The Beginner’s Guide To Digital Marketing

If you think your business needs digital marketing but aren’t quite sure why you’re not on your own. 

Many of our customers see their competitors using online marketing and wonder if they should too. In some cases, these customers have an existing email newsletter or some other ad hoc effort, but they don’t have in-house digital marketing skills and are cautious about complex online campaigns and the nose-bleeding agency bills that come with them. 

If that sounds like where your business is, we’re here to help. The DSS digital marketing team is great at understanding our customers’ commercial objectives and translating them into low-fuss and cost-effective online marketing programmes that produce measurable returns on investment. Early on in that work we often find ourselves demystifying the expanding range of digital marketing tools. Here’s our introductory guide to some of those options: 

First of all, think of digital marketing as the superset of marketing activities that take place on the internet. It covers the world wide web, websites, social media, email marketing, paid search, search engine optimisation, and more.  

 

 

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is all about putting your business at the top of the list when prospective customers search online for your product or service. SEO specialists have a deep understanding of the mechanics of search engines and maximise the organic, or unpaid, traffic that your website attracts by, for example, structuring it so Google and other search engines can easily see and rank it.  

 

Search Engine Marketing (SEM)

Search Engine Marketing (SEM). Like SEO, search engine marketing promotes your website on search engine results pages, this time using paid advertising. It’s also known as pay per click, because you pay an agreed amount every time someone clicks on your link. SEO campaigns can be very narrowly targeted geographically and demographically.  

 

Social Media Marketing (SMM)

Social media marketing (SMM). This speciality harnesses Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn, and various other social media platforms to build a community around your company and to tell its story. At its best when that story is fully baked, you’re committed to the programme for the long haul, and the interaction with your audience is two-way. 

We’ll step through the planning and execution of successful digital marketing campaigns in subsequent blogs but, for the time being, we don’t recommend using any of these tools without first thinking through your goals. A good place to start is a digital review. If you’re ready to start the conversation, drop us a line and ask how DSS can help your business win online.