I have made a shortlist to give you a brief overview of what Digital Marketing includes (this is not the complete list):

• Link Building
• Ringtones for call back or hold
• eBooks
• Games
• Optical Disks
• SMS – Short Message Service
• MMS – Multimedia Message Service
• SEO – Search Engine Optimisation
• SEM – Search Engine Marketing

Hence from SEO to television, everything is included under Digital Marketing. That said there have been changes in what services are provided by several Digital Marketing firms. The updates made by Google to the search engine algorithm recently has resulted in stricter rules and a lowering of its threshold of tolerance. This means more websites started being penalised by Google. This means:

• Led to plenty of confusion
• Several Agencies have begun shifting their focus to other Digital Marketing services.

Why digital marketing is important?

Digital marketing is important with the aim to reach the masses, here is why in more detail:

• The main aim of a marketing strategy is to make sure the message of a firm or brand reaches the masses via advertisement or some other means.
• Additionally, it is also important they understand the message, which can be regarding a new product or service or about a change of an existing product or service or something of the kind.
• It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what the trend these days. Despite this, if we take a glance at the statistics they will paint the perfect picture.

The statistics place the Internet penetration amongst mobile users at 73% in the year 2013. But that is not all. The statistics also state that 2015 will be the year that the total number of mobile internet users will surpass those on other platforms like the PC. Hence not only do we have a large amount of the population on the Internet, but now a majority of them are going to be from mobile devices.

[Image Courtesy: www.smartinsights.com/]

Facts and figures like these should act as a wake-up call for those who still do not have any form of digital strategy for their firm, besides which it also means that those who do have a digital marketing strategy need seriously consider the fact that many of their potential customers are now mobile.

The social media buzz:

Marketing has been historically data-driven and everyone uses this data differently. For example, the marketing professionals, the customers and the business vendors all have a different set of reasons for looking up such kinds of data. Hence when it comes to digital marketing the social networks are like a gold mine of data ready to be processed and made used correctly.

I have listed a few statistics here that will make it abundantly clear as to why social media presence plays a big role when it comes to digital marketing and how this seems like it is going to get bigger.

More than 93% of marketing professionals use social media for business.

It is beyond doubt that a majority of the teenager population use some form of social media network. But the recent statistics show that now even the middle-aged population is becoming active (approximately 55% of the age group of 45 – 55 now use social media.

 

[Image Courtesy: www.pewinternet.org/]

When digital marketing and Social media come together:

Having seen the statistics and the general marketing trend it may start to seem that Digital Marketing and Social Media are made for each other. Besides which the effort spent and benefit received also be measured as the following shortlist makes it crystal clear.

• Overall Site traffic: By monitoring the site traffic and its sources when a specific digital marketing strategy has been implemented will provide good insight into how effective the strategy is. Site traffic can mean the number of visitors per day or month. However the statistics these days are quite comprehensive and if you pay study it carefully you will find data like the number of unique visitors per week or month. This has a direct ratio to the number of new clients.
• Source of the Traffic: If you know the source of most of the traffic and the keywords that brought them, then you again have a gold mine. Information like that helps you optimise your entire Digital Marketing strategy to start with and bring good results.
• Mobile Traffic: With the number of mobile internet users on the rise the mobile platform has suddenly risen in importance as well. A mobile device can make for a strong digital device to increase your profitability to a large extent. Hence monitoring the level of mobile traffic and the nature of the visits will provide valuable insight into how you can shape your next digital marketing strategy.
• CTR – Click-through Rate: A good source for traffic is Pay-Per-Click (PPC). This is something that can be effectively measured by monitoring the number of clicks received on the PPC adverts. The advert may be viewed many times but not all of them will click on it. Hence every time someone clicks on it, the (CTR) click-through rate measures the total count of people who clicked on it. Hence it goes without saying that the higher the CTR the better the quality score of that source. Such data can help you concentrate on the relevant places and reduce your PPC costs to a great extent.
• CPC – Cost Per Click: Cost Per Click (CPC) is when you pay the marketing portal a fixed amount for each click received on your PPC advert. This cost will depend on exactly which keywords you have chosen the quality score. The individual budget for keywords can be set.
• CVR – Conversion Rate: When it comes to being able to measure the digital marketing processes what matters the most is if you can measure your success. Thus the way you can do this is by monitoring the conversion rate. This is a value that tells you how many of the website visitors get converted into a lead or a sale at the end of the day. These figures play a very important role in shaping future digital marketing strategies as well.
• CPL – Cost Per Lead: You may have the big picture right in front of you that tells you the cost of your digital marketing strategy and the benefits being received. However to optimize the efforts and to keep the costs low it would be nice to measure each small task that makes your marketing strategy. That is exactly what ‘Cost Per Lead’ is all about. CPL give you the lead conversion ratio of a specific campaign, thus allowing you to make the important decisions with all the fact laid out for you.
• Bounce Rate: This is a good matrix that provides valuable insight into how many visitors to your website leave immediately. This could be because the link is irrelevant for them or because the website content did not interest them. However, the bounce rate figure can give you information about irrelevant keywords or bad content and help you optimise the same.
• Average Pages Views Per Visit: It is one thing to generate traffic and it is another thing to be able to captivate their imagination so that they spend more time on your website, thus improving the chance of them becoming your customers. This figure helps you analyse that information.
• Average Cost Per Page View: Your average cost per page view should be a great deal lower than the revenue you can potentially generate from that page. This is essential to be able to gain profit from your campaign.
• Rate of Return Visitor: If you know how many come back to your website and keep coming this can help you optimise the website accordingly. This can even help you improve the conversion rate and in turn, increase your revenue.
• ROI – Return on Investment: A marketing strategy that is built to provide you with information on the return on investment adds that extra “up” while carrying out marketing tasks. Since this way, there is a direct relation between your efforts and the results which are always very encouraging. It can show which technique is more profitable.
• CAC – Cost to Acquire to Customer: The ‘Return on Investment’ matrix provides insight into how successful your strategy is and gives you a pretty good idea of whether it is worth it. However, for a firm with a good digital marketing strategy in place that is bringing in many customers, it is also important to be able to figure out how much is it costing them to obtain each customer. CAC is an easy calculation since it is simply the total cost of marketing and advertising for a particular period divided by the total number of new paying customers.

Conclusion:

With matrix-like these that can be obtained from any digital marketing strategy, you have a very good picture of how successful your digital efforts are. Once you have the information on which strategies are performing well and which are underperforming you can make an informed decision on what to change.

Hence with the combined might of digital marketing and massive outreach of the social media networks you have yourself a gold pot waiting to be mined.

Alakmalak is a Web Development firm that also provides several SEO related services that extends to Digital Marketing as well. Having developed more than 2000 websites in a short period for clients all over the world, they have gained valuable experience in all the right fields. Their SEO team (Digital Marketing team) has been equally successful and continues to help clients the world over cope with the changing face of the digital medium, whether it is the mobile revolution, increasing importance of social media or the greater acceptance of purchasing over the internet.

• Digital Marketing and Social Media
• what is Digital Marketing
• what is Social Media