Digital Marketing: Definition + Strategies

Our 300-acre campus in Manchester, NH is home to over 3,000 students, and we serve over 135,000 students online. Visit our about SNHUpage to learn more about our mission, accreditations, leadership team, national recognitions and awards. However, some important pieces of the marketing puzzle have not changed since the days when companies primarily advertised in print, radio and TV.

Digital marketing platforms can assist in developing the KPIs to test these, and provide metrics into how their value compares over time. Marketing automation platforms can be invaluable to any digital marketing strategy. Like so many other digital marketing strategies, marketing automation can be “stacked” on top of other digital marketing platforms to multiply and increase their effects. SEO, when done correctly, can be an extremely effective part of a business's marketing strategy. Another effective way to harness digital marketing channels to reach target audiences is with influencer marketing.

You can choose to send messages directly to a mobile phone by text or through messages on platforms like Facebook Messenger or WhatsApp. This practice promotes your brand and your content on social media channels to increase brand awareness, drive traffic, and generate leads for your business. For instance, you might take advantage of social media's targeting features to show social media ads to a certain audience based on variables such as age, gender, location, interests, networks, or behaviors. Alternatively, you might use PPC or SEO strategies to serve ads to users who've shown interest in your product or service, or who've searched for specific keywords that relate to your industry. With the right digital marketing platform, you can gain a better understanding of what type of content resonates with your customers across platforms.

Direct response is a type of marketing designed to elicit an instant response by encouraging prospects to take a specific action. WhatsApp is used by 1.5 billion people worldwide every month, followed by Facebook Messenger and WeChat. Therefore to be where your audience is, instant messaging marketing is helpful. Affiliate marketing is a popular way for people to make money online these days.

Public sector organizations use digital marketing to better understand citizens’ needs, facilitate communication and identify segments most likely to be interested in public programs and services. But they also have the opportunity to create personalized, relevant communications and content to develop deep relationships with customers Digtal Marketinf based on ongoing interactions. This includes both paid advertising on social networks and organic social media amplification where companies aim to gain visibility through content shared by social media feeds and pages which are owned media. Earned social media is where a brand or social update is shared by a publisher or partner.

Search engine marketing - Search engine marketing is a form of Internet marketing that involves the promotion of websites by increasing their visibility in search engine results pages primarily through paid advertising. SEM may incorporate Search engine optimization, which adjusts or rewrites website content and site architecture to achieve a higher ranking in search engine results pages to enhance pay per click listings. You'll learn all about it—including how to plan your content marketing strategy and how to create "perfect" content—here.

This short definition helps remind us that it is the results delivered by technology that should determine investment in digital marketing, not the adoption of the technology! Later in this explainer, we'll show how you can simplify management of digital marketing channels to six key channels that are relevant for every business from the smallest to the largest. That's why we recommend developing an integrated digital marketing strategy, so your digital marketing works hard for you! With your integrated plan in place, digital will become part of your marketing activity and part of business as usual. This is useful to get agreement and buy-in by showing the opportunities and problems. At this stage, you can map out a path by setting goals and specific strategies for digital.

That said, since I’ll talk about online marketing in a separate guide, I’ll only mention the different areas of online marketing here for the sake of completeness. That’s because Google and Facebook generate more revenue than any traditional media company. The Digital Marketing Institute delivers unparalleled learning experiences.

In this course, you’ll learn the value of marketing data and trending technologies. So, digital marketing is about utilizing digital technology to achieve marketing objectives. There is no essential need for digital to always be separate from the marketing department as a whole, as the objectives of both are the same.

A master’s degree in digital marketing may be useful but is not necessary to get into the digital marketing field. Digital marketing can be interactive and is often used to target specific segments of the customer base. Learn more about how to get digital marketing working for you in our co-authored white paper with Harvard Business Review ,Designing a Marketing Organization for the Digital Age. Digital marketing can be used for acquisition, nurturing, building customer loyalty, and branding.