Digital marketing. Just another one of those new, rich buzzwords you should use to sound smart in meetings, or is it the real deal?
Maybe a better question is:
what is digital marketing?
This digital marketing guide will show you what’s what.
First popularized as a term in the early 2000s, digital marketing has been around much longer.
Like, WAY longer. About 100 years longer
His name: Guglielmo Marconi.
What? Marconi?
Yup. In 1896 he was the first human to demonstrate a “public transmission of wireless signals.”
This dude invented the radio.
The digital marketing strategy was born.
I bet you’re surprised. I didn’t mention smartphones, apps, Facebook ads, or blogs at all.
That’s because digital marketing has nothing to do with the internet.
Definition
If you are wondering what digital marketing is… it’s is advertising delivered through digital channels. Channels such as social media, mobile applications, email, web applications, search engines, websites, or any new digital channel.
Or a simpler version…
Digital marketing is any form of marketing products or services that involves electronic devices.
That’s the reason it has been around for decades (because electronics have) and why it doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with content marketing, Google ads, social media, or retargeting.
Digital marketing can be done both online and offline.
And, both kinds matter for a well-rounded digital marketing strategy.
Why digital marketing matters
Remember billboards?
I do.
As a young kid in Hyderabad, my experiences from the back seat of our bike mostly alternated between: “Dad, when are we there?” and “Uh, look, PizzaHut, can we go?”, whenever one of those 10-foot billboards popped up on the side of the road.
Growing up with Indian parents, the answer to both of those would, most times, be the same: “Not yet.”
Sometimes, big brands would even start a billboard war, like this one between Audi and BMW, which got quite a few laughs.
In 2015, a ton of Business people still spent hundreds of millions of dollars on billboard advertising.
Unfortunately or fortunately, it’s dead.
Just think of it this way, Google and Facebook generate more revenue than any traditional media company because they control more eyeballs. That’s why digital marketing matters, it is where the attention is.
The reason why billboards, like the ones above, die, is perfectly illustrated in a single picture of a Volvo.
Because, frankly, the future of driving will look like this:
Not a single passenger will spend their time looking at the road.
If not even the driver is looking at the road anymore, who’s supposed to see those advertisements?
And, that’s not even considering self-driving cars, on which both Apple and Google are working (you know it’s going to happen).
That means you don’t have much time to figure out this digital marketing stuff before you can power down your old school printing press and close up shop.
The share of people spending more time using electronic devices is only going up from here.
Overview
The 2 main pillars of digital marketing are online marketing and offline marketing. That said, since I’ll talk about online marketing in a separate guide, I’ll only mention the different areas of online marketing here, for the sake of completeness.
The 7 big categories of online marketing are:
- Search engine optimization (SEO)
- Search engine marketing (SEM)
- Content marketing
- Social Media Marketing (SMM)
- Pay-per-click advertising (PPC)
- Affiliate marketing
- Email marketing
Okay, that said, what other digital marketing is there? There’s plenty, actually.
Here are the 4 big categories of digital offline marketing.
First, there’s what I call enhanced offline marketing. This is a form of marketing that is entirely offline but enhanced with electronic devices.
For example, if your restaurant uses iPads for your customers to create their orders on, then the offline experience of say, eating Thai food, is enhanced with this electronic device.
People have been using digital media to enhance their marketing for decades (you’ve only forgotten in what ways, as you’ll see).
Next, there’s radio marketing. The next time you hear an annoying, over-enthusiastic car dealer shout every word of his or her commercial, thank Mr. Marconi.
Of course, we can’t forget television marketing. TV ads have been around for more than half a century (and since 1953 also in color, nationwide – Yes, there was a time before color TV).
Finally, the biggest and fastest-growing area of offline marketing, with admittedly also a lot of flops, busts, and failures: phone marketing.
Let’s look at the 4 areas in more detail.
Enhanced offline marketing
What’s the difference between a billboard somewhere in the desert of Arizona and a billboard in New York City’s Times Square?
The size? The product?
3 letters: LED. Light-emitting diodes.
All of the billboards in Times Square are electronic!
Why? Because in the desert of Sahara, no one’s competing with you for people’s attention. If you have a billboard at all, you win.
But, in Hyderabad, attention is probably more valuable than anywhere else in the world. Over 3,30,000 people cross through it each day.
If you want to be distracted, there’s buses, taxis, promoters shouting, and then, of course, the electronic billboards.
Some of them are even interactive, showing live feeds of the people on the square or pictures of customers.
Renting a billboard space on Hyderabad, for a year, will set you back a whopping Rup.1,000,000 to Rup.4,000,000.
Sounds expensive? Wait until you hear the prices for Super Bowl commercials.
What other forms does enhanced offline marketing take?
What do you see when you walk into an Apple Store these days?
People leaning over iPads, Macbooks, and iPhones.
If you have any type of electronic product, any product demo is an important part of your digital marketing strategy.
Radio marketing
Over 100 years have passed since that original first live broadcast of the opera performance at the Met and guess what – radio is still here.
Since radio did fairly well in transitioning to the internet, it hasn’t taken as big of a hit as TV. And, even old school radio still matters.
Some facts:
- Radio still reaches 65% of the Indian population every week
- Listeners listen 2 hrs per day, on average
- 40% of all radio advertising expenses worldwide comes from India
- About half the population of the Indian listens to internet radio at least once a month
Now, while profits have shrunk, the radio isn’t dead. Thanks to Pandora’s 80 million users, there are still about $4 billion in profits made each year.
But, aside from creating a kick-ass, creative radio commercial that will do well, what else is there?
Recently, internet radio made a good move, doing what most podcasts do: advertise at the beginning of shows.
If you host a show revolving around a certain topic, like coaching, you can plug programs and products in, right before and at the end of the show.
Since social media is the marketing darling these days, it should be fairly easy to find a local radio station, get on a show, be interviewed, or negotiate a deal with them.
Once you do, be sure to get some sponsorships, to make sure that you’re a prime candidate for the station and that they give you the premium slot and the best air time possible.
In most cases, doing well on radio means being entertaining.
Cadillac and Dairy Queen are two brands that come up with solid radio commercials on a consistent basis.
TV marketing
Television marketing is such a Goliath, it’ll likely never go away. It’s also easily the industry where most money is burned each year.
Ever since Google Video turned into Youtube, the efficiency of TV ads has gone down rapidly.
Who wants to watch a crappy MTV show host review a game that they have no clue about when they can join 40 million subscribers (!) watching PewDiePie not only rock video games but also deliver hilarious comments.
All, free of charge, of course.
So, why are TV commercials nearly worthless, when the average American still watches 4 hours of TV each day?
They aren’t specific.
TV ads are unspecific. In a world of search engines, retargeting, social media and email marketing, we are so used to being marketed around products we already care about, that we blatantly ignore everything that’s not remotely relevant to us.
Phone marketing
We still don’t realize this or give it nearly enough credit.
Smartphones are killing it.
Now, over 80% of internet users own a smartphone and, in 2014, we crossed the tipping point where more people are accessing the internet from their phones than via a desktop PC or laptop.
Mobile marketing is here, and, in 2016, the amount spent on mobile ads will first exceed the amount spent on desktop ads.
In 2020, there will be as much money spent on mobile ads as there is now spent on TV advertising. How’s that for fast growth?
But, before we look at the type of phone marketing that you can do for smartphone users with an internet connection, let’s look at some offline ways to market your products.
There are 2 apps that are grossly underestimated, yet they are on every phone, smart or not:
Calling and texting.
Cold calling is the act of calling a person with no prior contact and trying to sell them something.
While at roughly 3 sales per day (marketers call 52 people a day, on average, with about 17 calls until they find a buyer), it doesn’t have the scalability of social media or email, it’s still a valid approach to marketing.
The tactic works but doesn’t scale very well when selling to end customers (B2C) and making contact before trying to sell helps to close the deal (especially in B2B, which is all about connections).
What works better is marketing via texting, an “app” that is also available on each and every single phone out there.
Online or offline, a text message is almost a guaranteed read.
While the MMS obviously tanked after the web became available and mobile data usage costs so little, texts are still a good way to reach people and bring value in 160 characters or less.
While you should definitely get permission first, for example, in the form of having your customers text a certain word to a phone number, there are several providers that offer text marketing at scale.
Conclusion
That’s the scoop on digital marketing. As you can see, the internet is, by far, not the only place for marketers to gather success, even today.
Of course, no one can afford to miss out on the opportunities of the web and, eventually, every marketer will have to master online marketing.
But, employing a few of these offline marketing tactics can help you to not put all of your eggs into one basket and diversify your lead generation beyond social media, content marketing, and the like.
Plus the offline and online world is colliding. Traditional devices such as fridges, ovens, and even billboards will all be modernized to leverage digital media.
Here’s the breakdown of digital marketing again:
Online marketing
- Search engine optimization (SEO)
- Search engine marketing (SEM)
- Content marketing
- Social Media Marketing (SMM)
- Pay-per-click advertising (PPC)
- Affiliate marketing
- Email marketing
Offline marketing
- Enhanced offline marketing
- Electronic billboards
- Digital product demos
- Digital product samples
- Radio marketing
- Radio commercials
- Show sponsoring
- TV marketing
- TV commercials
- Tele-shopping
- Super Bowl commercials
- Phone marketing
- Cold calling
- Text message marketing (giveaways, coupons, loyalty programs)
- QR codes
I hope this guide expanded your view a bit and showed you that digital marketing is more than Facebook ads and social media blasts.
Will you use any of these tactics in your business?
Which of these do you remember from back in the day? Have I missed any?
Let me know your biggest takeaways in the comments.
General FAQ
What is digital marketing?
Digital marketing is advertising delivered through digital channels. Channels such as social media, mobile applications, email, web applications, search engines, websites, or any new digital channel.
What’s the future of digital marketing?
The offline and online world are colliding. Traditional devices such as fridges, ovens, and even billboards will all be modernized to leverage digital media.
Why digital marketing matter?
Google and Facebook generate more revenue than any traditional media company because they control more eyeballs. That’s why digital marketing matters, it is where the attention is.
What channels make up digital marketing?
Search engines, social media, blogs, online ads, affiliate marketing, emails, and mobile apps.