What is Digital Marketing – How to get started

What is Digital Marketing?

What is Digital Marketing? the word Digital Marketing – can be broken into two parts – Digital and Marketing. Digital means online whereas, marketing – means everything companies do to sell their products and services to the customer. They market products and services via paid and organic methods. Paid efforts include ads, sponsorships and, organic efforts include blogs, SEO, among other things. Don’t worry we, will cover these topics later during the course. 

Why Study Digital Marketing? 

Studying Digital Marketing is no longer an option but a necessity to grow your business and outreach exponentially. As per the statistics, a massive 4.66 billion people use the internet today worldwide. It means they consume content, products and services online. Any business, whether small or big, should have an online presence to welcome the digital customer.

Benefits of Digital Marketing

• A massive opportunity to reach out the customers worldwide
• Reach more customers at a fraction of a cost
• Build brand loyalty around your company
• Measure your marketing efforts
• Get prompt customer feedback on your products and services
• An in-demand skill that can help you get your next exciting job

Important Tools to Use

Digital Marketing success depends on using the right tools from the beginning.

1. WordPress

Did you know that 40% of all the websites in the world use WordPress as their preferred hosting platform? Examples include BBC America, Sony Music, The NYC times, TED, PlayStation, The Walt Disney Company.

There are other platforms like – GoDaddy, HostLinger, Blue Host. I would suggest that you go with WordPress for valid reasons. As I mentioned, 40% of the world uses this platform, including the top brands, which prove they are good. Again, go with the one you are most comfortable with after doing your research. We will go into details of WordPress in the “How to Make a Website” lesson.

2.  Google Search Console

This is another crucial tool. Register for it. Also, integrate your website with the search console as soon as you can. Google Search Console helps you make your website stand out in Google Search Engine to monitor your site traffic and improve its performance. You must audit your site for issues so that you can fix them immediately.

3. Google Analytics

Google Analytics lets you measure your advertising ROI as well as track your Flash, video, and social networking sites and applications. Make sure that you learn to set up Google Analytics correctly and then integrate your site with it. Monitoring your site at least once a week is a good practice if you are starting. 

4. Keywords Planner

There are over 3.5 billion searches made on Google every day or four lakh queries per second. Keywords Planner is a tool that helps you to target your audience for your products and services or your content. For example, you wish to write your next blog post but do not know what you should write. With the keywords planner, you can check the words people are looking for the most and write about that topic.

5. Google Trends

Using a Keywords Planner is not enough for you to make your content strategy. This tool tells you the search volume for a particular word each month. However, trends help you to understand the seasonality of the searched terms. For example, people will search for Diwali more during the Diwali season and IPL during the IPL season each year. Trends help you to remain relevant. After all, you do not want to write a blog post on – How to use an Umbrella in December.

6. Canva

Creating valuable content is the cornerstone of success in digital marketing. However, making valuable content stand out by polishing it can build trust and authority for you or your brand. Canva is a free tool that helps you to create engaging infographics and visuals. You do not need a graphic designer to get started. Just discover the designer in you!

7. HootSuite

It is mandatory to use social media to succeed in your digital marketing journey. It applies to freelancers, small business owners and multinational companies.

Posting messages every day on every platform like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn can be a headache. It is also time-consuming and not smart work. HootSuite is a platform that helps you to manage all your posts from one platform. You can even schedule your posts and monitor audience engagement from one dashboard. 

Glossary Of Terms

SEM (Search Engine Marketing)

As the name suggests, it is related to marketing on search engines. It has two components – SEO, also known as Search Engine Optimization and Paid Search Adverts.

SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

Refers to optimization tactics that marketers use to improve their ranking on search engines without spending a penny on advertising. So, the website traffic generated via SEO is also called organic traffic. 

Paid Search Adverts

refers to placing ads at various places online to drive traffic to a website to grow sales and revenue. For example, the Google PPC model – also known as Pay Per Click.

Social Media Marketing

Marketing to a specific audience that visits social media channels like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube, among many other platforms.

Content Marketing

is related to creating content for a specific target audience and sharing valuable content consistently. It leads to building trust and, eventually, a sale to the end customer.

Mobile Marketing

Creating content that works well for the mobile audience. It is crucial because at least 4 billion people browse the internet on their mobile phones. The content could be organic or paid to drive customer action.

Email Marketing

One of the best assets for a marketer is to use email marketing. It is related to lead generation or email list building and sending content to generate revenue.

Lead Generation

What is a lead? Anyone who shows interest in your products or services is a lead. But this definition is not enough. We need to dig deeper to understand the topic better. There are two things that people consider as a lead. First one – for example – you are browsing your social media accounts. Take this mini-quiz to know your English fluency. You take the quiz and, 2-3 days later, get an email from the company that placed the post. They offer you a seven day trial of their English lessons. This example can be called a lead.

Another example: you are having lunch at home. Suddenly you get a call from a company offering a course in English at no cost for seven days. You ask them – How did you get my mobile number? The company tells you that they got your number from a database they maintain. Do you think this is a lead? Take a moment. This example is not a lead. It is a cold call from a company that bought the so-called list of random numbers to call people.

In short, leads are those people who have shown expressed interest in your products and services. So, the logical question is – how do you generate leads online? There are various ways to do this. First, via blogs – you can write a blog post and at the end of the blog – you can have a CTA – also known as a call to action.

What Is CTA?

A CTA is one particular action that you want your website or content visitors to take. Always remember that one blog should have only one CTA.

Tip: Lead Generation

Another way to generate leads is through social media. For example, you can create a compelling post on Facebook and add a form for visitors to fill up in exchange for something valuable. For example, an eBook or a cheat list. When the visitors fill this form, they become a lead. You can send them emails later on and convert them to paying customers.

Lead Generation Summary

A lot of people think that lead generation means simply collecting email addresses and or phone numbers. But this is not true. You could already have a database of 1000 email subscribers who have agreed to receive your monthly newsletter. But this does not mean that they will buy your products and services. You can send an attractive offer to these 1000 subscribers and, say, 100 show an interest in your products. These 100 will be your leads generated via email marketing.

Viral Marketing

Another method to generate leads is through Viral marketing – also known as word-of-mouth or referral marketing. It could be UGC or user-generated content on social media or products promoted by an individual or company on social platforms. An example of UGC – you go to a fancy restaurant, order some lip-smacking food and take pictures.

Then you post these pictures on your Instagram and tag the restaurant. You even use the official and popular hashtags to get more likes and comments on your post. As a result, the restaurant also gets more visibility and customers. The restaurant, on the other hand, can run a giveaway campaign for a week. For example, they could say that whoever has the most likes on their Instagram pictures with the official Hashtags get an amazon voucher for 2000 rupees!

How do you go about Lead Generation?

Lead generation should reflect the customer purchase journey in the digital world. You should make the right move at the right stage for maximum effect. At first, any visitor on the web is a stranger. Neither the stranger nor the company knows about the presence of each other on the internet.

The Process

The stranger looks for some information or browses the internet as a pass time. So, the first task of companies and freelancers is to attract strangers to their products and services. They do this by providing valuable content like blogs, social media posts using the keywords that the strangers are typing on the google search engine.

Next, these strangers come across the content posted by the companies. As soon as they interact with your content, they become visitors. They also see the landing pages, CTAs and forms attached to the content. While some visitors leave you right then and there, a handful chooses to share their contact details with you – phone number and email address. As soon as they do that, they become leads.

Lastly, you send your offer via email or phone and close the sale. Once they have purchased from you, they become customers. As a freelancer or a digital marketer, you must make sure that you retain the customer and keep them happy with after-sales service. Proper customer care and custom content tailored especially for current customers will make sure they engage with you. The more you engage with them, the more they stay loyal to your brand or you!

Summary so far

1. What is Digital Marketing?
2. Why study Digital Marketing?
3. Benefits of Digital  Marketing
4. Important Tools to Use
5. Glossary of Terms
6. Lead Generation  
7. How do you go about Lead Generation

What is a Landing Page?

A landing page is where website visitors first land. This page can or cannot be part of your website. It is where you display your offer to your visitors in exchange for their contact information. The purpose of having a landing page is to generate leads for your business.

What is a Good Landing Page?

An effective landing page is the backbone of online marketing success. You might spend thousands of rupees with perfect ad placements on social media. But, without good landing pages, you will not be able to convert. A good landing page is engaging and well designed. It has persuasive sales copy or words that persuade the prospects to buy. It has a value proposition that compels visitors to give their contact information.

Conversion can mean getting your contact information. For another marketer, it could be making you buy something from them. For someone else, it could be making you download an e-book. Make sure you use a good colour combination. Landing pages must be not only soothing but attractive to the visitor. Good contrast between the action buttons and the background of the images is crucial. 

Remember that less is more when it comes to landing pages. Putting a lot of information can distract the visitors and also confuse them. Crisp, clear and concise messages on the landing pages with a single call to actions is more effective.

Tips

Make sure that the value proposition you are offering to your visitors is clear and loud. Visitors should know upfront why they are on the landing page and how they will benefit from their visit. An example of a value proposition can be – a free business plan template to scale your small business.

Also, social proof adds to the credibility and authority of the landing pages. For example, you can add testimonials of your previous customers, social media likes and positive comments. If you have worked with brands, you can use their logos on your landing page to generate trust and authority.

What is the Difference Between a Landing Page and a Website?

It is one of the most common question asked. Your website is a central hub from where people can choose to do different things. The homepage is not a destination rather an entry point to your web pages. There is a good reason why it is called the homepage. The purpose of a homepage is to tell the visitors what they can expect to see on the website.

A landing page is a destination. You do not want them to go anywhere else. You want to make sure that they help you achieve your goal. A website has an about us page, products and services page or a store. A landing page is a page that helps you put your main objective in front of the customer. It has a compelling value proposition that a visitor cannot miss.

Do You Need a Website for a Landing Page?

The answer is no. You do not need a website to build a landing page. However, it is good that you have a landing page that is part of a website.

Landing Page Templates

Many providers offer you landing page templates but, those can cost you money. For example, Elementor, Divi Builder, Beaver Builder, Seed Pro charge a monthly subscription. I suggest that you start with free templates. You can search for them on Google and download the creatives to get an idea. 

Landing Page Builder – How to Create a Landing Page?

using PluginOps – However, start with HubSpot.

Once you install the Plug-in, you will see this page. Here you can see that you have several different goals that are associated with landing pages. For example, the conversion could be generating leads or maybe a click-through rate. Generate sales or create a teaser for your next project. You want to hook your prospect.

Testing your landing pages is very important to succeed in conversions. Make sure that you try different variations of the landing pages to get optimum results. It is also known as AB testing. It means to show different variations of a landing page to the prospects or visitors. Eventually, you want to keep that page in operation that gives the best results. For example, you have two variations of a landing page. You know that you can convert better with variation A, then we should keep that version for your future purposes. When creating variations in landing pages, do not try to make enough changes between the two pages. Some marketers keep at least 5-7 variations of their landing pages.

Another word of advice, AB testing is not available for free on most of the landing page builder tools. For example, on PluginOps, you will have to be a premium member. The same is the case with HubSpot. So, I suggest that even though you can use free tools to create landing pages, you will have to spend money to get the AB testing feature. I would go for Elementor. It costs $49 for one website for a year.

Summary So Far

1. What is a Landing Page and, How It Works?
2. What is a Good Landing Page?
3. What is the Difference Between a Landing Page and a Website?
4. Do You Need a Website for a Landing Page?
5. How to Create a Landing Page? 
6. AB Testing 

Classification of Leads

When a visitor subscribes to your newsletter, they become subscribers. Next, these subscribers visit your website but, you do not know their intent. These visitors are your leads. Once these leads give you their phone numbers and identify the intent, they become marketing qualified lead or MQL. For example, a potential student goes to a university website and fills the admission form. It clearly shows his intention to get admission to the university. Similarly, you can identify the visitor intent by the actions they take on your website. 

A Marketing-Qualified Lead is a person who is interested in engaging with your business via the marketing channels. They are not yet ready to engage with your sales teams. Once these leads show explicit interest in your business and ask the sales teams to call, they become sales qualified leads. For example, when the student reaches out to the “contact us” page and messages the university “call me”. It is a clear direction that he is interested in a sales call.

As soon as they become SQL or sales qualified leads, their information is sent to sales representatives to qualify the leads further. Salespeople qualify these leads. They get all the required information to decide whether customers are willing and able to purchase the products and services. As the lead pass through the SQL stage, they become an opportunity.

Digital Marketing – Socia Media

What Is Meant by Social Media Marketing?

Social Media Marketing means using social media networks or channels to engage with current customers and convert prospective customers. It also means to increase brand awareness and share the company brand communication with its audience.

What Are The Examples of Social Media Marketing?

Nyka – Instagram -2.1 m followers with 10K + posts. Zomato – 434k followers on Instagram and, they have a great engagement rate. If you thought that social media is all about Facebook and Instagram, then think again. For example, Larsen and Tubro have a massive 23 lakhs + followers where they engage with their audience. Anand Mahindra, the Chairman of Mahindra Group of Companies, has a massive 8.3 million followers on his Twitter handle.

In short, there are many platforms where you can engage with your audience to promote your products and services. You can educate them about things and share exciting updates that can add value for them.

What Skills Do You Need For Social Media Marketing?

Copywriting

Copywriting is the number one skill you will need to succeed in social media. The copy has to be informative, engaging or exciting. In short, it should be worth the likes and shares. So, start practising that right away on your social media platforms.

Curating and Creating

You should invest time in learning how to craft compelling continent for your social media platforms. A study done by HubSpot suggests that Social media posts, videos and news information are the top three categories that will dominate social media.

Adapt and Learn

Social media trends changed on an everyday basis. They are as dynamic as the mood of the social media audience. If you want to learn social media marketing, you should be ready to adjust and adapt. Making quick changes as per the current trends and audience preferences is one of the keys to success in this line of work.

Planning and Scheduling

One of the rules of succeeding in social media is being consistent. In short, you need to make sure that you are posting across all the relevant channels regularly and not missing on your schedule. You do not want your audience hanging, not knowing when you will publish next. It is where the planning and scheduling of social media posts come into the picture.

Connecting with Audience

Listening to the audience and understanding them is a crucial skill in social media marketing. Learn to identify who your target audience is. Where do they reside online, what content they prefer to see, and at what time they visit these platforms? By taking care of all of these aspects, you will connect with your audience and succeed in your social media marketing efforts.

Analytics

Working towards a social media strategy is nice. Posting content consistently and connecting with the audience is commendable. But all this will amount to nothing if you do not know how to audit your social media platforms. Social media audit helps you understand what went well, what did not, what you need to shut down and what you can double down. It means producing more of what the audience already likes. Understanding the key insights and implementing those changes in a social media marketing plan will help you succeed in your efforts.

Budgeting

In the initial stages of growing your social media account, you will focus on organic posts. Focus on content for which you will not pay the social media platforms. In short, create engaging content and grow traffic organically. However, as you grow, you will take the help of paid ads too. You will have to learn how to budget ad spend allocated for social media activities throughout the year. You will have to learn how to show a return of investment (ROI) on the advertising budget to the top management.

Where can I learn social media skills?

There are tons of resources available online for you to get started in social media marketing. Begin with experimenting on your platforms. Try to create a different type of post on all of these platforms. See the kind of response you are getting from your audience. It is the best way to learn about social media.

Another way to get a foot inside the social media domain is to join a reputable company to volunteer for them. Go on to LinkedIn and look for companies that are looking for social media interns and apply for this position. You can also offer free services so that it will increase your acceptability.

Is social media marketing a good career?

Total of 448 million social media users in India in Jan 2021. Over the last year, social media usage has increased by 78 % in the country. It simply means that there is a massive opportunity and growth in the social media marketing segment. So, if you are looking for a career in social media marketing, the answer is yes, it is a great option to choose.

The average pay of a social media marketing employee is around 30,000 rupees ($410) per month which can go up to 60,000 ($800) to 75,000 rupees  ($1000) per month. Marketing leaders can expect to earn over a lakh per month.

How much should I charge for social media marketing?

While there is no fixed answer to this question, a lot depends on your duties in the department. For example, the number of social accounts you will be handling. Posts you have to manage each day. The industry you are working for, hours you have to contribute each day. However, you can charge 2,000 to 2,500 rupees per social media platform. It can go up to 60,000 to 70,000 rupees per month as a freelancer.

Social Media Tools

If you are serious about growing your presence on social media, work as a freelancer or an employee, you have to learn about social media tools. These tools help you save a lot of time. They also help you put things in context and bring together all your social media accounts on one dashboard.

BuzzSumo

This tool gives you a 30-days free trial period, no credit card required. Take this opportunity and use the tool to leverage your game. If you want to start a blog and create engaging content, then BuzzSumo is the place for you to go. This tool helps you to find out trending content. BuzzSumo gives you a report on your social media performance. The paid version starts at $79 per month.

Google Trends

It is a free tool to check the recent trends and the keywords that are buzzing right now. Companies constantly use Google trends to keep up with the latest happenings in the industry. Curate and create content around it. Do not forget to check the volume of each keyword for which you are trying to rank.

Social Analytics

Go on to Facebook analytics or insights and Twitter analytics to see how your posts are performing. See what your audience likes and does not. Identify the best time of the day and the best day in the week to post a particular type of content. Use the insights feature of Instagram once you turn your profile from individual to professional or business. This tool breaks down your audience ideal posting time, your reach, engagement and impressions. Check reports on reels, stories and long format videos.

Social Media Strategy

What is a social media strategy?

Social media strategy is a document that holds your social media goals. The tactics you use to achieve those goals and the performance metrics you use to measure your efforts.

How do you develop social media strategy?

Mostly we talk about likes, comments and shares when it comes to the performance metrics of our social media content. However, there is more to it. Focus on engagement Click-Through Rate (CTR) and conversion rates. Engagement rate means how often your audience interacts with you with likes, share and comments. Click-Through Rate is the percentage of people who click on your content, compared to those who see it on their timeline, also known as impressions. Lastly, conversion rates tell us how many visitors we were able to turn into customers. In short, how many people take the action you want them to take on your content.

Identifying The Target Audience

Identifying your target audience is no easy job.  Try to find out about things like their age, sex, income, habits and hobbies. It is also known as a buyer persona. In short, how would your ideal customer be? The better you know your target audience, the higher your chances of succeeding at your social media strategy.

For example, youngsters hang out on Facebook and Instagram. Corporate professionals hang out on LinkedIn or Twitter. Similarly, a visual brand like Myntra will have a presence on Instagram and Pinterest.

Next, find out where the competition is. You can start with the Google Keyword Planner. List down all the keywords for which you want to rank. Next, go onto their website and try to learn more about their products and services. At the bottom of the page, you will see the social handles. What kind of posts are they posting? What time of the day they post? Also, do not forget to check out their followers. Maybe, you have some mutual followers. See what the followers are interacting with on their website.

Content Strategy

Next, you want to make sure that you have a content strategy in place. For example, 80% of your posts should educate, entertain or inform the audiences. 20% of the posts should promote your products and services on your website.

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