What is Digital Marketing & Why Should You Care?

“What exactly is digital marketing?” is a common question that business people, marketers, bloggers, and the general public think about every time they decide to start a new marketing campaign, or attend a seminar about online marketing. It is also a common topic of discussion among friends who plan on doing digital marketing but don’t know what to do, where to focus, or how to get good results. 

This article will help you understand digital marketing, or what many people call “online marketing.” It’s a booming marketing strategy in the digital 4.0 era, where technology plays a crucial role in the lives of all phases of customers via smartphones, tablets, computers, and other smart devices.

What Is Digital Marketing and Why Is It So Important to Marketing Today?

Digital marketing, also known as online marketing, is a marketing technique conducted through digital media on online platforms. It is usually consumed on internet-connected devices such as smartphones, tablets, computers, and IoT devices. It can take the form of messages, articles, images, and videos on platforms such as Google, social media, apps, emails, and websites, among other places, to communicate to a targeted audience.

The reason why new business owners, corporations, and even government organizations are increasingly turning toward digital marketing is because consumers are accessing information through online platforms. According to data from We Are Social and Hootsuite, in 2021, Thai people spent an average of 8 hours and 48 minutes per day accessing media on the internet with 60.2 percent through mobile devices, 37.4 percent through computers, and 2.3 percent through tablets.

7 Highly Effective Digital Marketing Channels

Now, let’s look at some of the most effective digital marketing channels that you may or may not have heard of. This will allow you to choose the right channels for your business to make your brand known, generate interest in your target customers, and make it easier for them to continually purchase your products and services. Here are the seven channels:

1. Social Media Platforms

Whether it’s children, working adults or the elderly, everyone is on social media at all times. It could be Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Line, or even Tiktok, which has become increasingly popular among teenagers. This has led many brands to take social media marketing more seriously over the years as they see a lot of opportunities from that channel. 

Here are a few interesting statistics about social media that have helped fuel the growing interest into social media platforms:

• The average person has eight social media accounts.
• The average amount of time Thai people spend on social media each day is 2 hours and 48 minutes.
• Fifty-five million Thais, or 78.7 percent of the country's population, use social media.

Marketers often use social media to reach their primary audience by creating content or paid ad campaigns that match their audience’s preferences and interests. Although different social media platforms have different characteristics, marketers can determine how their content is distributed by targeting audiences by defining their gender, age, occupation, interests, and other related factors. 

Social media is a great way to promote products or services to your customers or anyone who is already following your fan page or account. It can also be used to engage with existing customers who have bought your product or services. It is always a great channel for answering your customers' questions honestly and suggesting useful information to them. This will give your customers a positive experience of your brand and business.

2. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Search engine optimization or SEO is one of the most popular methods of digital marketing and is often coupled with other digital marketing strategies like content marketing. It is an important area for businesses to focus on because any time consumers want to find out information about a product or service, they immediately go to Google for answers. In fact:

• 99 percent of Thai people use search engines to find what they are looking for via the Internet.
• 60.2 percent of Thai people access websites via mobile phones.

If your business can effectively conduct SEO by optimizing your website for Google searches, your product or service will likely climb to the top three results. In the long run, this will directly affect the sales and profitability of your business throughout the SEO campaign.

3. Content Marketing

Content marketing allows marketing teams to proactively answer user questions. By creating content in forms such as articles, images, videos, and anything else that answers questions or makes consumers understand what brands are talking about, businesses can help people at every step of the buyer’s journey. There are three stages:

1. Awareness stage:  The buyer knows they want something
2. Consideration stage: The buyer looks for channels to meet their needs
3. Decision stage: The buyer decides to buy a product or service to meet their needs

Let’s go through an example of the buyer’s journey. A consumer is looking for new glasses that can filter out blue light and that aren’t too expensive. Later, he sees an ad from an optical shop that says, "We have new lenses that can filter blue light and UV light; the lenses darken and lighten according to the brightness of light."

In the beginning, the consumer may not have been very interested in these particular lenses. But when he searched for more information to make a decision, he became more inclined to consider the options he found, although they might have been more expensive than the lenses he originally intended to buy.

4. Pay-Per-Click (PPC)

Pay-per-click It is a type of paid ad advertising done on Google popularly known as Google PPC. Every time someone clicks on a link on a search results page on the first page of Google, the marketer who placed the ad is charged a small fee. The cost of the ad more or less depends on the budget set by the marketer when they set up their campaign.

5. Influencer Marketing

Influencer marketing is one of the most effective methods of digital marketing in an era where people look up to the people they see online. The more active brands are with celebrities, singers, athletes, or industry professionals whose lifestyles suit their brand’s products and services, the better. These influencers are magnets who attract their followers to your product or service. In fact, nine out of ten consumers say that influencer marketing makes them feel better about a particular brand than they do through other channels.

6. Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is a type of performance-based marketing in which a business rewards one or more affiliates for each visitor or customer brought by the affiliate's own marketing efforts. Imagine that a friend gives you a referral code for you to purchase whatever product or service that they are using. The friend who gave the code will then receive a reward or compensation for your purchase of that product. 

It can be said that affiliate marketing is a marketing that helps reduce costs because it relies on affiliates to promote the products and services. However, it's important to keep in mind that your brand's reputation is in the hands of others. Therefore, you need to closely monitor and follow up on how things are going.

7. Email Marketing

Email marketing is a great way for brands to not only reach their current customers but also reach potentially new customers. These emails come with proposals that are tailored to the customer’s purchase history or subject matter they’ve previously asked about or shown interest in.

For example, a brand sends out an email with a 20 percent discount attached to a product that a customer has previously added to their favorites or has put it in the cart to wait for payment. This encourages customers to make an easier purchase of a particular product or service, with nearly 60 percent of consumers reporting that the offers they receive via email play a huge part in their immediate purchases.

Improve Your Digital Marketing Skills at True Digital Park House of Digital Academy

After reading this article, you should be able to understand how important digital marketing is for doing business today. Whether you are a large company, SME, or startup just starting to build your business, you should be marketing through all of the seven channels above. This will help you not only create more awareness for your business but also promote and help maintain a good relationship with customers.

If you’re working in digital marketing and would like to improve your skills, we offer courses at True Digital Park House of Digital Academy throughout the year to help you grow and excel in the digital era. View all courses.