How does digital marketing grow your business? Are you a Nigerian business?
What exactly is digital marketing?
Hello and welcome to this blog. This is your favorite SEO consultant and specialist in blog writing, Simon Taki Zaku.
On this page I explain to you in the simplest form, what digital marketing is.
(Applicable to both Nigerian and international readers)
In the simplest form, define digital marketing!
To better understand what "digital marketing" means, we must touch on "marketing".
What is Marketing?
Marketing involves all the tasks, and actions, done by a person, company, or business to promote a particular service, software, music, art, or anything. Marketing is what businesses do (including advertising) to reach more people with a message, product, service, or movement.
What is Traditional Marketing?
Traditional marketing (or offline marketing) has been in existence for ages. These are some of the older (ancient) marketing techniques businesses used back in the day to market products and services.
Some of the traditional marketing channels are:
TV and radio ads
Newspaper ads
Celebrity commercials (now influencer marketing)
Fliers
Direct mail
Billboards
The switch from traditional marketing to digital marketing.
As the internet grew, online marketing became more popular. For example, there are over 8 billion searches on Google every day.
62% of the world's population are on social media.
Facebook has 3 billion users.
Tiktok? Has over 2 billion users in a few years. The internet has over 5 billion active users.
Businesses decided to tap into this traffic.
Paying for Facebook adverts is "digital marketing".
Posting on X is a form of "digital marketing".
Talking to your colleagues about your business or brand is "marketing".
Sharing fliers about your business is "marketing".
Writing blog posts for your target customers is "marketing".
Going LIVE on Facebook, X, and LinkedIn for your business is "digital marketing".
Paying for podcast sponsorship, and TV or radio commercials are all forms of "marketing".
How then is digital marketing defined today?
Digital Marketing Definition:
What is digital marketing in its simplest form?
Digital marketing is the art of promoting a product, service, business, or brand on the Internet.
The Internet has been in existence since 1983. And the term digital marketing was first used in the 1990s.
What are the benefits of digital marketing?
Why is digital marketing a hot channel for businesses today?
Key Digital Marketing statistics for businesses today:
There are 8.5 billion search queries on Google every single day.
The Internet has a total of 5.3 billion users. That's more than half the earth's population.
According to a Forbes report, 4.9 billion internet users are on social media.
33% of marketers surveyed said blogging is an effective marketing tactic they use.
Email marketing is one of the highest-converting digital marketing channels with a 2.8% conversion rate for B2C businesses and 2.4% for B2B brands.
The advertising and marketing market is estimated to be $786.2 billion by 2026.
82% of marketers are looking to invest more in content marketing and 69% looking to invest more time in SEO (search engine optimization).
According to this report, 74% of shoppers check and do some sort of research on social media platforms before making a purchase online or offline.
How do you start digital marketing?
Digital marketing is really easy to start - unlike old traditional methods which may demand capital, labor, or some sort of investments.
To start digital marketing for your business, you do not need to spend any money.
Create social media accounts, create a website for your business, install a blog and begin publishing content.
To start digital marketing, you only need to take your business profile on the internet.
Five (5) Steps to kick-start digital marketing for your Nigerian business:
Set your digital marketing goals
Decide what digital marketing channels you will focus on (blogs, social media, websites, etc)
Find the ideal social media networks for your brand and create professional accounts
Design a content plan for your business
Create content and publish your first few posts online
To get into digital marketing, you must have a plan, a goal, and objectives for your digital marketing campaigns.
What is included in a digital marketing strategy
For my digital marketing clients, I like to use the SWOT formula to design an effective digital marketing plan that works:
Your digital marketing strategy for your business must be:
S - Strengths (what digital marketing platforms are your biggest advantage)
W - Weaknesses (what weaknesses and challenges will you face in your digital marketing campaigns?)
O - Opportunity (what loopholes do you notice in your competition's digital approach?)
T - Threats (what are possible threats in your digital marketing niche?)
This will help you design a digital marketing strategy for your business.
Next, understand your target audience or customers. Find where they gather on the internet.
Where do your customers typically hang out online?
Facebook groups
LinkedIn groups
Community forums
Social media networks
Blogs
Podcasts
Examples?
Younger-aged internet users can be found on social media applications like TikTok and Instagram.
We have more female users on Pinterest (social media platform) than men.
Working-class individuals are spending time on LinkedIn LIVE Events.
Older demographics are still hanging on Facebook.
Get the idea?
I have a detailed guide on finding the perfect social media networks that have your specific target customers.
Here:
Recommended Blog: Social Media Networks for Business: How to Choose the Right Social Media Networks for Your Business
The next step to go into digital marketing is to create accounts on various social media networks.
You can create a Google account for free. Create social media accounts for your business.
You can start by creating a business Facebook, Instagram, X, LinkedIn, and Pinterest accounts.
I will publish guides on how to set up a business Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn pages for your business. So subscribe to my blog forum for updates.
You should also create a Quora account. Quora is powerful in generating content ideas, so I recommend you join Quora.
Recommended Blog: 50 Must-Have Social Media Marketing Tools for Business (tools for scheduling, analytics, graphics tools).
After creating business accounts on these social media platforms, make a content plan to work with.
Do not go into digital marketing without an effective digital marketing plan or content strategy.
The next important digital marketing step is to know what content to publish on social networks.
Do your research. Understand your audience and what they want to see.
Do your customers want to see YouTube videos?
Do they want to see Instagram reels?
Do they want to see engaging TikTok content?
Do they want to read educational blogs?
Or LIVE streams?
Do your research and know what your target audience wants.
Digital marketing budgets?
Digital marketing also requires budgeting. Why?
Website hosting (I recommended Wix, Bluehost, Namecheap, EUKHost, Shopify, and Hostinger)
Content curation tools (like Quuu, Scoop it)
Email automation software (Mailchimp, Getresponse)
SEO (SEO tools like SEMrush, Ahrefs, etc, backlink builder, SEO writer, technical SEO expert)
Hiring (social media manager, digital marketing manager, SEO, etc)
Adverts (Influencer, Social media ads)
PPC (Google, banner ads)
Lead generation (Landing pages, lead design tools, email automation software)
Content creation (AI writer tools, Grammarly, SEO writer, Video editor)
Social media management tools (Hootsuite, Buffer, Smarterqueue, Crowdfire)
Other useful digital marketing tools.
What are the various types or forms of digital marketing?
There are different types of digital marketing just like other forms of marketing. Here are the top 5 types of digital marketing:
SEO
Content marketing
Social media marketing
Email Marketing
Pay-per-click (PPC)
What is digital marketing advertising?
This is you paying for platforms or various networks on the internet (like Google, YouTube, Facebook, Reddit, Quuu, etc), with billions of users to send traffic or leads to your business or customers to your business or store.
As a store or a local or physical business, instead of marketing your business face to face or physically, you can take it easily online (this process is called digital marketing).
Frequently Asked Questions Around "Digital Marketing".
Finally, this is the frequently asked question in "digital marketing".
What exactly is digital marketing?
Digital marketing, also known as Internet marketing, known as online marketing, is the process of promoting a product, business, brand, organization, or website on the Internet to generate sales, leads, and traffic and attain or achieve the business's objectives.
What are the types, the four types of digital marketing?
From my experience as a Digital Marketing and SEO consultant, there are four major aspects of digital marketing. The types of digital marketing today are:
Content marketing (CM).
Search engine optimization (SEO).
Search engine marketing (SEM).
Social media marketing (SMM).
These are the basic types or forms of digital marketing. To go into digital marketing, you must understand each of these types and be able to attach it to your entire business goals and objectives.
What does a digital marketer do?
What a digital marketer does from my experience, there are several tasks that a digital marketer has to take takes care of.
When it comes to content marketing, a digital marketer is in charge of planning the content marketing strategy, the SEO strategy, the SEM strategy, and the social media marketing strategy.
A digital marketer is also referred to as a digital marketing manager.
A digital marketer is in charge of all the Internet or online promotion strategies that a business does or offers.
What skills are required for digital marketing?
What necessary skills are required for digital marketing?
Numerous new skills are required for digital marketing now.
Some of these are search engine optimization, social media marketing, blogging, content writing, email marketing, copywriting, website design, website promotion, technical SEO, and lots more.
Digital marketing has to do with the entire promotional marketing of a brand a business or a website on the Internet. So the more Internet marketing skills you can acquire or learn, the easier it will be for you.
What type of digital marketing is best for your business?
As a business, there is no one-size-fits-all all. This is something I always tell local businesses who are looking to go into digital marketing.
You must understand your type of business. This will help you foster an effective digital marketing approach or strategy for your business.
For example;
businesses that are looking to drive organic traffic should focus on search engine optimization.
eCommerce stores should consider Facebook ads
Agencies should focus on blogging, social media marketing, and content marketing.
PPC is great for stores as well
So a clear understanding of your business would help you understand the perfect digital marketing platforms to harness.
This could be content marketing, blogging, SEO, YouTube marketing, or social media marketing.
Can I learn digital marketing on my own?
Yes, absolutely. There are numerous resources, guides, and YouTube videos on the Internet on how to get started with digital marketing.
HubSpot offers different marketing courses where you can get certification after completing the course.
You can also follow my blog (https://ibifoundry.com.ng/blog/), where I share exclusive digital marketing secrets, SEO hacks, and content marketing strategies for your business. Subscribe to my blog and the YouTube channel.
What are four (4) examples of digital marketing?
There are millions or even billions of examples, but here are some examples you can use to get your ideas from.
YouTube marketing:
YouTube marketing is the process of creating video content on a YouTube channel with the hopes of achieving your business or brand goals.
Blogging:
Blogging is one underrated marketing strategy that most businesses stay away from. You can create content consistently and rank on search engines, which will turn to organic traffic and sales.
Search engine optimization (SEO):
For this website, I created lots of blogging content and optimized them to rank on search engines. When they rank on search engines for targeted keywords that I want, I get clicks from my target audience which can convert to leads and clients.
Social media marketing:
As a business, you should promote your business, brand, products, and services on different social media networks like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest Twitter, or X.
What is digital marketing in its simplest form?
Digital marketing in the simplest form is the process of promoting or marketing the products and services of a physical or local business on the Internet.
This is also called internet marketing or online marketing. Large companies, and medium, small, and local businesses are moving online to promote their businesses.
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Thank you for reading our IbiFoundry page on what digital marketing entails for Nigerian businesses.
Have a great day,
Simon,
Founder, CEO, IbiFoundry.com.ng
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