. If before we had to go from store to store searching for prices and with few competition options, now the scenario is completely different.

How Digital Marketing Came About?

Digital marketing skills, as you might imagine, was born with the explosion of the internet in the 1990s, when personal computers and dial-up connections began to invade the homes of millions of people.

Along with this explosion, came the first search engines, such as Yahoo, Cade, MSN and later Google, which today is the largest in the market. Along with search engines, e-mail domains came, where the first e-mail marketing campaigns (and spam) appeared.

At that time, the technology was very limited and the pages quite simple. The interaction between companies and customers was practically non-existent and communication was one-sided. It was called Web 1.0.

Around the 2000s, technology advanced, the number of Internet users increased and digital marketing began to take shape. It was at this time that the first social networks appeared and Google gained space as a search tool.

The era of Web 2.0 began, more participatory and centered on the interests of the audience, which we live in today.

What are the Advantages of Digital Marketing?

Unlike traditional marketing, digital allows results to be measured and checked in almost real time.

An ad in a newspaper, for example, is difficult to estimate how many people actually saw it and paid attention. On the other hand, with advertisements on social networks and search engines, it is possible to measure practically all user actions, from those who saw them to those who actually completed an action.

You can see how learn digital marketing skills has transformed the relationship between companies and their consumers. But why is this strategy important? What are the real benefits for your business?

1. More interactivity with the audience

One of the characteristics that make digital marketing more and more adopted in relation to traditional media is the interactivity with the public that it offers.

Think about it: a newspaper advertisement or a TV ad represents a one-way communication model. The brand conveys a message, but does not establish a dialogue with the audience.

With digital channels, on the other hand, the public is able to interact with brands, give opinions on products and services and share content, all with a single touch.

2. Allows you to precisely target your audience

One of the biggest problems with traditional marketing is that there is no control over who is impacted by a campaign. It is even possible to choose a newspaper or TV station that is more aligned with the profile of the brand's target audience, but this does not guarantee that these people will have a real interest in the product or service.

With digital marketing, on the other hand, it is possible to target messages and content to the right people. That is, only for those users with the ideal profile for their goals.

In online channels, you can segment your audience with much more precision through characteristics such as age group, gender, education level, geographic location and even tastes and consumption habits!

Thus, you have a more accurate campaign and that really talks to the consumer. And when your content is aligned with the interests of the public, the chance that they will do business with you is much greater.

3. Cost savings

Have you ever stopped to think about how much it costs to invest in an offline marketing strategy, such as a series of ads on TV or in a major newspaper? Believe me, it is very expensive!

Digital marketing, on the other hand, requires fewer resources and professionals to be put into practice. Ads on social networks, for example, require only a fraction of the investment of an offline strategy.

In addition, as it is possible to segment the audience with much more precision, resources are invested much more efficiently, reducing waste.

4. Any company can invest

As digital marketing is a much cheaper strategy than traditional marketing, we can say that it is also more democratic!

While TV commercials, advertisements in newspapers and billboards are usually actions reserved for large companies, digital marketing can be applied by anyone.

The internet allows even small digital entrepreneurs, such as Producers and Affiliates, to use online channels to advertise their brands and products without spending a lot and without needing large teams.

5. Allows you to analyse and measure actions

When you advertise in a magazine, you can hardly determine how many people were affected by the content and the percentage of them who purchased the product or service after viewing the piece.

This does not happen with digital marketing!

Thanks to segmentation, you are able to direct your communication to the exact profile of your target audience. In addition, online tools allow you to track campaign results in real time with complete accuracy.

Main digital marketing strategies

With so many advantages, you can't wait to start applying this strategy in your business, do you?

But how to do digital marketing?

Well, as the internet is a very wide universe and technology keeps evolving, there is no single way to do digital marketing.

In fact, there are dozens of digital marketing strategies and new tactics appear every day. However, all of them aim to strengthen a brand and strengthen the relationship with the public.

Below, you can see the most common strategies on the market:

Content Marketing

As we explained, one of the ways to arouse public interest in your brand is to offer relevant content and information that will help you solve your problems. And that is precisely the goal of content marketing.

But, for this, it is essential to know your persona well, which is the profile of your ideal client. This makes it easy to create more targeted content, which speaks directly to the audience's pain. And, thus, generate more brand awareness for the brand, attract qualified traffic and generate leads.

And to further increase the reach of these contents, it is important to offer them on channels that the target audience usually uses. There are several ways to do this and the most common are:

Blog

Creating and feeding a blog is the most common content marketing strategy and also one of the most interesting.

After all, the blog is an exclusive channel for your business, without any common interference in other channels. There, you can publish what you want, when you want and the way you want, with complete freedom over the content produced.

Having a blog still allows your brand to gain relevance on the network and win the top positions in search engines. This gives more visibility and increases the chances of attracting new customers.

According to data from HubSpot, B2B companies that have a blog generate 67% more leads than companies that do not.

Video Marketing

Videos are becoming the type of content most requested and consumed by Internet users. And it makes sense, since they are easier to consume and understand than a text, for example.

According to Google's Video Viewers Survey, between 2014 and 2018, Internet video consumption grew by 135%, while TV only increased by 13%.

And with the technological advances of the last years, companies of any size can enter the universe of audio-visual production. Because of this, several companies are betting on video marketing as the basis of their digital marketing strategies.

In addition, the videos are quite versatile and fit into almost any marketing strategy. You can do video lessons, live streams, webinars, product demonstration videos, among other formats.

E-mail marketing

E-mail has not died and the proof of this is the large number of businesses that use e-mail marketing to communicate with the public.

This strategy consists of sending e-mail messages to a contact list and can be used to strengthen the brand, promote products and services, communicate with potential customers and sell.

And the numbers confirm the power of that channel. According to data from HubSpot , businesses that use email marketing can generate up to 50% more qualified leads , with a better chance of buying.

A great advantage of this type of content is that it allows you to segment the lists and closely monitor data such as reach, openness and responses.

There is no point in creating incredible content if no one on the internet is able to find it. And it is to make your brand more visible and credible on the network that SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, exists.

Search engine optimization aims to bring content to the top positions in search results and thus attract organic traffic (that is, without paying for ads).

And why is this important? Simple. Data from an Internet Marketing Ninjas survey on organic clicks on Google found that first place wins 21% of clicks, second 10% and third 7%.

That is, it is essential to bet on SEO to attract organic and qualified traffic to your channels.

It works like this: search sites, like Google, classify online content according to its relevance to the user. So, SEO seeks to optimize these pages in order to show search engines that your website or blog offers the best experience for the user and the answers he seeks.

These optimizations can be divided into on page (which can be performed within the page itself) and off page (factors external to the page).

Affiliate Marketing

If you have a product - be it digital or physical - or have many followers on social networks and personal blog, you can benefit from affiliate marketing.

In this strategy, the Affiliate advertises the product or service of an entrepreneur or company (called a Producer) on his blog, website or social networks. In return, you receive a commission for each sale made.

This model allows the Affiliate to monetize their online channels, while offering Producers new channels of dissemination. And customers also get more channels to research products and make an assertive purchase decision.

There are several platforms that bring together entrepreneurs interested in increasing sales with people willing to promote products, such as the Affiliate Program here at Hotmelt.

CRO (conversion rate optimization)

One of the most important aspects of any digital marketing effort is conversion. That is, bringing users to the base of the brand and taking them to the bottom of the sales funnel.

The CRO strategy, or conversion optimization in the acronym in English, lets you know where conversions are not being well explored on a blog or website, doing whatever is necessary to improve conversion rates.

During the conversion optimization process, it is necessary to review all points of contact with the business lead / customer to understand what can be improved so that the conversion is achieved.