Digital marketing encompasses promoting and selling products and services through online channels and digital tactics. As consumer media consumption and purchasing continues shifting increasingly online, digital marketing skills have become imperative for modern businesses’ success.
This comprehensive guide provides an overview of what comprises digital marketing today, core disciplines and channels within it, integrated strategies for connectivity across efforts, essential technologies and tools, key performance metrics, best practices for planning and execution, organizational considerations, and emerging innovation trends that continue pushing it forward.
Whether you are new to digital marketing or an experienced practitioner seeking a reference piece detailing its current state and direction, explore the components covered here to strengthen your digital literacy and equip yourself with well-rounded knowledge. Enable deeper leadership of digital transformation initiatives unfolding across the landscape now and into the future with the learnings contained ahead.
What is Digital Marketing?
Digital marketing is using digital technologies and media that allow brands to promote their products, services and reach new audiences in targeted, measurable ways. It collectively covers the strategies, techniques and performance metrics brands leverage through electronic devices and the internet.
While traditional marketing relied heavily on print, radio and television ads, digital marketing taps into modern mediums where today’s consumers spend increasing amounts of time and make buying decisions – mobile devices, social platforms, streaming sites and more. This allows for real-time insights while buyers are actively searching for solutions.
In contrast to outbound, interruption-based advertising, digital additionally enables two-way communication channels, personalized and localized messaging, interactive storytelling, and inbound attraction based on providing audience value upfront.
Omnichannel integration ties digital initiatives together for continuity whether someone first becomes aware through paid social media ads, clicks to the website, returns later via organic search, all leading to a conversion. Comprehensive automation, analytics and A/B testing optimization further enhance user experiences throughout.
Core Digital Marketing Disciplines and Channels
Digital marketing leverages the following core disciplines and channels in concert to attract, engage, convert and retain customers:
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
SEO focuses on improving visibility of website pages in unpaid organic search engine results. By optimizing on-page content, site architecture, backlinks and technical elements using search engine guidelines, sites can rank higher when users search for related keywords and topics. Ongoing optimization unlocks more targeted visitors at little to no cost over the long-term.
Pay-Per-Click Advertising (PPC)
PPC ads appear alongside organic listings when people search online or use social media, promoted by companies paying on a cost-per-click model. Platforms like Google Ads and LinkedIn ads are common techniques to drive immediate visibility and traffic by matching keywords and intended audiences. They offer precise targeting based on locations, interests, behaviors and more to laser focus potential buyers.
Content Marketing
Creating compelling, informative digital content boosts visibility and brand perception organically without traditional ads. Well executed content strategies that educate and engage website visitors organically can convert consideration into buyers. This pull approach versus interruption relies on offering value upfront through long-form blog posts, videos, podcasts and other media types.
Email Marketing
Email marketing involves sending commercial messages to subscriber lists and customer bases to build relationships and promote products. Segmenting audiences and personalizing content based on behaviors and attributes enables more relevance. Automated sequences and lifecycle workflows nurture subscribers into customers.
Social Media Marketing
Promoting brands, products and content on social networks provides new customer acquisition opportunities and deeper engagement with existing loyalists. Both organic and paid reach grow visibility while conveying thought leadership and meaningfully interacting using a human voice.
Display Advertising
Display ads are visual or rich media banner ads on websites, apps and social networks focused on driving brand awareness and traffic. Ad networks provide extensive targeting and distribution for reaching new audiences as they actively browse content. Video ads and mobile formats engage incremental viewers.
Digital Marketing Strategies and Best Practices
Executing integrated digital marketing successfully requires blending strategies across core capabilities for connectivity and alignment:
Omnichannel Orchestration – Map customer journeys to ensure continuity across first touch awareness channels down through the final conversion. Paid social might spark initial interest, content marketing guides further research, email reinforces during evaluation until a site visit transaction.
Continuous Optimization – Leverage analytics and performance data across each channel to make informed decisions about resource allocation, content enhancement, audience adjustments and more. Let data guide optimization priorities.
Intelligent Workflow Automation – Sophisticated automation technology now exists for email sequencing, ad management, social publishing, onboarding flows and more. Automate repetitive tasks for greater efficiency.
Personalized Experiences – Track prospect engagement to determine individual next best actions moving each contact closer to conversion based on their lifecycle stage per your sales funnel. Tailor for relevance.
Mobile and Voice First – With growing mobile usage, ensuring fast loading, responsive websites and touch-friendly interfaces is critical, along with optimizing for voice search queries. Meet users on any device.
Expanded Audience Targeting – Expand audience targeting parameters as wide as possible across channels, then narrow down based on highest performing segments data reveals convert best.
Setting Up Your Digital Marketing Technology Stack
Managing integrated digital marketing programs spanning numerous channels and tactics requires a set of enabling technologies for automation, analytics, and optimization.
CRM Platform – Central database to house all prospect and customer data in one place for transparency across teams when engaging during outreach.
Marketing Automation Software – Software suite to automate multi-channel workflows triggered by prospect behaviors and profile attributes.
Email Service Provider – Services specializing in managing professional email marketing campaigns from templates to analytics.
SEO Tools – On-page optimization and keyword research tools providing insights to improve website visibility.
PPC Bid Management – Centralized campaign dashboard for managing bids across Google, Bing and other search/social networks.
Content Marketing Hub – Technology for ideating content ideas, planning calendars, distributing across channels, and measuring effectiveness.
Social Media Management – Platforms to efficiently manage high volumes of publishing across social media channels in one dashboard.
Web Analytics – Platforms providing deep website traffic analysis with dashboards and reports to uncover optimization opportunities.
Testing and Personalization – Capabilities and platforms to experiment with variations of messaging, offers, experiences and measure impact on conversions.
With best-of-breed marketing technology in place, execution and analytics improve in scale, efficiency and performance.
Key Digital Marketing Metrics and KPIs
Leveraging data and analytics is instrumental for continually optimizing initiatives and demonstrating marketing’s impact. Below are essential metrics to gauge performance across core disciplines:
SEO
- Organic Search Traffic
- Keyword Rankings
- Backlinks
- Page Speed
PPC
- Click-Through-Rate (CTR)
- Cost Per Click (CPC)
- Cost Per Acquisition (CPA)
- Return on Ad Spend (ROAS)
Content Marketing
- Brand Lift/Awareness
- Pages/Session
- Bounce Rate
- Lead Conversion Rate
- Open Rates
- Clickthrough Rates
- List Growth Rates
- Unsubscribe Rates
Social
- Engagement Rates
- Click-Through-Rates
- cost Per Follow/Acquisition
- Sentiment
Cross-Channel
- Sales Revenue
- Cost Per Lead (CPL)
- Customer Lifetime Value
- Customer Acquisition Costs (CAC)
Developing a Digital Marketing Plan
With objectives set and channels chosen, strategically planning program execution fuels success:
Conduct Competitor Analysis – Thoroughly analyze competitor digital presence across all channels for gaps to capitalize on and benchmark performance.
Map Customer Journeys – Outline typical touchpoints and key moments of interaction that influence journey to purchase. Enhance pain points.
Set KPIs – Establish quantifiable key performance indicators aligned to business objectives to track for ongoing optimization.
Build Channel Strategies – Detail precisely planned strategies and tactical executions across each active digital channel based on strengths.
Shared Calendar Creation – Enable transparency into cross-functional campaigns, content launches, promotions and events across sales and marketing teams.
Budget Allocation – Appropriately divide investment amongst channels and campaigns based on projected return potential and capacity to scale.
Document Roles – Clearly define marketing roles across teams owning execution for each platform and component of larger initiatives.
Pick Technologies – Determine necessary software for automation, analytics, and streamlining processes with tech stack capabilities assessment.
Quarterly Reviews – Schedule quarterly plan reviews to discuss results, learnings, needed adjustments and prepare for next phases.
Visit the Digital Marketing Dictionary page to learn about all digital marketing terms and glossary.
Digital Marketing Job Roles and Organization Structure
Executing digital marketing strategies requires an array of expertise across specializations. Core roles and responsibilities include:
Digital Marketing Manager – Leads integrated strategy across channels, manages campaigns, analyzes performance and ensures collaboration across the organization’s marketing, sales and technology groups.
Content Manager – Creates educational content and manages content promotion through search, social and PR channels to grow visibility and traffic.
PPC/SEM Specialists – Oversees paid search and social ad campaigns, managing auctions, placements and advanced targeting to lower CPA.
SEO Analyst – Conducts ongoing SEO audits and improvements including technical site enhancements, content expansion and outreach link building.
Email Marketers – Builds and segments email lists to deploy campaigns that nurture subscribers using personalized triggers and lifecycle workflows.
Social Media Managers – Grows branded presence and orchestrates engagement through organic and paid reach across key social networks.
Digital Analytics Experts – Leverages data, platforms and reporting to uncover actionable optimization insights across all digital channels.
Together this cross-functional team drives integrated strategies that attract and nurture potential customers digitally to achieve business KPIs.