What is Digital Marketing: Strategies, Advantages and Future
Welcome to this article, where I explain everything from the definition of digital marketing to different areas of work! I will talk about the importance of digital marketing, the types of applications of digital marketing on the web, different performance indicators related to digital marketing, the advantages of digital marketing, and of course its future. I hope I can make a small contribution to you in starting your career in this field, enjoy reading!
What is digital marketing?
Digital marketing, which was initially seen as just a digital reflection of traditional marketing, has become a powerful tool that enables brands to achieve their goals in digital environments by bringing together major intersections like marketing.
With the increase in the number of internet users around the world, the influence of social media, and the spread of mobile technology, digital marketing has become a method that allows brands to reach potential customers in a more personalized and effective way.
Digital marketing offers the opportunity to engage not only with the brand itself but also with a customer-focused communication strategy, focusing on the customer’s needs. Therefore, digital marketing aims to establish a meaningful connection with customers and add value to their real needs, as well as delivering products and brands to potential customers and presenting the reasons for their preference.
Today, it is possible to say that digital marketing is a broad concept that covers various strategies implemented through the Internet, social media, search engines, and mobile applications.
With the power of the internet and mobile, digital marketing brings many advantages for businesses, such as easy access to international markets, effective use of customer data, and the opportunity to find customers 24/7. Therefore, specializing in different areas of digital marketing can ensure that you are always one step ahead in your career.
The importance of digital marketing
Digital marketing offers a very valuable career opportunity for young graduates in today’s business world. With the spread of digitalization and the incredibly easy access to devices such as phones or computers in general, companies are now focusing more on digital marketing strategies to increase brand awareness, reach potential customers, and promote products on online platforms. As a young graduate, acquiring digital marketing skills will not only give you an advantage in the job search process but is also key to supporting you in building your career.
Improving yourself in this field means that you can start in a junior position in a workplace and gain experience, and that you can use this knowledge to your advantage when you want to start your own business one day.
Digital marketing provides young professionals with a versatile skill set as it includes various areas such as social media management, content marketing, data analysis, and paid advertising. Additionally, individuals who can effectively implement digital marketing strategies can help businesses strengthen their online presence and communicate more interactively with their target audiences.
For young graduates, digital marketing not only keeps their finger on the pulse of the business world, but also offers an area where they can polish their career paths by contributing to the development of important skills such as creative thinking, problem-solving ability, and openness to continuous learning.
Digital marketing strategies
There are many strategies in the field of digital marketing, but in this article, I will talk about the most common ones. First, I’ll start with search engine optimization (SEO).
Search engine optimization (SEO)
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is one of the cornerstones of digital marketing and plays a critical role for businesses looking to strengthen their online presence. SEO includes a set of strategies used to crawl and index websites more effectively by search engines.
This includes elements such as content optimization, technical tweaks, and link building to ensure that a website appears at the top of search engine results pages (SERPs) (think of it as the top 10 results when you Google a topic). The main purpose of SEO is to enable potential customers and target audiences to find the business’s products and services more easily.
Businesses, individuals, or organizations carry out these optimization studies to meet their right audiences, and they put forward the body of work I mentioned above to appear before their audiences when they search for certain keywords on search engines such as Google.
For young people, the SEO field can be an attractive freelance career path due to the flexibility and learning opportunities it offers. By improving their SEO skills, young professionals can help companies or individuals make their websites more visible in search engines.
In general, it is common to start freelancing as a content writer in the SEO field. Freelance SEO experts can build their careers by supporting clients with increased organic traffic, better search engine rankings, and online visibility.
Additionally, since the SEO world is constantly updated, young people can gain a competitive advantage by following innovations in the industry and staying up to date. Freelance SEO expertise is a dynamic digital marketing field that offers both learning and earning opportunities for young people.
Content marketing
Content Marketing is one of the indispensable areas of digital marketing strategies and is a powerful tool that allows businesses to interact with their target audiences, increase brand awareness and build customer loyalty. This strategy involves creating and sharing thoughtful, engaging, and audience-specific content.
Content marketing aims to attract the attention of the target audience by using content in various formats such as:
- blog posts.
- Articles
- Video contents
- infographics
- e-books
- Social media posts
Successful content marketing examples are not limited to just promoting the product or service, but also offer solutions to the target audience’s problems and aim to establish a meaningful bond with them.
Social media marketing
Social Media Marketing stands out as an indispensable part of the digital world. Especially recently, businesses that have not established their social media presence and have not done good brand communications have fallen behind the competition.
Social media marketing delivers the brand message to a wide audience by using various tools such as sharing-oriented content, advertisements, campaigns, and influencer collaborations on platforms such as META (Facebook, Instagram), TikTok, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and YouTube). For young people, social media marketing is a very valuable area to both showcase their creative talents and learn digital marketing strategies.
Businesses and individuals should keep a close eye on trends when doing social media marketing. Because social media platforms constantly adapt to changing algorithms, popular content types, and user behavior. Following trends allows businesses and individuals to stay engaged with their target audiences, keep their content up-to-date, and gain a competitive advantage.
Additionally, those who follow social media trends have the chance to influence their target audiences with attractive and impressive content by better understanding innovative and effective marketing strategies. So, for those who want to be successful in social media marketing, being sensitive to trends is an important part of creating a dynamic marketing strategy.
PPC (Pay Per Click)
This strategy involves advertisers paying to view ads based on specific keywords or target audience characteristics. Basically, it is based on the principle of paying per click.
PPC ads can often appear on search engine results pages, social media platforms or other online venues. This advertising model offers advertisers the advantage of maintaining budget control and measuring campaign performance.
For young people, entering the PPC field can help them improve their skills in digital advertising and help businesses promote their online presence to more people. PPC is an effective digital marketing strategy for situations where advertisers want to achieve quick results and measure budget impact.
Affiliate marketing.
Affiliate Marketing is a marketing model that allows businesses to collaborate with other individuals or businesses to market their products or services. Affiliates direct visitors to the business’s website through a special link (affiliate link) and receive a commission for each sale or action these visitors make.
Examples of this can be widely observed in our country through links shared on social media via Trendy and Hepsiburada.
This marketing model provides both businesses with the opportunity to increase their sales and sales partners to generate income. Nowadays, especially with the widespread use of social media platforms, affiliate marketing has become an important marketing strategy.
Affiliates earn income by converting their follower base into a target audience and promoting products or services through special links they share on their social media accounts. This provides an effective way for businesses to reach potential customers more organically and for affiliates to commercialize their social media interactions.
E-mail Marketing
E-mail Marketing is an effective digital marketing strategy that allows businesses to communicate directly with their target audiences.
Large companies regularly send emails to their customer base. Some forms of email marketing can be listed as follows:
Campaign announcements (special days – holidays)
- special offers
- Product updates
- newsletters
Nowadays, e-mails from big brands that constantly fall into our mailboxes aim to attract attention with personalized content, customized offers and strategies that focus on the interests of the recipients.
In addition to being a powerful marketing tool for large companies, E-mail Marketing also offers a cost-effective and effective communication channel for smaller businesses and entrepreneurs. With the right targeting and content strategies, email marketing stands out as a powerful tool to strengthen customer relationships and increase brand loyalty.
Digital marketing key performance indicators
Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are measurable metrics that help measure the level of success of a business.
- Through key performance indicators, businesses:
- Can evaluate the impact of marketing strategies.
- Can make improvements.
- They can monitor their progress towards achieving their goals.
Here are some performance indicators and their brief explanations in digital marketing:
Traffic: An indicator that measures the number of people visiting a website. Traffic typically comes from organic search, social media, or direct visitors.
Conversion Rate: It refers to the conversion rate if visitors perform a certain action, for example purchasing a product or filling out a form.
Impressions: The total number of times the ad or content was viewed. This shows how wide an audience the content reaches.
Cost Per Click (CPC): It refers to the cost per advertisement. It shows how much is paid when an ad is clicked.
Social Media Engagement: An indicator that measures likes, comments and shares on social media content. It reflects the level of interaction of the brand.
Bounce Rate: It shows the rate of visitors to a website viewing only a single page and leaving the site. A lower bounce rate generally reflects better user experience.
SEO Ranking: An indicator that shows how high the website appears in search engines for certain keywords. High ranking contributes to organic traffic increase.
Cost Per Conversion: It refers to the total cost spent to achieve a certain conversion. Shows the cost per conversion.
Advantages of Digital Marketing
Digital marketing plays an important role in today’s business world by offering businesses the opportunity to reach large audiences, reduce costs and achieve measurable results. These advantages open doors to career opportunities, especially for young people.
The main advantages can be listed as follows:
Reaching Large Audiences: Digital marketing provides the opportunity to reach large audiences around the world thanks to the widespread use of the internet.
Measurable Results: It is easier to measure and analyze the impact of digital marketing activities. Many metrics can be measured, such as traffic, conversion rates, and social media engagement.
Targeted Marketing: Digital marketing offers the ability to focus on target audiences with specific demographics, behaviors, or interests. This allows you to use the advertising budget more effectively.
Opportunity for Personalization: Digital marketing gives customers the chance to provide personalized content and offers, which increases customer experience and strengthens brand loyalty.
Low Cost: Compared to traditional marketing methods, digital marketing is generally lower cost. It is a budget-friendly option, especially for small businesses.
Instant Return: Digital marketing strategies can be implemented quickly, and results can be measured instantly. This makes it possible to make rapid strategy changes and improvements.
Interactive Communication: Through social media and other digital channels, businesses can interact with their customers, receive feedback, and react instantly.
Global Market Access: Digital marketing crosses borders and gives businesses access to global markets. It is possible to reach customers around the world via the Internet.
24/7 Access: An online presence offers businesses the advantage of being accessible at any time of the day. Customers can review products or access services at any time.
Competitive Advantage: Digital marketing provides businesses with a competitive advantage. With a good digital strategy, even small businesses can compete with their larger rivals.
These benefits help businesses increase customer acquisition, strengthen brand awareness, and optimize sales by using digital marketing effectively.
The Future of Digital Marketing
The fact that digital marketing is a rapidly evolving and expanding field offers great career opportunities for new graduates or students. Digital marketing skills play an important role in keeping up with the digital transformation of the business world and gaining a competitive advantage.
The knowledge and experience gained in this field allow companies to effectively manage their digital assets, reach large audiences, and improve customer experience.
New graduates and students can stand out in the business world by following digital marketing trends and specializing in topics such as social media management, content marketing, and data analytics.
In this way, they can step into a successful career in the dynamic and growing sector of digital marketing.
Thank you for reading this blog post that covers digital marketing in general terms! You can subscribe to the Digital Career Platform to be informed about content and community news like this in the fastest way!
