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The digital marketing world has grown massively these recent years. Based on We Are Social and Hootsuite on Global Digital Report 2019, internet users now have reached more than 4 billion people. The rapid development of the digital world has pushed businesses to make significant changes in selling their products and services. And thus, digital marketing was born. 

For a business to adapt in the ever-changing world of digital, digital marketing comes up as one of the most effective ways of selling the products and services these days. So, what is digital marketing? Digital marketing can be looked at as a marketing activity done via gadgets/internet that is supported by strategies and digital media.  

In digital marketing, you can communicate directly to your future customers. In general, digital marketing is known only as marketing activity done on social media platforms, but the truth is there are few other ways for business owners to sell their brands in the digital world. Besides utilizing social media to market your product or services, you can also do that on either website or blogs. 

Today, the use of digital marketing is a must for all kinds of businesses. This statement is supported by the fact that people in the world now has been connected to the internet and even addicted to their gadgets in their daily lives. 

Both marketing digitally and traditionally has a significant difference among each other. Unlike marketing traditionally, digital ones have an effective and real-time measurable method. There few differences as listed below.

The first differences that can clearly be seen are the medium or the media that is used in marketing. Traditional marketing relies on conventional media such as newspapers, brochures, banners, magazines, and etc. Traditional marketing has been used for such a long time that it has been considered as ineffective anymore due to untargeted and immeasurable marketing. On the other hand, digital marketing, maximize all marketing effort by utilizing gadgets and internet. All activities and strategies are done online via websites, social media, online ads, e-mail, SEO, and much more. The point is the difference in the medium between traditional and digital marketing. The digital offers more options/ways than the traditional ones. 

If compared side by side, traditional marketing costs more than digital marketing. All that because of the process of the traditional ones are too complicated. For instance, if a business wants to market its product through banner and billboard, you have to pay for the permits, installment, production, and many others. Digital marketing here, clear all those processes. It offers a more effective way of marketing and creating your ads. You can arrange the budget for your ads, choose the target market, scopes, and many others. So, in terms of cost, digital marketing spends the budget effectively and efficiently.

 

One of the best things in digital marketing is in the target audience matter. Digital marketing allows you to specifically connect and target your audience based on what your business is about. Digital marketing is able to target your audiences specifically based on their location, age, interest, genders, and up to their behavior so that you can target your ads and campaign to suitable future customers.

Unlike traditional marketing (newspaper, brochure, and etc.), the final result of digital marketing can be measured accurately and even in real-time. This benefit allows you to evaluate accurately with all the data available. In digital marketing, you can also figure out how many people saw your ads, conversion results of your ads, and choose which one is effective for your selling. 

This benefit also helps business owners to calculate ROI (Return of Investment) from the marketing cost that has been spent by the company.

Digital marketing has given many benefits for big companies and start-ups. Digital marketing also gives positive impacts on consumers. So, what are those advantages of digital marketing?

When we compare digital marketing with the traditional, the digital one is far cheaper and more effective in the selling point. Digital marketing does not require complicated tools, permits, and production costs so it can cut the advertising budget by much.

Besides that, digital marketing can also make better performance in marketing because it helps you to market your product, service, and your business to a targeted customer. In other words, you can choose your market in detail based on gender, behavior, age, and etc. so that is why your ads and campaign can be targeted accurately. 

Digital marketing exists to give you a form of interactive marketing. It allows your ads and campaign to have two ways of communication towards your customers. So, by that, digital marketing is able to provide a much more interactive way of online marketing, with the aim that you can get more exposure for your brands.  

The presence of digital marketing allows you to communicate directly and in real-time with your future customers, so you can respond to certain issues quickly. For example, when you have complained or having a problem. Not just that, whenever you have an issue, you can make benefits from that and treat it as one of your campaigns and show you that your product, service, and business are up-to-date.

One of the reasons and benefits that are very significant from using digital marketing is that you can target your future customers specifically. Digital marketing able to help you target suitable customers based on gender, age, interest, and location to determine the most suitable target for your online ads and your marketing campaign.

Compared to conventional or traditional marketing, the chance of success in digital marketing is much more measurable. This measurement is more complete and accurate because of the data and support from a variety of tools used in the process. You can use tools like social media analytics or Google Analytics to see the results of your digital campaign through all the data given. 

        One of the advantages of digital marketing in terms of the selling point is that there are no geographical boundaries. What that means is that digital marketing has a worldwide market. Digital marketing is able to target more than one territory, even you can set your target nationally and internationally. 

         Digital marketing uses the internet as the selling media so your marketing can reach wide and limitless market boundaries. Everyone who uses the internet can become your digital marketing target. 

Digital marketing is measurable. This is supported by all the data it has. Digital marketing helps you accurately because of the available data. With digital marketing, you can check the numbers of the visitor visiting your website in real-time. Not only that, but you can also see the location, the device they used, duration, and much more. All the data will help you in evaluating so your digital marketing can be more effective. 

I'm the big picture, digital marketing has 3 kinds of media which can be used in the digital advertising activity. Those three kinds of media are as follows:

        Owned media is the media, product, and services that you owned. Examples of this are social media (Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter) and website/blog. This type of media is the media that is must-have by a brand because it's the 'soul' of your business growth. It's a media you must own because here you can interact with people or your future customers every day. 

        Owned media can be the medium to engage, educate, and spread information about your brand. So, owned media plays a major part in digital marketing. 

        This kind of media is the one that is made by people for your brand as a way to show love and concern to the brand you own. An example of this is fanspage or social media account that discusses your brand. 

         Earned media is a bonus in your digital marketing because you can get direct promotion from the people that like your brand so it can get more exposure. 

         Paid media is the media where you have to pay some amount of money to use it. Example of this media is radio, magazine, newspaper, and other website or social media account which has lots of subscribers. 

         Paid media in digital marketing can help you reach many audiences in a quick. It all depends on how much you are willing to pay to advertise there. 

         In a digital campaign, there must be precise plans and calculations so the activity can get maximum results. There are a few key things to do in making the marketing strategy as follows:

         First and foremost, an analysis regarding the situation of the company must be done. You can use the SWOT (Strength, Weakness, Opportunity, Threats) concept to analyze it. Identify each aspect of your business. Find out which is the strength and weakness of the product you offer. Besides that, you also need to see the opportunity and threat in your business line. 

         For example, you have a business that sells fashion items. The first thing you need to do is to check the competition and map all the good and bad things about your product. If you see that the average of your product is having a competitive price, then a good design can be your advantage. You can focus on improving your product you can get better brand positioning in the market. 

          By looking at the condition and competition in the market, you can identify weaknesses so you can build the strategy to overcome the weakness. The internal factors also must be a concern in identifying strengths and weaknesses. The strength and weakness also need to consider the resources, on-going strategies, and performance so the company's advantage, ability to compete, and the use of strategy is on point for the longevity of the company. 

          Besides that, as a business owner, you need to have intuition and the skill to see every opportunity. By doing simple research, you can search for opportunities that can make your business improved. 

          Take an example based on the fashion business again. You can do market research regarding the material, design, and sizes. For example, you found out that big-sized people have a difficult time to buy clothes so they need to have it by pre-ordering it. This case can be an opportunity for you because the competition tends to be low and it has a specific buyer's demographic. 

           Another thing that must not be forgotten is to identify the threats for your business. The threat can come from your customers, fund givers, and the government as the regulator. A threat from the government is one of the great concerns if you have a property business. 

           Conceptually, SWOT analysis needs to be done by looking at the interaction between the company's missions, internal, and external factors. The internal factors are the one that comes within the company and it is under the management. This includes the product/services, human resources, company's structure, financial capability, technology, and research/development. 

            The external factors anchored towards the outside environment beyond the control of the company. This includes; competitors, regulations, suppliers, economic system, market, tech development, consumer, and political situation. 

             From the identification of each aspect and the external/internal factors, you can formulate the best business strategy, specifically in marketing. If you have a lot of advantages and opportunities, you can use Strength and Opportunity aspects which formulate into a comparative advantage strategy. 

             A comparative advantage strategy is a combination of two powerful elements and a chance so it makes possible for your company to grow rapidly. With this strategy, you can sell your product by emphasizing the strong unique selling point so it draws the attention of your consumers and gains a higher position in the market.

             In creating the marketing strategy, objectives need to be set in the beginning so it can be the guideline for the next steps. The objective is the goal set by the marketing strategy designer. Generally, the objective is divided into three levels; awareness, perceived quality, and action. 

             Awareness refers to the consumer's ability to recognize a brand or product from a company. This includes name, picture, color, logo, and slogan used in a brand. In this step, consumers are aware of brand and company, even though that, in general, the consumers have not yet understood such certain brands. 

             In the next step, the objective can be a perceived quality. This can be a goal if the brand has already high fame among people. With this step, a marketing strategy made to influence consumers' perception of a brand. The point is surely to get positive perception by consumers or even to repair the negative perception that has already latched on the brand. 

             The highest level in this hierarchy is action. This refers to the concrete action done by people according to the goal of the marketing strategy. For example, a digital campaign is considered successful if there are consumers who make a purchase or do anything that the campaign aimed for. Besides that, real action can also be an activity in spreading information or advocating towards a brand done by consumers. 

              By understanding objective forms, you can formulate your strategy accordingly. For example, if you are a start-up company and you have not gained many followers in social media, then brand awareness can be the main goal in your digital marketing strategy. 

              To measure the success of a digital marketing strategy, you can use the Key Performance Indicator (KPI) that covers engagement rates, clicks, bounce rate, and conversion rate. These can be measured by the numbers of the followers in social media, impression, likes, comments, numbers of clicks, and numbers of transactions. The point us, a good objective must have to be specific, measured, achievable, realistic, and has a deadline. 

              For the digital marketing strategy more accurate, it needs correct target audience identification so it can achieve the maximum result. To identify a target, you must see it through many aspects such as demographics that include age, gender, income, marital status, occupation, and education. 

             Besides demographics, location also a key to be considered. By targeting the specific location, you can narrow your marketing target so it can be received by specific people. If you have not planned your product on a national level, then target the people who live in the same city and its surroundings. 

             Nevertheless, you can target a whole country if your product can be delivered via delivery services. The location needs to be adjusted according to what kinds of your product or service you offered. Is it need to be targeted on specific people with the distance that does not far from your business location? Or you can target a whole country. 

             If demographics and location are easy to identify, psychographic tend to be harder to guess. This because the psychographic group has a certain interest like hobbies, activity, or behavior. For example, you can target the people who have a gardening hobby if you sell gardening utilities. 

             The attitudes of the people also need to be considered in formulating the marketing strategy. For example, you can target the people who care about the environment and animal life if you sell a product that does not do an animal trial. 

In identifying the people, the use of certain tools will be beneficial. One of the most common tools is Facebook Audience Insights. This tool can show people's characteristics based on demographics, location, and behavior. With available data, you can study the target audience and you can formulate your strategy more effectively. 

             After you have figured out the demographics of your target audience, now it is time you decide the right marketing communication channel according to your needs. In digital marketing, a channel can be a website, social media, E-mail, apps, video, blog, etc. For small businesses, channels usually decided based on the budget. Every business gain profit from a multichannel marketing strategy to increase exposure. 

Deciding the right channel is as important as the shared content. In a communication program, a message is not the only thing to be the determiner, but also how the message is delivered. If the channel does not hit the target audience, then you have to reevaluate. 

            In its practice, the simplest way to choose the digital marketing channel is by looking at where the target audiences used to interact and get information. This is important to make sure that the message is liked by the audience. So, know your target audience and use the channel the same as them. 

            There are a few types of digital marketing that can be used to get the optimal result. It starts from the content marketing to pay per click, below are few kinds of digital marketing that you can choose. 

             Social media has become part of daily lives in society today. Social media is the place to interact and share information at a rapid pace. Because of that, social media is utilized by business owners to find the right consumers and market their products or services effectively. 

             Social media marketing is one of the marketing activities that used social media platforms. According to We Are Social, the most famous social media platform in Indonesia are YouTube, Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, LINE, BBM, Twitter, Google+, FB messenger, and LinkedIn. The point in social media marketing is the strategy. A social media marketing campaign does not have to be done on all platforms. 

             In general, the calculation of strategy for social media marketing is not far from the wider digital marketing strategy. You need to do target audience research, setting the objective, competitor research, formulate content, exploiting ads, and evaluation in applying the strategy. 

             Content marketing is using the contents to market the product. That includes planning, creating, and distributing the contents that can attract people. This activity aims to draw people's attention to know your business and turn them into your customers.

 

             Sometimes content marketing is done in social media, this kind of marketing focuses on using content that entertaining, emotional, informative, educative, funny, and much more. That all done so it catches people's attention. The contents can be a picture, words, audio, video, and much more. 

              Why content marketing is considered to be effective? In this digital era, a hard-selling method is no longer a viable way to make people interested. People now are more interested in the content value, whether it is the information value or the heart-touching emotion. 

             Good content is considered a more effective way because of its capability to gain all the audience's attention so it increases the brand awareness of your business. If you notice, content marketing with something funny is often going viral and become the trademark among people. 

             Email marketing is another kind that you can try when you already have the email list of your customers. This is a follow-up way to maintain your customers who have already make a transaction and to make them do another transaction in the future time. 

             Through email marketing, you can always give information regarding promotion from your business. Email marketing is one method to give information to specific audiences that have already know your brand and do the transaction with you. 

             The thing that needs to be considered is that the purpose of the email that you send must have already permitted your customers. Do not get the email list full of people that do not know about you and your brand so it will not make you didn't appreciate your consumers. 

              A website is one of the primary media for a company to market its business. But a mere website is not enough. Your website will not be visited if it is not shown on the search engine. If your website showed on the first page then you can increase the traffic to your site. 

             Generally, Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is divided into two categories, organic and non-organic. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) belongs to organic that is done to put your website on the first page in search engines. SEO is cheaper and aimed for the long term. 

             For the non-organic category, it is SEM that is used to put the website on the top list in search engines. You need to allocate some budget so the targeted keywords will show your site in the search engine. Each keyword has different 'bid' prices. These prices refer to the numbers of average search and competition in those keywords. 

              Besides that, Pay Per Click (PPC) is utilized to use ads in search engines and make clicks on websites. You need to pay every time the ads on your website getting clicked by visitors. PPC required a good design campaign so you do not get over budget and it resulting is good selling and profit. 

             For you who want to dive into the world of digital marketing, there are few common words that you need to know. If haven't been familiar, below are few terms that you need to know. 

             An impression refers to the number of impressions on ads or content in your digital media. The impression is not something based on action and only about users who might see the ads. This usually aims to increase brand awareness.

              Engagement is a phrase used in describing the interaction with the content. For example, engagement can be in the forms of likes and comments in one of the posts in your business social media account. 

               A conversion is an act that is from the transition from a consumer who visits your site and then makes a transaction. Conversion usually measured with conversion rate, which is a percentage of the number of visitors who take the steps wanted by the marketers. 

              CPC is the same term as PPC. CPC refers to the advertising model on the internet that is used to get traffic. The advertiser pays a certain amount of money to the publisher, the same as in search engines where ads get clicks. 

               If CPC is a model that requires an advertiser to pay money when there is a click, then CPA is a model where it requires the advertiser to pay money when there is a form of acquisition. The term acquisition here can be about selling, clicks, or form registration. 

              Organic traffic is a website visit that gained organically. This visit is gained when users use the search engine and visit the website without other's site references.

 

              This kind of traffic is gained through paid advertisements done by an advertiser. Usually, paid traffic is gained from PPC ads. 

               CTR is a ratio of users that click on a specific link and the total users who see a page, email, or ads. Usually, CTR used to measure the successfulness of campaign ads from a website. 

               The bounce rate refers to an analysis of web traffic. This shows the percentage of visitors come and go from the website rather than keep looking at the other page on the same site. This percentage can be the guideline of a few interesting contents on a website. 

                Marketing in the digital era gives space for a business to be more creative and formulate the strategy that is effective and measured. With the growth of the internet and other digital media, digital marketing can be done in a variety of forms. From content marketing, email, to pay per click. 

                This article discusses in detail about digital marketing and how you can use it to sell your product/service. To get the best results, you can follow the steps above. (AKB)