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Digital marketing

Definition

Digital marketing is advertising delivered through digital channels. Channels such as social media, mobile applications, email, web applications, search engines, websites, or any new digital channel.

Futures

The offline and online world are colliding. Traditional devices such as fridges, ovens and even billboards will all be modernized to leverage digital media.

Types of digital marketing

1. Content Marketing Content marketing is a type of digital marketing that focuses on creating and distributing content for a target audience. The content aims at being valuable, relevant, and (ideally) consistent. Its ultimate goal is to drive a profitable customer action.
2. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, is the process of getting quality traffic from free, or organic, search results on the search engines (like Google and Bing). It’s important that the traffic you drive to your website is relevant to your industry. If you manage to attract a high volume of visitors searching for Macintosh computers while what you actually do is selling raincoats, the traffic will do you no good.
3. Search Engine Marketing (SEM) Initially, the term “search engine marketing” was used as an umbrella term for the process of gaining both paid and free search traffic. Over time, the industry switched to using the term “SEM”, or Search Engine Marketing, solely for paid activities. So, what does this type of digital marketing mean? Search engine marketing refers to a form of digital marketing that aims at increasing the visibility of a website in search engines by using paid methods. In other words, it’s the ads you put out there on Google AdWords and Bing Ads.
4. Social Media Marketing (SMM) Simply put, social media marketing refers to the process of using social media platforms to attract traffic and attention. By using social media, you can increase exposure and build meaningful relationships with your customers. While everybody can benefit from SMM as a type of digital marketing, B2C and SaaS companies tend to get the most out of it. Social media marketing is all about listening to what your customers have to say, engaging in the conversation, and sharing valuable content.
5. Pay-Per-Click Advertising (PPC) Pay-per-click is a model of advertising where marketers pay a fee every time people click on their ad. Basically, it’s the process of buying visits to your site, as opposed to getting them organically via SEO or other types of digital marketing.
PPC is one of the types of paid search. It’s similar to SEM (search engine marketing) but can also include display advertising (cost-per-click based), and affiliate advertising.
6. Affiliate Marketing Affiliate marketing is one of the popular ways people make money online these days. If your affiliate program is successful, you might earn quite a decent passive income. Basically, affiliate marketing is a type of digital marketing where a person partners up with other businesses in order to receive a commission for the traffic s/he generates for this business. Imagine this: you put a link to an external website on your own blog or website. Every time a user proceeds to this external website and makes a purchase, you receive a commission.

7. Email Marketing Email marketing is one of the most popular types of digital marketing. To put it shortly, it’s the use of email for promoting one’s products or services. If you go a little deeper, email marketing might also refer to building relationships with your customers. Ideally, emails you send out to your clients should not only speak at them but also encourage meaningful interaction with your brand.
8. Instant Messaging Marketing Instant messengers are the latest communication trend. There are 1.5 billion people globally using WhatsApp on a monthly basis, followed by Facebook Messenger and WeChat. If you want to be where your audience is, enter instant messaging marketing.
9. Radio Advertising While considered “old-fashioned” by some, radio advertising might still be a powerful medium, especially for B2C companies and local businesses. In the US alone, radio advertisements account for 7.8% of total media expenditures. Radio advertising is also relatively cheap, as you don’t need to produce fancy visuals: you solely rely on your customers’ imagination.
10. Television Advertising Last but not least, our list of digital marketing types wouldn’t be complete without television advertising. With the general population spending over 4.5 hours a day in from of the TV, it’s still one of the most popular medium types. It reaches people faster than, say, newspapers or radio. Due to the powerful effect video has on humans, it might also be very effective.

How do I start digital marketing?

As more and more companies turn to the Internet to generate sales, the need for experts in digital marketing has never been greater. It's a fast-paced, evolving industry that has a lot of challenges, but also plenty of rewards, including a potentially lucrative income. If you've thought about switching gears and getting into digital marketing, now is the time to do it. And lucky for you, it's not necessary to have a traditional degree marketing degree to get started, although some training will help to get your foot in the door. Here are 10 things you can do right now to start a digital marketing career: 1. Create an Online Presence These days, when it comes to landing a job in almost any field, you might as well not exist without an online presence. For obvious reasons, this is especially true of digital marketing: a prospective employer is going to look online first to learn about applicants, and if they can’t find you, they are going to move on to the next person who has a curated image. Create your own digital marketing blog, social media accounts that are linked to websites you have built, portfolios, etc. Show them what you are really capable of.
2. Know the Latest Trends Digital marketing is a career that is always on the move and always changing. If you are choosing it as a career, you need to keep up with the latest trends. The needs of this industry vary over time, and if you fall behind, someone else will be waiting to take your place. Attend virtual seminars, take online classes, and do your best to stay ahead of the game rather than simply keeping up with it.
3. Use Your Creativity Digital marketing really allows you to use creative gifts in a variety of ways. Yes, there are methods and systems that are standardized for certain applications, but you can always add your personal flair to projects, making them creative and unique. Digital marketing is built on creativity, so if you have an idea that you think will work, give it a try. The more creative you are, the more likely it is that you will be noticed and land that dream job.

4. Create a Winning Resume Before you start applying for jobs, make sure to create a dynamic resume that shows just how valuable your skills are. There are many different types of resumes, and you shouldn’t limit yourself to just one, especially when you are working in a creative industry such as digital marketing. Go online and check out various resume examples for digital marketing professionals, and tailor yours around them.
5. Get Out there and Network It is important to get your name out there, and the best way to do that is by networking. Not only is this going to make people remember you, it is also going to give you great connections that can help you in many areas throughout your career. One person may know where you can get specific training. Another may have a lead on a great job. You will also be able to learn from their experience, and gain a list of experts you can use to put together a great team.
6. Learn about Analytics In order to know how successful your marketing campaigns are, you need to understand analytics. This is the data that shows how well or how poorly a campaign is doing, and helps you to figure out how to make things better the next time around. You don’t have to go to college for a degree, but there are many online classes you can take on your own time that will help you to learn about and understand how analytics work, and how to use them.
7. Get Some Experience The only way you will get your career going is by gaining experience. You may have to do some unpaid jobs, but this is a worthwhile time investment with long term benefits. Using any skills you acquire, help friends or community organizations with projects, and take on all kinds of side jobs that will give you plenty of experience that you can draw on when you to start applying for long-term digital marketing jobs.
8. Say “Yes” to Anything We touched on doing free jobs in the last tip, and we can’t stress enough how important it is to do anything that will give you the experience you need to land your first digital marketing job. Take on free jobs, or jobs that other digital marketers don’t want to do. Demonstrate that you can take on and make the best of any project, and be successful in your endeavors.
Not only will you gain experience, but you are also showing that you are willing to work hard.
9. Get Trusted Certification Anyone can get into digital marketing without a university degree, but the candidates who are getting the best positions are those who have a certification in digital marketing. There are classes you can take that will help you to prepare for the certification exams, and if you are really serious about digital marketing as a career, you should get certified as soon as possible.
This is going to make you stand out in a crowd of digital marketers who may be experienced, but definitely not certified.
10. Be Prepared for Entry-Level Jobs No one is going to start at the top in any career, no matter how much training, skills, and experience they may have. You may not get the job you want right away, but you will get there if you work for it. You will likely start out as an assistant, or a junior digital marketer, until you are able to prove that you are able to take on more responsibilities and that you are willing to work hard in order to succeed in your chosen career path.

What skills do digital marketers need?

Today's digital marketing experts must have a diverse skill set, including a sophisticated grasp of available media channels, the ability to identify up-and-coming opportunities, on top of having the basic skills of a brilliant marketer. What's more, they have to possess a balance of critical and creative thinking skills in order to drive measurable success for their company.
That's why I asked 15 members of Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) what they look for when hiring digital marketers. Their best answers are below. 1. Paid social media advertising expertise Miles Jennings
A new digital marketing hire should be well-versed in paid social media advertising, especially through Facebook or a similar social platform that our company uses regularly. They need to be able to understand and implement Facebook analytics and insights, create "lookalike" and custom audiences, experiment and test creative campaign and images, and be secure in their knowledge of the overall social media landscape. There are many budget-saving opportunities within the social media advertising space, so we want to make sure that our digital marketing talent knows the ins and outs of this popular and easy-to-implement marketing space.
— Miles Jennings, Recruiter.com
2. Sales skills Mark Cenicola
We've hired many digital marketers over the years, both outsourced and in-house. What we've found is that people who have sold successfully are much better marketers. They know how to engage with people and turn them into sales opportunities. While your digital marketers may not be closing deals directly, they need to know how to sell or they'll be wasting your valuable marketing dollars without generating qualified lead opportunities for your sales team.
— Mark Cenicola, BannerView.com
3. Specific marketing channel expertise Trevor Summers
I see so many marketers who extol the virtues of every conceivable marketing channel: email, SEO, SEM, social, etc. And many channels might work for you, but the key to a successful marketing strategy is focusing on a few channels and using them really well. Often that means understanding the dynamics of that marketing channel deeply and leveraging those dynamics for your specific company. For example, in helping local businesses, Pinterest is less interesting (although it's one of the best drivers of ecommerce traffic). I'd much rather focus on the intricate tactics of local SEO to get a client to No. 1 on Google, Maps and Yelp.
— Trevor Sumner, LocalVox
4. The ability to think objectively Wesley Mathews
Marketers are usually one of the most passionate workers in the office. However, that passion can often cloud the judgment and measurement of marketing theories and initiatives. A marketer who can separate themselves from their work will navigate with an objective eye that can focus on what actually works — not just what they hoped would work.
— Wesley Mathews, High Level Marketing
5. The ability to execute and analyze drip marketing campaigns Eran Eyal
Inbound marketing is a key skill in driving lead generation. While many marketers can come up with an initial innovative engagement strategy or CPC campaign, what intrigues me more is how they examine the incoming data and create a robust drip marketing campaign. Great automation on these campaigns is not about sending the same email to the entire flock that the campaign gathers. It's about personal, well-written communication that varies depending on the actions performed seven emails deep into the campaign. That's a lot of variation, and requires an analytical mindset and strategic thinking. Exceptional marketing happens when the art of communication expands upon the fundamental science of conversion.
— Eran Eyal, Springleap
6. A mix of creativity and analytical abilities Kayla Wagner
Digital marketing requires both creative thinking and analytical thinking, so we look for a candidate capable of and excited about both. Many new candidates want to focus purely on one or the other, but it's important to bring "art and science" to each digital program. Digital marketing allows us to be very measurable — even for beautiful creative campaigns — using analytics to inform future strategies.
— Kayla Wagner Faires, Revel Interactive
7. Good copy and visual storytelling abilities Alex Frias
Digital media is a copy- and visual-driven medium unlike any other before it. Our social heart is won over (or double clicked on) by copy that is relevant and visuals that pull on our emotional strings. The native understanding and ability to manipulate those two elements is critical in today's digital marketing landscape.
— Alex Frias, Track Marketing Group
8. A likable personality Jonathan Long
Relationship building is such a huge component of digital marketing, and a likable personality can go a long way. With so many people trying to connect with publishers, bloggers, journalists and influencers, someone with a great personality will always stand out and command attention. If you are being pitched by two similar people and one person is the equivalent to talking to a brick wall and the other person is outgoing and pleasant, who are you going to give your time to? The same applies to maintaining relationships — having a likable personality plays such a huge role, yet it's often overlooked.
— Jonathan Long, Market Domination Media
9. An understanding of WordPress Angela Ruth
With so many platforms now built on WordPress, it is a vital technical tool to add to your toolbox. If you want to create and manage a blog or even a website, WordPress has become the go-to platform for digital marketers. It also helps to continually educate yourself on new plug-ins and functionality because WordPress is always offering something new and useful that speeds up content production.
— Angela Ruth, Due.com
10. Self-promotion savvy Adam Steele

If you're telling me that you have a strong understanding of social media and leveraging brands, then it should be very easy for you to do the same with your own. My interviewees are their own first project, and I use information I can find on them to make my final decision. Something should come up when I search their names, preferably on all the same platforms that I want to use for my clients. Messaging and vis-a-vis skills should be consistent across most platforms, and some obvious care should be put into the presentation and expansion of each one.
— Adam Steele, The Magistrate
11. Understanding of brevity Nicholas Haase
It doesn't matter how good your product is if you can't communicate your value proposition to potential customers in fewer than 140 characters. Digital marketers must be efficient and effective with minimal messaging.
— Nicholas Haase, Loot!
12. The ability to analyze quantifiable metrics Blair Thomas
Now, more than ever, being able to quantify the value of investing in marketing and advertising is vital. The battle for supremacy in the marketplace is not won in whole percentage points any longer. It's about making the right choices and moving the needle slightly forward at every opportunity. Digital marketing consultants need to possess the competencies and the general knowledge required to provide actionable metrics, and prove their value with real data. Gone are the days of guessing whether or not a campaign was effective based on simple sales numbers. In-page tracking, coupled with analytics and metrics software are the tools of the day for marketers, and we expect any new consultants or team members to be able to leverage those tools to ensure accuracy and efficacy.
— Blair Thomas, EMerchantBroker
13. Listening skills Shalyn Dever
As a digital marketer, our ability to promote our services through words, images, video and social media are essential. Digital marketing also provides an opportunity for its specialists to listen to various groups of people, from clients to consumers, in new ways. Through social media and analytical tools, we can listen to our consumers' thoughts on a product, relevant issue or our own services. When I hire a digital marketer, I'll see if they've sought to listen to consumer and client needs and create a solution from their own observations or insights.
— Shalyn Dever, Chatter Buzz
14. Agility Mickey Meyer
At least once a month a new platform pushes its way into relevancy, or a major platform adjusts its algorithm. If you're/they're operating on a methodology devised without flexibility, and/or aren't the type of person to be able to react appropriately, you and your business will fall behind the curve and lose ground fast.
— Mickey Meyer, JASH
15. Basic design skills Dan Sapozhnikov
Being able to communicate a message properly is extremely important. However, digital marketing involves more than just words. A large part of digital marketing is about visual appearance. Anyone who calls themselves a digital marketer should have at least some basic knowledge of HTML, CSS or Photoshop.
— Dan Sapozhnikov, AdGate Media

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