Digital marketing is a relatively new but already the most relevant area of marketing these days. According to various statistics, Internet advertising will quickly overtake TV advertising in terms of distribution. The total volume of advertising on the Internet exceeded $319 billion in 2019 according to Allied Market Research and continues to grow. The sphere is developing rapidly: every year digital marketing specialists announce the emergence of new tools and methods of work. But what about those who are just planning to enter the digital market and do not know where to start?
Digital is a highly competitive area
In the modern world, digital marketing tools are more than available. Thousands of global and local companies use SMM, contextual advertising, or Google AdWords in their work – this is an advertisement that is shown to a user while browsing websites or search engines.
In 2012-2013, Google AdWords made it possible to place advertisements cheaply and effectively. Competition among advertisers is growing and today it is almost impossible to sell something using, for example, only an advertisement in a search engine. In 99% of retailer business direct advertising with a call to buy something or visit the site does not work. Because of the competition, it comes out too expensive. If you are willing to spend only 5-10 thousand dollars on advertising, then doing contextual advertising is suicide.
Digital is not necessary about selling
Today, simple tools and direct advertising with calls to ‘Buy from us!’ will not help you if you just want to advertise shoes or clothes. It is necessary to resort to a more complex scheme – a warming funnel.
Such advertising does not cause an immediate desire among users to buy a product, but informs them about your services and forms an interest in your activities.
How it works: we start a conversation with the target audience, which focuses on problem zones, difficulties in making decisions, fears, and so on. You pose a problem to a potential consumer and help to solve it. This content does not look like selling, often it does not even contain a commercial offer. For example, when a company is engaged in the promotion of exam preparation courses, for example, it should not sell the services of tutors, but tell the target audience: “Guys, do you know that 80% of young adults cannot find a job in their specialty after graduation? It means they wasted five years of their life.” This is how you can captivate parents and schoolchildren even at the stage when they don’t think about the need to hire a tutor.
Further, the offer funnel led to the next stage: the users who responded to those posts were offered to read information about what professions are in demand. There, parents learned that economists, lawyers, and managers are the most unclaimed professions for employers, but still the most popular among applicants and their parents. Ultimately, such a complex chain would lead to the thought that it is important to start the career guidance process on time, discover passion and abilities, and find a competent tutor in those subjects that will be in demand in the future. In the end these people should be offered a time limited discount with a countdown widget for a better visibility. By distributing content in this way, it is possible to catch people who fit into our target audience and push them to the final product.
Another example is creating and developing an account on social networks. Then you do not directly advertise the target action, but spend the budget on gathering people who are close to your topic. Thus, you have the opportunity to subsequently make offers to them an infinite number of times almost for free.
Digital Marketing is best left to professionals
On the one hand, modern tools allow you to start digital marketing from scratch: Google AdWords and other services are easy to learn and understandable for beginners. In addition, there are thousands of videos on the Internet that teach the basics of the profession.
But you won’t be able to become a high-class specialist right away. Today, digital marketer is becoming a profession that is built on experience, which is associated with a large number of tests and budget losses. In the digital world, there is no universal knowledge of how to attract a particular person to a purchase. Everything is built solely through testing and experience, and it takes time and money. In order for resources to go wisely, without wasted budgets, it is worth entrusting your advertising campaign to professional agencies.
