For my upcoming free Webinar, “Get Your Digital Marketing Questions Answered,” I put out a call for your top digital marketing questions.
The questions are starting to roll in, and they range from the specific, such as how to connect with fans using Instagram, to the broad, What is digital marketing?
I’ve also gone online to Quora, a question and answer website, and perused questions posted by users about digital, and social media marketing. Many of the questions reflect those being submitted to me, and point to the fact that we are all trying to figure out the same puzzle, what exactly is digital marketing, and how do we best use it to expand our business reach?
Before I get to the Top 10 Digital Marketing Questions, I’ll answer the broader question of what is digital marketing.
The Beginnings of Digital Marketing
The term digital marketing was used as early as the 1990s to describe electronic and online activities to market a business. The online Business Dictionary defines it as using electronic media for the “promotion of products or brands.” Its definition of electronic media includes digital billboards, and digital, television and radio channels.
So digital marketing really includes any electronic means to market a business, as long as the content, whether it be an image, text, audio or video, can be transmitted via the Internet or computer networks.
However, for many people, digital marketing encompassed mainly the use of social media and content to reach consumers.
Clearly, an overall effective digital marketing strategy includes much more than social media, SEO and blogging. To really have a comprehensive online marketing plan, you must consider all available digital tools and mediums.
The Components of Digital Marketing
So, what does digital marketing include?
To digitally market your business is to utilize any digital or Internet accessible portal to increase your brand presence and reach consumers. Digital marketing mediums and methods include:
- Social media networks
- Video sharing sites (YouTube, Vimeo)
- Image sharing sites (Flickr, Google Photos)
- Blog sites
- Company Websites
- Industry related Websites
- Professional networking sites
- Directory listings
- Mobile and desktop apps, and smart devices
- SMS and instant messaging
Which Digital Media Should I Use in My Strategy?
Budget is the biggest factor that affects what digital media to use in marketing your business. Normally, television and radio advertising is more expensive than social media, or other types of digital media advertising. Social media marketing, including video, is, for the most part, still free to use to access consumers. Advertising is also low-cost on these platforms.
But to really pinpoint what medium you use in your digital marketing strategy is to conduct thorough research and create a strategy that is fine-tuned to your business needs. You can read this post 3 Simple Steps to Create an Effective Digital Marketing Strategy to start working on research and strategy. You can also sign up for my book Create a Successful Digital Marketing Strategy, which will be published soon.
Top 10 Digital Marketing Questions
Now let’s take a look at the Top 10 questions about digital marketing that I received so far.
What I would like you to do is to choose the most important 5 questions to you from this list. The top 3 questions from this poll I will cover in my Webinar. I will answer the remain 7 questions after the Webinar in several followup blog posts.
Sign up for the free live Webinar here:
You can submit new questions as well, which I’ll answer in future blogs posts or webinars.