Digital Marketing 101

Marketing is used as a way to make our advertising more effective.  If you have the right audience identified, you can find ways to reach them.  One such way that is growing by leaps and bounds is digital marketing.

What is digital marketing?  It is basically marketing tools that encompass everything but traditional methods.  It doesn’t include print or magazine media.  Some people think of banner ads and email, but the scope is so much larger than that.

Digital media does include the two above-mentioned techniques, but also others you might not have thought to include:

* Podcasts
* RSS feeds
* SMS
* Instant messaging
* Text messaging
* Video streaming
* Social bookmarking
* Blogging

All of these avenues are used to market products and services to the global community.  With traditional forms of marketing, you get feedback from your customers and others who just wanted a look-see, but it takes time.  Compiling responses is labor-intensive.

Here’s an example.  You send a bill to a customer.  On the back it states that they can make a comment or write change of address information if needed.  Let’s say that the customer mails their bill back to you.  It may take three to four days to receive and then another day or two to credit the account and log any responses.  Before that customer hears back from you if they have a complaint, it could be a week or more.

That’s how things were done in the past – exclusively.  Changes in the technological landscape of our world have made waiting a thing of the past for most services.  With instant messaging, we can carry on a conversation with a client in real time.  The same goes for webcasting.  Podcasting is like having your own little radio station on your website.  Even with email and social networking sites you can chat as if you were in the same room.

It really is a convenient way to reach the people who would most benefit from your products and services.  And, what if you want to keep up with someone’s blog postings?  Subscribe to their RSS feed.  When updates are made you are notified.  Checking on news or an eBay auction?  You can do it from your cellular phone with SMS messages.

There are two types of digital media:  push and pull.  Pull is when a user finds you on the Internet using digital media.  They have your website address and they link to you and your media – streaming video, podcasts, and the like.  They establish a link with you.

Push is when you contact the user and entice them to use your services or products.  This is the logic behind the SMS messages you receive on your cellular phone.  Emails from companies can be sent directly to the customer asking them to come and see what you offer.

Digital marketing is moving business ahead in a big way.  We used to be limited to print and then our computer searches, but now, the target market is accessible through many media outlets.