What is Digital Marketing?
Digital marketing is essentially promoting your brand and connecting with your customers online, or in digital spaces. The strategies and tactics that make up digital marketing are countless and can take various forms. In traditional marketing, we might look at billboards or direct mail – whereas in digital marketing we see tactics and platforms such as websites, video marketing, email marketing, content marketing, social media marketing… And the list keeps growing!
Digital marketing tactics
Digital marketing tactics are numerous and constantly evolving. We will briefly introduce some examples and provide you with links to other related insightful resources.
- SEO
Nearly 93% of all web traffic comes through search engines. Search engine optimisation (SEO) is an essential marketing tactic or channel in the digital toolkit. Think about it, as a number of actions that you can take to boost the presence of your website on search engines. You can achieve this by updating your content regularly, using better keywords and adding relevant metadata, among other activities. It should also be taken into consideration that Google, is the most utilized search engine in the UK and all across the world – so maintaining a website and releasing content that meets their defined standards for quality and user experience is vital
- Social media marketing
Social media marketing provides you with multiple platforms you can use to market your business and engage with potentially a large subset of your target audience. The results can be rewarding in terms of brand awareness and response. Social media marketing can be both “organic” and paid – you can build a following and drive traffic to your website simply by putting the work in, or you can boost your awareness and the probability of people seeing and engaging with your content by sponsoring posts.
- Conversion rate optimisation
Conversion rate optimisation (CRO), in simple terms, is how well crafted your online content is to prompt an action from the visitor. The higher your conversion rate, the more leads, subscribers or sales you get from your website.
- Content marketing
Content marketing refers to any kind of content that you produce to drive traffic to your site and engage with your audience. You can achieve this by creating valuable content that helps your potential customers. This content can take many forms, including blog posts, infographics, videos etc.
- Email marketing
Email marketing is a digital marketing tactic that has been around for a long time, but it still can be very effective. It’s a channel where you can share company updates, highlight your content or promote new offerings. Done in the right way, it can be an effective strategy for lead generation.
How does digital marketing work for B2B organisations?
The difference between B2C and B2B marketing is noticeable in how they are engaging with prospective customers. . B2C marketing targets the needs, interests and challenges of individual customers. Whereas B2B marketing focuses on individuals – who are making purchases on behalf of, or for their organisation. Despite B2C marketing being seemingly the most prominent in the digital marketing landscape as we go about our daily lives, B2B marketing requires a strong digital presence.
For example in B2B, the decision-making process tends to be longer in B2B deals. The decision lies in more than one person input and the sales funnel tends to become longer. As a result, digital marketing allows you to reach your audience across multiple touchpoints, and provide them with vital detail they will be looking for when researching solutions to their problems.
The benefits of Digital Marketing
Digital marketing goes further! The benefits of digital marketing are huge – just the fact of being able to market your business online provides you with a broad geographic reach. In addition, any action or decision taken in digital marketing is supported by quantitative data – you are able to directly track and measure your site’s traffic, visitor interactions, clicks, impressions and engagement through powerful tools such as Analytics. Depending on the tactic, digital marketing can also prove to be more cost-effective than traditional marketing, when you consider how many people you could potentially reach.
Another key factor is personalisation – enabling you to greet customers with targeted offers and be much more strategic – the more you know the better. Thanks to digital, you can also curate an open and human brand for your business – in the form of well-managed social media platforms, that will translate into a strong customer loyalty base and engagement. Being online means social currency – your engaging campaigns and content will keep your presence fizzy and in motion, helping you to ultimately improve your conversion rate. Online content is here to stay, and this is why digital marketing is the marketing of the present and of course the future.
In conclusion
As we have summarised in this article, digital marketing encompasses a wide variety of tactics, channels and strategies. All of these create ample opportunity to showcase your business and connect with your customers. Marketing has always been about connecting with your potential customers – and the digital space gives you more ways to do this.
About Inflowing
Inflowing is a B2B marketing agency. We help B2B organisations do meaningful things with marketing – whether that’s getting more leads, more visibility, or supporting their sales teams.
We’re an experienced team of marketers with an incredibly strong background in B2B. To learn more about B2B and improving your marketing, check out our other blogs or get in touch.
