UNIT I: INTRODUCTION

Compiled by Pranay Moktan

What is Digital Marketing?

The term digital marketing refers to the use of digital channels to market products and
services to consumers. This type of marketing involves the use of websites, mobile devices,
social media, search engines, and other similar channels. Digital marketing became popular
with the advent of the internet in the 1990s.

Digital marketing involves some of the same principles as traditional marketing and is often
considered an additional way for companies to approach consumers and understand their
behaviour. Companies often combine traditional and digital marketing techniques in their
strategies. This form of marketing is different from internet marketing, which is exclusively
done on websites. Digital marketing relates to attracting customers via email, content
marketing, search platforms, social media, and more. One of the biggest challenges digital
marketers face is how to set themselves apart in a world that is oversaturated with digital
marketing ads.

Importance of Digital Marketing

1. You reach people where they spend their time: With the growth of the Internet, more
people are spending their time online. Over 7.7 billion people use the Internet across the
globe. It‘s become an integral part of everyday life to conduct searches, check social media,
and purchase products online. Your customers are online, which highlights the importance of
digital marketing. They‘re browsing the web looking for your products or services. If they
can‘t find them because you don‘t have an online presence, you risk losing those leads to
your competitors. To drive the best results for your business, you need to build your online
presence. You will reach more leads that want your products or services.

2. Your competitors are already doing it: If you‘re wondering why digital marketing is
important, the answer is that your competitors are already using it. Many of your competitors
have already taken advantage of all digital marketing has to offer. They‘ve created social
profiles, adapted their website for SEO, and run paid advertisements to reach new leads. This
reason in itself is one of the reasons why you should use digital marketing. If you want your
business to compete with others, you have to do what your competitors are doing and more.
By neglecting digital marketing, you‘re already falling behind your competition. Your
competitors are gaining traffic that could be yours because you‘re not investing in digital
marketing. They won‘t know that your business is an option and will automatically choose a
competitor. You must invest in digital marketing to put your hat in the ring and get leads to
consider your business as an option. To keep up with your competitors, you must invest in
digital marketing.

3. You can compete with larger corporations: Competition is the hardest part of running a
business. When you‘re in a market with bigger corporations, like Walmart, Target, and
Amazon, it‘s hard to compete with them. They have a big name for themselves, which
automatically draws people to trust those corporations. You have a fighting chance against
bigger corporations, which is why digital marketing is important to your business. Your
business can reach interested leads with the same methods as a larger corporation. Methods
like SEO and pay-per-click (PPC) advertising level the playing field. With SEO, your site
ranks in the search results based on relevancy. A corporation can‘t buy their way to the top of
the ranks. They have to optimize their pages just the same as a small mom-and-pop shop.
When you use PPC, Google ranks ads based on relevancy, too. Even if a corporation bids
twice as much as you per click for the same keyword as your business, it doesn‘t guarantee
them the top spot. They can‘t buy a topranking ad spot because, again, the rank is based on
the relevancy of your ad. This creates the opportunity for smaller to mid-size businesses to
compete with bigger corporations. If you can create content that is more relevant to the
selected keywords than your corporate competitors, no amount of money will enable them to
outrank you. Digital marketing is a great opportunity for your business to compete with
bigger companies to obtain more relevant leads.

4. You can target your ideal audience: The ability to target your audience better is one of the
most obvious reasons why digital marketing is important. Imagine being able to market
directly to people who have an interest in your products or services. With digital marketing,
you have the capability to directly reach leads interested in your business. You don‘t have to
hope that people will see your traditional marketing efforts and contact your business. With
digital marketing, you can target your audience more precisely than traditional methods. You
can input important information about your audience and use that information to shape your
digital marketing campaigns. It makes it easy for you to reach the right people. Let‘s say your
ideal customers are men between 23-35 years old who are single and make at least $35,000 a
year. You‘re trying to reach this ideal customer on social media to get them to follow your
business. If you wanted to precisely target those characteristics, you could easily set those
perimeters for your social media ad campaign. This would ensure that only the relevant
people specified would see your ad. You can segment your audience, too. Let‘s say you also
wanted to target women with the same characteristics. You could segment these two groups
to deliver a customized ad experience that is relevant to them. When you can better target
people in your audience, you drive better results with your campaign. You‘ll reach more
leads that are interested in your products or services.

5. You can monitor your campaigns and optimize them for better results: The importance of
digital marketing is that you can easily track and monitor your campaigns. When you invest
time and money into your campaigns, you want to know that they are working. Digital
marketing makes it easy for you to track your campaigns, which allows you to adapt and
drive better results. When you use traditional methods, it‘s challenging to know the results of
your campaign. If you run a TV ad, you may have to ask every person that comes into the
store about what brought them to your business. It would be a very time-consuming effort
that could annoy people who visit your business. With digital marketing, you don‘t need to
worry about bothering your audience. Every campaign you run is trackable. You can easily
track a campaign‘s ROI and other indicators to see if it is driving valuable results for your
business. You can see if they are successful or need improvement. If your campaigns need
improvement, you can make immediate changes and implement them at any point during
your campaign. You save money when you can make immediate changes. It allows you to get
more out of your campaign and spend your budget more wisely.

6. You get an impressive return on your investment (ROI): If you want to know the
importance of digital media, look at the results it drives for businesses. Online marketing
strategies have an awesome return on investment (ROI). When you invest in these methods,
you‘ll get more out of them. Email marketing has one of the highest ROIs out of all methods.
For every $1 spent, you have the potential to earn up to $44 in return — an ROI of 4400
percent! This is a great opportunity for you to grow and earn a profit from your marketing
efforts. So, why is there so much room for a great ROI with these methods? It is very cost-
effective to use online marketing methods. This leaves room for a great ROI because you
don‘t have to spend much money to run a campaign. It doesn‘t cost much to run a PPC
campaign or social media ad campaign, compared to some traditional methods, which allows
your business to have an opportunity to grow.

Scope of Digital Marketing

According to a survey by Forbes magazine, 82% of consumers shop or conduct research
online. Companies have introduced visibility through digital platforms to close the gap
between customers and brands. India is the second-largest country in terms of population and
active internet users, with a population of almost 2 billion. This makes it one of the biggest
markets, and the market's soaring demand reflects the vast growth potential of the nation.
Therefore, if one has the necessary expertise and understanding in this area, they can succeed
in this dynamic sector.

In addition, the use of digital platforms in India has been rising steadily ever since the
Ministry of Electronics & IT announced the creation of Digital India. According to
economists, this plan might increase the GDP by up to $1 trillion USD by 2025. It can also
aid in a variety of other areas, including the creation of jobs, increased labour productivity,
expansion of the private sector, and governmental income generation. According to a
Goldman Sachs research, digital marketing will have a future value of US$160 billion by
2025, which is three times its current value. This figure only applies to the Indian internet
business.

Future of Digital Marketing

Internet use has surged since the Covid-19 epidemic. Today, almost anything can be done
online, including buying prescription drugs and food delivery to your home. In such an
environment, the usage of digital marketing is a crucial means for meeting growing customer
demand and reaching the right audience.
Additionally, future generations will be immersed in the digital environment and used to
conducting all of their business online. Companies who have not yet entered the world of
digital marketing must do so right now to avoid falling behind.

Trends in Digital Marketing

Interactive Content:

 Although interactive content is not new to the industry, it has never been more widely
used as a marketing strategy as it is being done today.
 They increase a potential customer's interaction with your company and provide you
with more opportunities to gather data that can be applied to enhance your digital
marketing strategy.
 Contests, polls, surveys, and even games are examples of interactive content.
 One of the latest ways to publish interactive content is through social media
marketing.
 The social media marketing approach has expanded and will keep having a significant
impact on the field of digital marketing.

Social Media Influencers Impact:

 Advertisers from many sectors are working with social media influencers to
strengthen their businesses‘ brand position in the market.
 This has been demonstrated to be an effective digital marketing strategy, in part
because consumers are more willing to believe evaluations from other consumers
other than company adverts.
 More companies should begin utilising these influencers to increase sales.
 Consumers are likely to witness fewer celebrity endorsements in the future as they
become comparatively weary of them.
 Influencers who are more closely connected to the product are increasingly preferred.

Artificial Intelligence (AI):

 Artificial intelligence (AI) can assist digital marketers in evaluating user data more
effectively so that the client journey can be further personalised.
 Thanks to AI, businesses can now learn a lot about their customers and the most
effective ways to target them.
 AI also provides users with a better tailored experience by providing them with
customised support throughout the entire shopping process.
 Businesses can offer this kind of customer service by targeting particular audiences
with their advertising programmatically.
 By using AI tools like CRM, social data, and robotic analytics, you can easily boost
the ROI of your marketing initiatives.
  Use email artificial intelligence software to customise your sales communications to
make sure you contact your target audience at the right time.

Video Content:

 Video content will remain a popular marketing strategy going forward as digital
marketers capitalise on people's short attention spans and propensity for watching
content rather than reading it.
 There are currently more than 1 billion mobile phone subscribers in India, according
to TRAI statistics released in January of this year.
 According to YouTube, the most widely used video platform in the country, mobile
devices in India are used for 55% of video viewing.
 One trend to watch out for is search engine optimization for pictures and videos.
 More people are becoming aware of the possibility of using recent or fresh photos in
web searches for similar pictures.
 The scope of applications for digital marketing is thereby greatly expanded. By using
strategies like adding relevant keywords to the titles of their images and videos,
including alt text in picture descriptions, and other similar methods, advertisers may
make it easier for potential customers to find them.

Channel Marketing:

 While websites are now critical for all organisations, it is best to employ a variety of
media distribution platforms to effectively engage with your target audience. This
tactic, which is often referred to as "omnichannel" marketing, gets rid of any
limitations or "silos" that different media may impose.
 For instance, a product that is advertised on television should also have a web tie-in
that is compatible with desktop and mobile devices.
 The idea is that customers can access a range of media before and after they make a
purchase to learn more about and engage with your product (or service). If the
changeover between these several platforms is not seamless, the experience can suffer
and a sale might be lost.

Analytics:

Analytics are important in digital marketing because they can spot facts that untrained eyes
might otherwise miss. The fundamental skill of data analytics is pattern recognition. Big data,
which is a sizable accumulation of data from various sources, is a key component of
contemporary digital marketing methods.

 Analytics processes this data to provide relevant information to a firm. For instance,
marketers will evaluate a piece of content's effectiveness a few weeks following
publication.
 Real-time statistics are already beginning to alter the face of digital marketing, despite
the fact that this is unquestionably helpful.
  Marketing professionals may target more precise client categories and respond to their
behaviour much faster thanks to real-time analysis.
 Another example of how analytics aids business judgement is target marketing.
 Rich, informative content that appeals to the underlying principles of a company's
target consumer group might help it start building a community.
 When a user accesses the content, the company records information about that user. In
order to improve its advertising, it can then construct profiles for each member of its
community.

Difference between Traditional Marketing and Digital Marketing

Traditional Marketing Digital Marketing
In this marketing technique, traditional In this, digital channels are used as the mode
modes of conversion are used. of marketing.
The nature of this marketing technique is The nature of this marketing technique is
static. dynamic.
The conversion rate is less. The conversion rate is high.
Engagement is less or low. Engagement is higher than in the traditional
model.
ROI is less. ROI is high.
It is more expensive than digital marketing. It is less expensive.
Tracking is not possible. The tracking is possible and done easily.
Have local reach. Have global reach.
Results are delayed. Results are instant.
Communication is only a one-way process. Communication is a two-way process.

Evolution of Digital Marketing

‗Evolution‘ has been and will always be a mammoth term to properly describe. This is
especially true in the case of Digital evolution. Let‘s break up this evolution into spans of
time to understand it.

Just Google It!

The Digital era, if to be considered in a proper way, has started with the advent of Google.
Though there were early search engines such as Yahoo!, InfoSeek, AltaVista, Lycos,
WebCrawler and others which had made significant strides in the digital evolution of
search, the golden years didn‘t start until Google launched in 1998.

With the birth of today‘s most popular search engine and development of tools like
AdWords in 2000 and content targeting services in 2003, everything changed. After that,
search engines started using advanced ranking algorithms and browsing online became
more personal. The impact this had on business is immense. Businesses were able to target
their buyers and develop strategies based on the search patterns, which led to a whole new
way of selling and communicating.

Social Media, The Colossal Giant

Mark Zuckerberg and his Harvard roommates didn‘t even know in 2004 that their colossal
giant called Facebook would dawn a new era in digital marketing! Social media stopped
being a way to just stay connected with friends and started becoming a way for brands to
connect with their customers, a place for consumers to lodge complaints, spread news,
shop or even influence other shoppers!
Businesses took notice of this and online reputation management became more important
overnight. Today, with other social media handles such as Twitter, YouTube, Instagram
and Pinterest, with billions of users, targeted advertising and a digital landscape that never
sleeps, social media has become one of the most vital parts of any marketing strategy.
SEO Grew

By 2004, SEO had become an essential marketing tool used on a global scale. In the early
days, techniques like keyword stuffing, article submissions and link spamming were
recommended. But these days SEO is less of a loner and more of an essential cog in a
greater machine powered by other strategies and channels

Digital PR!

Since the digital evolution, PR has also broadened its focus. Today a digital PR specialist
can find out everything they need to know about a contact before even making a pitch. By
working with SEO research and trends, Digital PRs are able to back all of their decisions
with data, leading to better targeting and more quantifiable results.

And just like all good things, this is not where it stops, in fact, this is just a beginning.
Digital Marketing is evolving at a rapid pace thanks to the ever-increasing competition and
staying ahead means taking it head-on.

Timeline of the digital marketing evolution

The 90s

Archie, the first search engine, debuted in the early 1990s, heralding the birth of search. SEO,
or Search Engine Optimization, quickly followed.

The first clickable web-ad banners were introduced in 1994. The first identifiable social
media site was launched in 1997, with 3.5 million users. In the 1990s, a slew of websites still
in use was found, including Google and Yahoo's web search, both of which debuted in 1998.

The Millennial Generation

A massive economic bubble grew in the new millennium. However, the bubble's peak and
burst between 2000 and 2002 harmed many businesses. Many new sites were launched in the
2000s as the economy recovered from the boom, including the beginnings of LinkedIn in
2002, Myspace and WordPress in 2003, and Facebook in 2004. In the early 2000s, mobile
text messaging marketing became increasingly popular.

The Mobile Era

The latter half of the decade saw increased marketing and sales, with Amazon's e-commerce
sales surpassing $10 billion. Over the next few years, mobile app culture expanded with the
introduction of Whatsapp, Instagram, and Snapchat to the digital world.

The Present

Today, 65% of an individual's digital media time is spent on a mobile device. The digital
advertising industry is now valued at around $200 billion, with Google Ad Words accounting
for 96% of the company's revenue. With an estimated 3.1 billion online users, social
networking has led the digital marketing revolution. The rise of bloggers and Instagram has
resulted in a $1 billion industry for influencers, which are anticipated to grow. Digital
marketing is expected to grow in the coming years, with many new developments and
changes in this exciting industry.
Challenges and opportunities for digital marketers

The way marketing is becoming cost-effective while reaching a larger audience, many
businesses, big and small, are adopting digital marketing. This creates new opportunities for
digital marketing professionals, allowing them to put their marketing skills to better use.
Opportunities in digital marketing are endless, and as a digital marketer, you need to be
aware of these new ways to reach the audience.

 Profitable Career: With the way digital marketing reaches a global audience and gets
better results than traditional marketing ever did, companies prioritize professionals
with a digital marketing background. Landing a role in a company as Social Media
Marketer, Content Marketer, or SEO Expert turns out to be a very profitable career for
professionals. You earn well, and there are opportunities to climb the career ladder
much faster than in any other field.
 Global Opportunities: Digital marketing has erased the geographical boundaries of
marketing. You can sit in one corner of the world and market your products and
services to people thousands of miles away. Other than that, you can get a job in
International countries. How well do you understand the markets and how skilled you
are?
 Promoting your business: Learning digital marketing is a must if you‘re a business
owner or plan to become a business owner. You will face challenges at the start, so
having background knowledge of digital marketing will help you in that initial phase.
Even when the business is booming, if you understand digital marketing, it will help
you make better decisions.
 Explore your creativity: Digital marketing is a field that welcomes creativity and
encourages creativity among all team members. There are no limits to creativity; you
can bring it out in whatever space you work, whether writing, designing, or
producing. Your imagination will help you stand out, and it will grow in your career.
Digital Marketing is a space full of opportunities for creatives and aspiring business
owners. So if you want to grow professionally faster than your peers, you should go
ahead with a career in digital marketing.
Challenges in Digital Marketing

Digital Marketing is a career filled with opportunities, but that doesn‘t mean it doesn‘t come
without any challenges. However, any individual who can tackle these challenges can beat
the competition and be at the top of the digital marketing game. So if you want to be the best
Digital Marketer, you need to learn how to overcome these challenges. These are some
common challenges someone in the digital marketing field will face:

These are some common challenges someone in the digital marketing field will face:

 Constantly being on top of trends: Digital marketing is an ever-changing industry. As

policies on the internet change and new trends become famous every day, you as a
Digital Marketing professional must be updated with new marketing strategies and
how the audience is reacting to these strategies. Similarly, a plan that worked for one
brand might not work for another, so you must constantly try new tactics.
 Cross-channel marketing: A Digital Marketer had to be a Jack of all trades because
digital marketing doesn‘t end with social media platforms and websites. There are
video platforms, consumers‘ inboxes, search engines, app stores, and more ground to
cover. If you aren‘t familiar with all the channels, you should be at least willing to
learn about them because if you don‘t, your competitors will have an advantage over
you.

 Pursuing your target audience: You should be able to bring out the best of your brand
while marketing the product. Promoting a new brand is highly challenging as there are
already plenty of brands that have built their audience and have the trust of the
masses. So as a competitor, you will have trouble pursuing your target audience as to
why your product or service is better than those they have used for years.

 Working with a budget: Although digital marketing is more budget-friendly than your
traditional marketing methods, you will be working on a budget when working with
small businesses. You won‘t limit your marketing campaign to one or two platforms
meaning the company‘s ad budget will be split between all the marketing platforms.
So a digital marketing manager needs to understand how to spend, where, and how to
make the most of the giving budget.
  Creating a brand voice: Customers look for authority in a brand, so creating that
authority and maintaining it consistently is the responsibility of the Digital Marketing
team. In addition, a brand‘s voice makes it stand apart from its competition in the eyes
of the audience, so creating that voice in such a way that it perfectly represents the
brand is very important. Starting a career in Digital marketing means learning how to
conquer all these complex challenges.

Digital Marketing Landscape in India

The scope of digital marketing in India has expanded significantly in 2023 and continues to
evolve rapidly. Social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and
YouTube are dominating the digital marketing landscape, with businesses leveraging them
for brand awareness, audience engagement, and sales. Influencer marketing has gained
immense popularity, especially in niches like fashion, beauty, food, and travel, as influencers
have a significant impact on consumer purchasing decisions. E-commerce is on the rise, and
businesses are using digital marketing techniques like SEO, SEM, and email marketing to
attract and retain online customers. Mobile marketing has become a prominent aspect of
digital marketing strategies, with businesses optimizing websites for mobile devices, creating
mobile apps, and implementing SMS marketing and mobile advertising.

Content marketing, including blogs, articles, videos, infographics, and podcasts, continues to
be a significant focus, while data-driven marketing, personalization, and marketing
automation are gaining momentum. Video marketing, especially on platforms like YouTube,
TikTok, and Instagram Reels, is booming in India. Localized marketing, customized content,
language localization, and region-specific campaigns are being used to connect with diverse
populations in different regions of India. Chatbots and AI are used to improve customer
engagement and automate support, while data privacy and security are crucial concerns for
compliance with data protection laws and regulations.

There are various channels to start digital marketing of your product/service. They are −

Content Marketing: We keep content in the first place because, with content, marketing sails
smoothly. Every medium, including website, email marketing, social media marketing,
display marketing, etc., needs effective and trendy content to draw the attention of the target
customers. Content plays a significant role in attracting buyers and influencing their buying
decision. Besides, with the user base, the type of content also differs, and each platform needs
diversified content to hook the customers.

Social Media Marketing: With the increase in users, Social Media is where users prefer
staying and connecting with others. Marketers use the opportunity to promote the products
here to grab their eyeballs and educate them about the brand. Social media platforms provide
a way to attract visitors to the website and make them aware of the available products. The
marketing tools consist of paid and organic, both ways to attract traffic and ensure sales.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO): Search engine optimization helps navigate the website
traffic and calculate the lead conversion. Curating the content with trendy keywords and
applying the content at the proper places helps the visitors to land on the business website.
Further, link-building site optimization helps rank the site on Google's first page; SEO plays a
significant role in creating more visibility, opening the door to opportunities for better
outreach and growth.

PPC Campaign: A PPC campaign is a form of paid marketing where business owners allot
funds to advertise on several online platforms. Internet marketers place the ad at the proper
time and platform based on the nature of the business and the target buyers. PPC considers an
effective marketing tool for calculating the traffic, the leads, and the conversion ratio.
However, PPC comes under paid marketing that can fetch good traffic and ensure growth
within a short time.

Email Marketing: Another effective digital marketing landscape is email marketing. Powerful
content with relevant infographics and visual graphics compels the receiver to open the mail.
Once the receiver checks the products or services, they can become customers. Emails with
relevant business information help the mail receivers make the purchase decision. Big brands
and large-scale industries mostly rely on email marketing to do business.

Video Marketing: The video content market has emerged as watchers enjoy video more than
just written content. Thus, video marketing has significantly increased for better outreach and
to generate leads. Short-form video with relevant information and attractive script can go
viral on several social media platforms, which ensure massive traffic and a good conversion
ratio.

The digital marketing landscapes help business owners reach their target buyers, ensure sales,
and sustain the market. With the effective usage of digital marketing modules, the strategy is
equally important and needs proper planning. In the next part, let's understand the strategy so
that you can better sense how the internet marketing industry works.

Mobile Marketing
What is mobile marketing?

Mobile marketing is any advertising activity that promotes products and services via mobile
devices, such as tablets and smartphones. It makes use of features of modern mobile
technology, including location services, to tailor marketing campaigns based on an
individual's location. Mobile marketing is a way in which technology can be used to create
personalized promotion of goods or services to a user who is constantly connected to a
network.

How Mobile Marketing Works?

Mobile marketing may include promotions sent through SMS text messaging, MMS
multimedia messaging, through downloaded apps using push notifications, through in-app or
in-game marketing, through mobile websites, or by using a mobile device to scan QR codes.

Proximity systems and location-based services can alert users based on geographic location
or proximity to a service provider.

Mobile advertising targets audiences not so much by demographics but by behaviours.

One notable behaviour in the mobile marketing space is known as "snacking," which is when
mobile device users check in to media or messaging for brief periods. Seeking instant
gratification equates to more points of contact for marketers.

In mobile marketing, the device (especially screen size) does make a difference; users of
smartphones and iPad tablets react differently to mobile marketing.

For example, smartphone users tend to find informative content to be the most relevant, yet
iPad users tend to be captivated by interactive advertising that features rich media
presentations with eye-catching imagery.
Pros and Cons of Mobile Marketing

Pros Cons
 Easy to set up and monitor  Data privacy concerns
 Cost-effective  Possible increased data costs for the
user
 Real-time access to potential  Little room for error
customers

Email Marketing
What is email marketing?

Email is one of the oldest forms of digital communication—but it‘s also one of the most
effective digital marketing strategies out there. Sure, there are newer methods of
communicating with your audience and customers like social media and live chat. However,
with a user base of over 4.5 billion people, email is the king of marketing channels.
Additionally, email marketing has an ROI of $36 for every dollar spent, meaning it deserves
a place in every marketer‘s toolbox. Email marketing is still ranked as the most effective
marketing channel, beating out social media, SEO, and affiliate marketing.

Is Email Marketing Outdated?

Despite the rise of social, people use email more than other platforms. After all, what‘s the
good of marketing to someone if they‘re not there?

Data shows that most people are on email—and the number increases every year. In addition,
with email marketing you own the connections—you don‘t have to worry about algorithm
changes tanking your reach. According to HubSpot, four out of five marketers say they‘d
rather give up social media than email marketing.

Fundamentals of Email Marketing

 Stay Human: Email marketing is popular—which also means it is competitive. Use

email to speak directly to your users, use their name, and let them see the human side
of your brand.
 Use Engaging Titles, But Don‘t Bait And Switch: Using interesting subject titles is
crucial to increasing email open rates, but keep them on topic and non-spammy. If
users feel duped, they‘re likely to unsubscribe or mark your message as spam, which
impacts deliverability.
 Keep Messages Short: Most email is read on a mobile device, so keep your copy
concise and to the point. Direct users to a blog post or landing page if you need to
share a ton of information.
 Include CTAs (Call to action) at the Top and Bottom: On landing pages, CTAs are
always included above the fold—use the same strategy with email by including strong
CTAs after the first paragraph and again at the end.
  Ask Permission and Deliver On Your Promises: Never buy email lists—that is illegal
in most cases and won‘t deliver ROI. If you offer a deal or great content, make sure to
deliver high-quality content or offers.

How does email marketing work?

Email marketing is one of the top-performing marketing strategies, in no small part because
it‘s fairly intuitive and often automated. It can also support a number of other marketing
initiatives, including lead generation, sales, and content marketing. An effective email
marketing campaign requires three essential elements:

1. An email list: An email list is a database of subscribers that have agreed to let you send
them emails. To build successful email campaigns, you need an active, engaged email list.
There are many ways to build an email list. One of the easiest is to create a lead magnet (also
called an offer) your target audience is interested in, like a coupon, in exchange for their
email addresses.

2. An Email Service Provider: An email service provider (ESP), also known as an email
marketing platform, is software that helps manage your email list. It also helps design and
executes automated email campaigns. Using an ESP also allows you to create automatic
triggers when your audience completes specific actions, such as sending a cart reminder if a
user adds an item to their cart and doesn‘t checkout. These triggers enable you to personalize
interactions, which improves engagement and open rates.

3. Clearly defined goals: Email can help you achieve a variety of business goals including:

 Drive sales
 Boost brand awareness
 Generate and nurture leads
 Keep customers engaged
 Increase customer loyalty and lifetime value

Advantages of Email Marketing

1. Email is permission-based: When a customer trusts you with their email address, it‘s the
virtual equivalent of being given the keys to their house. Gaining permission to enter rather
than showing up uninvited increases the chances of engagement and conversion.

2. Provides Direct Access to Your Audience: You can communicate directly with
subscribers on their schedules. Plus, because most people check email multiple times a day,
your message is more likely to be seen.

3. Email Provides more control: With most other marketing platforms, you don‘t own the
platform. If the platform ceases to exist, all your hard work sinks with it. If Google or
Facebook updates their algorithm, your reach could be drastically reduced. However, with
email, you own the relationships you forge with your subscribers.
4. More personalization capabilities: You can use demographic or psychographic data to
create personalized and hyper-targeted campaigns. Research shows segmented and
personalized campaigns increase revenue by as much as 760 percent.

5. Easy to Measure Success: Measuring the effectiveness of a marketing campaign is

crucial, and automated email marketing makes measuring your campaign a breeze.

6. Scalable: Email marketing campaigns can easily scale as your audience grows without
straining your resources or compromising quality.

Disadvantages of Email Marketing

1. Tough Competition: Standing out in a cluttered inbox can be a challenge. You‘ll need to
get creative to ensure your emails get opened.

2. You Need an Email List: With email marketing, you must already have an email list for
your campaigns to be effective. Building an email list can be tricky and takes time.

3. Many Rules and Regulations to Navigate: There are several laws governing the use of
email for commercial purposes. Common examples include GDPR, CAN-SPAM, and CCPA.
All of these ban businesses from sending unsolicited emails and outline data storage
requirements.

Unfortunately, some subscribers might report your emails as being spam even if they
subscribe. As a result, your sender‘s reputation takes a hit.

4. Delivery and Deliverability Issues: Deliverability is not guaranteed. Many email

providers (think Gmail or Outlook) use spam filters. To run effective email marketing
campaigns, you must contend with delivery and deliverability issues.

CONTENT MARKETING
What is Content Marketing?

Content marketing is a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing

valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly defined audience —
and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action.

Instead of pitching products or services, content marketing provides relevant and useful
content to your prospects and customers to help them solve issues in their work (B2B
content) or personal lives (B2C content).

Effective content marketing requires a documented content marketing strategy. Building one
doesn‘t have to be complicated.

Types of Common Marketing

Content comes in many shapes and sizes. It can be written, visual, or a mix of both. Here are
some examples of popular types of content:

 Blog Posts
 Email
 Infographics
 Videos
 Email newsletters
 EBooks and white papers
 Case studies
 Podcasts and webinars

Social Media Marketing

What is Social Media Marketing?

Social media marketing is a form of digital marketing that leverages the power of popular
social media networks to achieve your marketing and branding goals. But it‘s not just about
creating business accounts and posting when you feel like it. Social media marketing requires
an evolving strategy with measurable goals and includes:

 Maintaining and optimizing your profiles.

 Posting pictures, videos, stories, and live videos that represent your brand and attract a
relevant audience.
 Responding to comments, shares, and likes and monitoring your reputation.
 Following and engaging with followers, customers, and influencers to build a
community around your brand.

Social media marketing also includes paid social media advertising, where you can pay to
have your business appear in front of large volumes of highly targeted users.

Benefits of Social Media Marketing

With such widespread usage and versatility, social media is one of the most effective free
channels for marketing your business today. Here are some of the specific benefits of social
media marketing:

 Humanize your business: Social media enables you to turn your business into an
active participant in your market. Your profile, posts, and interactions with users form
an approachable persona that your audience can familiarize and connect with, and
come to trust.

 Drive traffic: Between the link in your profile, blog post links in your posts, and your
ads, social media is a top channel for increasing traffic to your website where you can
convert visitors into customers. Plus, social signals are an indirect SEO factor.
  Generate leads and customers: You can also generate leads and conversions directly
on these platforms, through features like Instagram/Facebook shops, direct messaging,
call to action buttons on profiles, and appointment booking capabilities.

 Increase brand awareness: The visual nature of social media platforms allows you
to build your visual identity across vast audiences and improve brand awareness. And
better brand awareness means better results with all your other campaigns.

 Build relationships: These platforms open up both direct and indirect lines of
communication with your followers through which you can network, gather feedback,
hold discussions, and connect directly with individuals.

Influencer Marketing
What is influencer marketing?

Influencer marketing is collaboration between popular social-media users and brands to

promote brands‘ products or services.

What does an influencer marketing deal look like?

Such a partnership often combines these two models:

1. An influencer is paid a flat rate per post to feature a product or service. This is known
as a brand deal. The flat rates can be three to five figures, even for an influencer
without millions of followers or a global profile. Celebrities can charge six figures or
more per post.

2. An influencer posts about a product or service, with a link to a purchase gateway.

Every time a viewer buys the product by clicking through the link or using a promo
code, the influencer earns an affiliate commission.

Affiliate Marketing
What is Affiliate Marketing?

Affiliate marketing is a process where publishers earn a commission by using an affiliate link
to promote a product or service made by another retailer or advertiser. The affiliate partner is
rewarded a payout for providing a specific result to the retailer or advertiser.

Typically, the result is a sale. But some affiliate marketing programs can reward you for
leads, free-trial users, clicks to a website, or getting downloads for an app.

How affiliate marketing works?

Affiliate programs work by allowing individuals (affiliates) to promote and sell products or
services of a company in exchange for a commission on each sale. The affiliate earns a
commission each time someone makes a purchase through the unique affiliate link associated
with their recommendation.

Here‘s how it works at a high level:

 An affiliate shows an ad or a link for Store Z on their website, blog, or social network.

 A customer clicks the unique affiliate link.

 The customer makes a purchase in Store Z.

 The affiliate network records the transaction.

 The purchase is confirmed by Store Z.

 The affiliate gets paid a monetary commission.

Commission rates for affiliate sales vary depending on the company and the offer. On the low
end, you‘ll earn about 5% of the sale, but with some arrangements, you can earn as much as
50%, usually when promoting a class or event. Some affiliate marketing programs provide a
flat rate per sale instead of a percentage.

What is Cost per Click (CPC)?

Cost per click (CPC) is an online advertising revenue model that that websites use to bill
advertisers based on the number of times visitors click on a display ad attached to their sites.

Advertisers commonly use cost per click with a set daily budget for a campaign. When the
advertiser's budget is reached, the ad is automatically removed from the website's rotation for
the remainder of the billing period. For example, a website with a cost-per-click rate of $.10
would bill an advertiser $100 for 1,000 click-throughs.

A formula may be used to determine the rate you pay per click. One of the most popular ways
to calculate your CPC is:

Advertising Campaign Cost / Number of Clicks

What is pay-per click advertising?

PPC is an online advertising model in which advertisers pay each time a user clicks on one of
their online ads.

There are different types of PPC ads, but one of the most common types is the paid search ad.
These ads appear when people search for things online using a search engine like Google –
especially when they are performing commercial searches, meaning that they‘re looking for
something to buy. This could be anything from a mobile search (someone looking for ―pizza
near me‖ on their phone) to a local service search (someone looking for a dentist or a
plumber in their area) to someone shopping for a gift (―Mother‘s Day flowers‖) or a high-end
item like enterprise software. All of these searches trigger pay-per-click ads.

In pay-per-click advertising, businesses running ads are only charged when a user actually
clicks on their ad, hence the name ―pay-per-click.‖

What is SEO – Search Engine Optimisation?

SEO stands for ―search engine optimization.‖ In simple terms, SEO means the process of
improving your website to increase its visibility in Google, Microsoft Bing, and other search
engines whenever people search for:

 Products you sell.

 Services you provide.
 Information on topics in which you have deep expertise and/or experience.

The better visibility your pages have in search results, the more likely you are to be found and
clicked on. Ultimately, the goal of search engine optimization is to help attract website
visitors who will become customers, clients or an audience that keeps coming back.

What Is a Content Management System (CMS)?

A content management system (CMS) is software that helps users create, manage, and
modify content on a website without the need for technical knowledge. In other words, a
CMS lets you build a website without needing to write code from scratch (or even know how
to code at all).

Instead of building your own system for creating web pages, storing images, and other
functions, the content management system handles all that basic infrastructure stuff for you
so that you can focus on more forward-facing parts of your website.

Beyond websites, you can also find content management systems for other functions – like
document management.

What is Link Building and how does it work?

Link building is a search engine optimization technique that increases your search engine
ranking. Links are one of the primary ways that search engine algorithms determine the
relevance of a page. Having a good number of links to a website indicates that the content is
there is valuable. External and internal linking both provide more visibility for your website.
In addition, linking helps Google and other search engines crawl your site.
What are cookies?
Cookies are small pieces of code that are added to users‘ web browsers as they visit different
websites. The information they contain delivers a more customized user experience, as it
remembers previous internet actions, like log-in information, location settings, what‘s in your
cart, and more. Advertisers use cookies to collect data—like what websites you visited—that
will help them deliver the most relevant and targeted content to specific audiences.

What is web analytics?

Web analytics involves collecting, measuring, and analyzing website data. Web Analytics
tools can provide lots of useful information about the origin of website traffic, how website
users navigate and interact throughout a website, what content and web pages they're most
engaged with, and how they exit the site. Marketers can then use this data to optimize the
performance of their channels and websites by taking data-led decisions. These are actions
we take to improve performance based on our understanding of the data we‘ve recorded; in
other words, the data is leading the decision. While it‘s best practice to follow data-led
decisions, we must always remind ourselves to make sure we test and verify the data.