Learn the Basics: Digital Marketing. What Any Online Entrepreneur Should Know.

If you are just writing your thoughts and expressing them on your website. This is not having a professional blog. It is just a diary. 

When you plan to have an online business or to run a blog. You must know that digital marketing should be your main concern. Having the basics in mind will help you to start any blog or online activity with strong foundations.

To facilitate the learning, this article is organized like a course. See below what you are going to read about:

• Introduction to Digital Marketing
• Offline Digital Marketing
• Online Digital Marketing
• How to benefit from Digital Marketing?
• 1 – The Website
• 2 – Organic Search and SEO
• 3 – Content Marketing 
• 4 – Targeted Traffic
• 5 – Email Marketing
• 6 – Social Media
• Conclusion

Introduction to Digital Marketing

To make it simple, digital marketing is a way of promoting and selling products and services, through electronic devices and digital platforms. 

Digital marketing is divided into two categories:

Offline Digital Marketing

You might not be familiar with the term “offline digital marketing”. But you are actually experiencing it almost every day. 

Every time you go to the mall or you are walking outside and you see those big screens in the streets displaying some ads. Well, this is an example of offline digital marketing.

It uses an electronic device, in that case a digital signage hardware (screen, computer, etc.), to display ads and promote specific products.

So, offline digital marketing stands for all media channels such as advertising screens, digital billboards, information kiosks, tablets in restaurants and hotels, etc.

For blogging and online activity, we will focus more on the second category of digital marketing. As it is the main topic of this article.

I used to be the Asia-Pacific Director of an international company in offline digital marketing so if you have any questions about this industry, leave a comment.

Online Digital Marketing

As its name implies, online digital marketing is a marketing that happens on the internet.

It embodies certain methods that will help you promote your business, improve your online branding, boost your sales, etc. 

Hence digital marketing strategies usually evolve around a website which will expand thanks to internet marketing, SEO, content production, social media and more online tools.

In this article, and probably in my entire blog, if I am now talking about digital marketing. It’s the online one.

“Ignoring online marketing is like opening a business but not telling anyone.”

How to benefit from Digital Marketing?

Digital marketing gathers so many topics that it would be hard, even for someone who’s using it for years, to master each one of them.

Because it includes: content marketing, copywriting, website development, search engine optimization (SEO), marketing strategy, pay-per-click (PPC), email marketing, targeting, social media, coding, blogging, influencer marketing, etc.

But you don’t have to master each topic to have an online business running. Because it will take too long, and you’d like to start something now if you want to keep on progressing.

Only some of those strategies or tools will help you to achieve your goals. 

If you want a professional blog: copywriting, website development, social media, can be topics to focus on when starting. 

On the other hand, if your goal is to sell online products as soon as possible: e-commerce, pay-per-click, email marketing, paid campaigns could be the first ones.

Therefore, depending on the purpose of your online activity, you can choose which topics you will need the most and start learning about them.

Dig into the topics that fit your needs better but spend your time knowing the basics of all as well. 

So, what are the basic tools?

1.The Website

73 million internet users in the Philippines as of January 2020. 

Spending an average of 4 – 6 hours, one of the most active users in the world. I can’t highlight more how not putting your business online or not practicing digital marketing is a huge missing opportunity.

So, get a website and create your social media accounts asap. The website is the foundation of digital marketing. Especially if you want to be a blogger, you must have your own website.

As you know a professional blog is a website where you can express your personal thoughts or knowledge about a particular topic through written articles. You can also share it with audio (podcasts), or video (vlogs). 

This to deliver content to your audience, with which you can make a living from.

The central platform of all your internet activities is then your website. So, make sure you are using a recommended hosting platform: it is where your website will be hosted. And if you don’t know how to code. You should start with a user-friendly content management system (CMS): it will allow you to post your articles, images or any content, the most famous one is WordPress.

I personally use Bluehost as my hosting platform, it integrates WordPress automatically. If you need to set up your website, this free step-by-step pdf will teach you how.

Once you have your own website, you’d like to use the following tools of digital marketing that should bring your visitors to your platform and convert them into real customers..

2. Organic Search (SEO)

Definition: Organic search is a method of searching online with certain keywords that leads you to get organic results based on the relevancy of the content. It is opposite to non-organic searches that show you advertisement results. 

To make it simple, it is when you google something and you click on results that are not ads.

Search queries bring you visitors

When you read a blog post, it is usually because you had a question that you wanted to be solved. You go on Google and type your search. 

Once you see the top results, you select one of them and start reading the article that is trying to solve your problem.

Here I am not going to talk about the fact that you can pay google to be in the top results depending on the keyword you are choosing. 

Let’s just pretend that you didn’t pay Google and that you have a blog about cooking food. Your  blog post about “cooking eggplants” is the first one amongst many when someone types “how to cook eggplants”. 

This article will bring you visitors that might come back to your site if they have other related questions about cooking and that you wrote other articles about it. 

This enables your website to grow its number of visitors and audience. 

If you have the chance to be the first in the results, there is more chance that people will click on your link and read your content. This brings you more web traffic than if you were in the lowest results. 

Another example, let’s say you’re launching your website.You create a great design, set up an easy navigation and upload interesting content.

But over time, you notice that there are very few visitors although your content is really well answering some questions netizens might have. And your website traffic remains far from your goals. 

What is the problem? You need to keep in mind that every day thousands of other sites are being created on the internet and they are tackling similar topics as yours.

Your website is competing with others to attract more visitors. So, you need to make sure you are ranking well in search results. Meaning that when someone searches something on Google. Your website appears in the first result.

Because search engines like Google will show several alternatives to a search query. And if you are not in the top results, there’s few chances that someone will notice you or go to your website. 

That is where Search Engine Optimization (SEO) intervenes.

How to optimize my website?

As its name indicates, SEO are techniques of optimization with search engines. By using SEO, you aim to get your site at the top of the results of search engines such as Google, Yahoo or Bing. And by extension, SEO will help you to bring more visitors to your website.

SEO is such a wide topic that some blogger firms have employees only dedicated to it. 

Today, more than 95% of the searches on the internet are made on Google. You should then only focus on optimizing your referencing with Google.

To do so, you are going to comply with a set of criteria that will facilitate the work of search engines to identify your content and rank it better. 

Such criteria are: producing quality content, having a good website structure, clear topic, authority content or a high website speed load. Posting consistently and updating your website often. Including several times the keyword you want to emphasize, without exaggerating, etc. Also check the external links that are pointing to your sites, etc. If your website becomes popular, interesting and credible, Google will like you and promote your website in its results.

Although, climbing ranks in organic search is a long process that involves a lot of work, dedication and professionalism. It is very rewarding and it is free to implement.

You must be meticulous in the quality that you are delivering and must stay up-to-date to the new techniques that boost your SEO.

Nonetheless, the best way to win more traffic is to produce gold content.

I made a whole article about SEO explain it further, this belongs to my series: Learn the Basics. You can read it here: Learn the Basics of SEO.

3. Content Marketing

Definition: Content marketing is a strategy in marketing that is about creating, producing and publishing valuable content to your audience, to ultimately generate and increase online sales. 

Content Marketing vs Traditional Marketing

Before reviewing content marketing, I need to tell you about traditional marketing and how it works.

At the center of the marketing process, there is the message that you want to communicate to potential customers. 

To get potential customers (prospects), we would try to call them over the phone for example. Trying to sell them our products. Or we would purchase expensive commercials to be displayed on TV, pay radio for advertising or place ads in newspapers.

Instead of delivering valuable content and informing potential customers through blog posts, podcasts, videos, emails, etc. – what content marketing is about; traditional marketing would be mostly broadcasting the message to them and pitching them the products.

Those methods that we could qualify as “hard selling” still exist and work. 

But, traditional marketing presents huge disadvantages that are explaining the shift to modern digital marketing, here is just a few:

• It required an incredible marketing budget to convey your message to people, especially if it was a TV campaign.
• The target audience was everyone as the message was broadcast on big channels and radios. Now, with Facebook or Google ads, it becomes easier to target your specific audience.
• Small and medium enterprises can now invest in marketing campaigns (due to lower needed budget in digital) and are easily winning more market shares through digital marketing than traditional. 

There are many other disadvantages of traditional marketing that could be a long post article.

On the other hand, content marketing has a better approach. As you understand content is at the center of the scheme. 

It is about creating something interesting, useful and entertaining. That directly speaks to your audience.Through an article, a video, an infographic, etc. 

Plus, let’s say your blog is about dogs. People that are coming to your website, are looking for topics related to dog food. So, almost all of your audience is a potential customer. 

Which was not the case with traditional marketing. You could display a print ad on the highway but not all car drivers are owning dogs and looking for specific info about dog food, and especially at that time! 

To sum up, traditional marketing is expensive, only a small proportion will react, and it can be very intrusive. Content marketing is cheaper, more efficient and less intrusive as it is people who are looking for you, not the contrary.

Content marketing is key for a professional blog

On the internet, the content is king: This is one of the most popular sayings about digital marketing. And I believe it is still true.

As you might know already, blogging is about writing informational content on a platform (usually a website). 

Many different blogs exist:

• Personal blogs, owned by a single blogger that wants to express his or her thoughts about different topics (like mine).
• Corporate blogs, that are usually sections in a corporate website, where you’ll find different news and related content about their industry and the company itself.

And lots more, even when you tweet, it can be micro-blogging.

So, what’s the difference between blogging and content marketing?

Blogging alone is awesome but if you want to convert it as a business, it needs a content marketing approach.

What you are writing about comes from a marketing strategy which is giving value to your specific audience and driving results to your commercial activity.

Imagine that your business is: you bake homemade cookies. At the same time, you start a blog about cookies.

You start writing about recipes: How to bake perfect cookies, or What are the best cookies to try, etc. 

People who want to know more about baking cookies will find you on the internet. Read your content and if it’s great trust you as an expert in “doing cookies”. With time, they might even order from you some cookies as they know and trust you. Rather than purchasing from someone they don’t know about and has no online presence.

More than that, you can create new ways of getting revenues: why not sell cooking recipes online, coaching and training for baking, selling packages for events, etc. 

The great thing is that you are giving valuable content to people and receiving greater results with your business activity with content marketing.

Although, I want to warn you.

Be sure to stay authentic and deliver true content. People are now more cautious on the internet, if you are a scam we would know. I’m referring to those people teaching how to make $100K with blogging in just 3 months, from a luxurious AirBnb with some random figures on a white board in the background.

The goal here is to distribute relevant content to satisfy the audience you’re speaking to and ultimately sell your products or services.

That’s how a content marketing approach will shift your personal blog to a professional one.

4. Targeted Traffic

Definition: Targeted traffic also called qualified traffic or quality traffic, means your visitors are people who are most likely to ask for your services or purchase your products.

When people observe their analytics, they often make a fundamental mistake. They are looking at the absolute number of visitors, the absolute of followers and likes on social media.

But these indicators are often misleading. 

When you have a commercial activity online, all visitors are not worth the same.

Example: Let’s say, you are selling healthy meals.There is a fair event that you are participating at and you have your booth there. 

Your best audience is a crowd of hungry people that are looking for healthy food on that day. People who are not hungry or who are looking for fast food or high gastronomy are not your target.

You need those who are a bit conscious with what they eat and are eager to get your food.

On the web, it’s basically the same. Calculating the total number of visitors, likes, shares, do not say much about the quality of your audience. 

You need visitors that know where they want to go. Here are the 3 types of visitors you can have:

1. [Green traffic light] Visitors who are looking for a solution similar to your offer and who know you. A very great audience that is ready to be converted to a sale. This traffic can be sent directly onto your offers and proposals. Try to give them promotions and you can have great results at the end.
2. [Orange traffic light] Visitors who simply seek a solution similar to what you offer but who do not know you. These visitors still have to be educated to your content, services or products. You can send them some newsletters or proposals. This is because the trust between you and them is still low, and no sale happens when there is no trust.
3. [Red traffic light] Visitors who do not necessarily look for something in particular, which is the rest of the traffic. These people are not looking for your products. This traffic has less chance to convert. It’s tempting to seduce them, but they should not be your priority.

With targeted traffic, you will be better at getting results of sales conversion. Your visitors going to your website might purchase from you because you will dedicate more time to the green light ones. You have enabled lots of trust with them and they are happy to purchase from you.

Keep a continuous relationship with them and it will be the key to your success. Sending them emails still remains the best way to do so.

5. Email Marketing

Definition: Email marketing is a strategic marketing approach that focuses on sending emails to your audience to convert prospects into customers. 

You could think that communicating with your audience through social media is the best way to have more engagement. But in most cases, it is false.

If your business is not about being an influencer and having thousands or millions of followers on social media. You will convert more with emails.

So, when you have visitors on your website. Try to get their email addresses. 

Because unlike social media, an email list belongs to you. You’re not under the control of Facebook or Instagram which can, whenever they want, change their algorithms and reduce your audience reach.

Besides, almost every internet user has an email address. But not everyone is using social media. Some people still do not like it. They don’t have any account or are active on any platforms.

So, the best way to reach them remains through email. As it is usually the main messaging platform, they are checking. 

The purpose of the email is to create a strong relationship with your visitors. As a result, whenever you have a new product or service ready you can send an email to all your subscribers, who are visitors who trust you and certainly are willing to buy from you.

Give them discounts, gifts, offer the delivering fees, or inform them about any news you have. This will allow you to maintain effectively your relationship with your audience.

To start with email marketing, you need to create an email list (a database) where all your subscribers are listed and can receive an email automatically depending on how you set it.

Then, try to capture the attention of your readers with well written emails. All of this without spamming your potential customers and then, getting the most of an effective email marketing strategy: converting them into online sales.

I personally use MailChimp as I started with that and it was free if you have less than 2000 subscribers.

6. Social Media

Why is it changing the landscape of marketing?

Social media, as many know, are community-based platforms where people can create content and interact with each other (using likes, comments, shares, etc.).

The most famous ones are Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Snapchat, or Pinterest.

I did not include YouTube, as I used to consider it as a search engine. Although, the YouTube stories, a recent feature, and the likes, comments, as existing features, tend to categorize YouTube as a social media.

More than that, some include WhatsApp, Messenger or Viber, therefore, chat apps by nature. Meaning that there are different rankings and interpretations.  

In any case, those platforms are tremendously powerful tools for online activities.

They gather millions to billions of users.

Which means that your content can be seen by the same amount of audience. And even at a smaller scale you can reach a targeted audience.

Facebook, for example, is improving every day –  not sure if for the best –  their advertising system where you can define better the people, (their gender, location, age, etc.), you want to target with your products.

How can you benefit from it?

As you understood it is a really huge opportunity for businesses that want to increase their sales with marketing. Instead of doing traditional one, with printings on billboards, they can invest in online ads to make sure they will convert.

And if you don’t want to put any money or budget for online advertising. You can still use social media as a branding platform.

Using them to share your content freely as it is a great way to connect with people. Especially, if you have a personal blog, you might have a lower marketing budget than corporations. Use social media to drive traffic to your blog at the beginning freely by sharing your content there.

You will be able to measure some useful analytics and interact with your audience. Getting a better understanding of what your audience is liking. And then, continue crafting better content adequate to their needs.

If you are familiar with the lean startup strategy, that is a similar approach.

Social media can also help your brand image. People are now looking at who they buy from. Knowing you personally will help build the trust relationship.

The great thing with this approach is that it gives to the audience more control on the quality of work. Bloggers must deliver authentic and truly helpful content in order to keep a good reputation.

More and more bloggers put their names and their faces and show to the audience that real people are behind their content. This, increasing their sales opportunities. Remember, people tend to buy something because they see or hear from someone else that it was a great product or service. Our purchases are based on other people’s recommendations. So make sure you have good ones.

If you go to a restaurant, it’s probably because you see that a lot of people are waiting to eat there or because a friend of yours told you to go there.

Same thing, with digital marketing, if your audience knows you better. They’ll be more likely to trust you and to purchase from your recommendations.

Conclusion

In this article, you saw the basics that constitute digital marketing. I hope you now have a better idea on how it could help your blogging or online activity.

Just remember that your website is the foundation and around it, evolve many tools that will help you grow your online activity. You don’t have to know them perfectly but mastering one or two would be very beneficial.

Meaning, you could focus only on copywriting, be the best at it and get a competitive advantage with other bloggers or online businesses. Or you could be the best at email marketing, writing super emails that convert well and bringing you lots of sales.

Digital marketing tools are so wide that there are blogs covering only one specific area of it and that are running for years: about SEO, email marketing, content marketing, etc.

What I mean is that you only had an overview here. So, if you want to learn more about it, I invite you to read more. You can read all the articles on this blog, it’s free knowledge.

Leave a comment to let me know if you like this article or if you need more information. I would be happy to chat with my readers and to know that this was valuable to you.