Excerpt: Are you ready to start changing your marketing strategies to adapt to the newly configured consumer behaviors of 2021?
In the past decade, we’ve seen major developments in the way marketers have been promoting and selling their products or services. The changes came in quick-fire bursts, faster and more exacting than anything that occurred in the century previous, where the biggest changes in marketing had come with the emergence of radio and television advertisements.
And, that’s not even considering the dramatic shifts that occurred just in the past year as a result of the global pandemic. Now, we’re moving even closer, even faster, towards a new digital age. There’s no denying it any longer. Marketing has always been a game of seeking channels where you can connect with your audience, and the channel of today is, undoubtedly, the internet. And for that? You’ll need to start investing in Digital Marketing.
What is Digital Marketing? | The Basics
Digital marketing, to put it very simply, is any form of marketing that takes place online. We’ve provided a list of the most popular types below, along with an explanation for each:
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO): The main goal of SEO is to increase brand awareness through Google Search Results and, as a result, increase the traffic to your business’s official website. This particular type of digital marketing is accomplished by producing content around certain ‘keywords’ and ‘phrases’ for better searchability.
- Social Media Marketing: This term encompasses all marketing performed via social media channels. For the most part, it is accomplished by making use of data-driven strategies to effectively engage with your audience through comments and posts.
- Pay-per-Click (PPC): Pay-Per-Click is the practice of using paid advertisements and promoted search engine results to, once again, increase brand visibility.
- Content Marketing: Content Marketing is the practice of creating e-books, white papers, podcasts, tutorials, etc. with the intent of nurturing your relationships with your audience.
- Email Marketing: The goal of Email Marketing is to create compelling campaigns based on data-driven strategies to encourage the receiver of the email to open the email and, in the best-case scenario, click the link inside of the email.
- Mobile Marketing: A very broad term that encompasses any type of marketing that is intended to reach your target audience through their mobile device (whether through SMS, push notifications, mobile applications, etc.)
Why Does Digital Marketing Matter?
Now to get to the crux of the matter. In the end, digital marketing is no different from most other types of marketing out there. The goal is still to connect and engage with customers.
The main difference between traditional and digital marketing is the fact it is easier to cast a wider ‘net’, so to speak, or reach a larger audience, because of the free availability of the internet. It’s also a lot more cost-effective, which is always a bonus.
But, these are known, historical advantages. No, the reason why you should invest in digital marketing services in 2021, specifically, is because of the changes brought about by the global pandemic. After all the shutdowns and the social distancing limitations, consumer behaviors have shifted dramatically, and the implications thereof point to digital advertising being the solution. As a business, all you can do is accept this so-called “digital transformation” and join as companies of all sizes invest a significant amount of their resources in migrating to digital platforms to reach an audience that has become more accustomed to shopping online.
Because of this, now, more than ever, it’s important to invest in digital marketing services like Maropost, which are capable of simplifying customer engagement across all channels — allowing for ‘omnichannel marketing’ strategies that unify the customer journey to drive better and stronger relationships.
The Bottom Line | Invest Today!
In the words of Ross Andrew Paquette, the CEO of Maropost, or the aforementioned, well-known digital marketing services provider: “At the end of the day, your average marketing strategy will probably nab you a customer at least once. But remember that that’s not the end goal. You need to satisfy and, ultimately, meet every single one of your customer’s expectations to get them to come back and buy from you again and again.”
And for 2021? Doing so means adapting to the rapidly changing consumer behaviors and accepting the new digital age.