The 7 Essential Digital Marketing Tools

Contrary to popular belief digital marketing is more than just a blanket description or alternate name for online marketing, it encompasses several elements. In definition, digital marketing is the use of online platforms and tools to create awareness, engagement and eventually sales of goods and services to a potential consumer.

At the same time creating an opportunity for the marketer and the customer to engage and receive immediate feedback. Another important aspect of digital marketing is that it supports traditional marketing by helping grow brand visibility, awareness, loyalty and ultimately brand value.

When applied correctly digital marketing has proven to be a remarkable tool in achieving an organization’s goals. There are different schools of thought on how many tools are in the field, here are the most popular that standout without a doubt: –

• Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
• Pay per click (PPC)
• Email Marketing
• Social Media Marketing
• Web Design
• Content Marketing
• Mobile marketing

Search Engine optimization

Source: Canva

Also known as SEO, the process of driving high and quality traffic to your website, which helps your website rank highly on search results page (SERP). The traffic is mostly organic and not paid for, it involves the use of keywords and content.

The organic traffic comes with the advantage of low costs major downside is that it requires patience as it is a long-term marketing strategy. SEO strategies are quite dynamic and need constant work to keep your website ranking high on the SERP.

Pay per click                                                        

Better known as PPC is a digital marketing tool that involves payment for an advertisement based on the number of times it is clicked online. Once the ad is clicked it leads the user or potential customer to a seller’s website where they might purchase an item hence increasing sales revenue or conversions by signing up for newsletters.

It is considered to be one of the most effective ways to measure Return on Ad spend(ROAS), it shows how many users clicked on your ad, landed on your webpage and from where they landed from. 

Email Marketing

I’m sure most of us can relate to that email that contains a newsletter, a sale, deals and new stocks information. Email marketing is the use of email to send commercial messages to your customers, it comes with so many advantages the first being that it easily helps to convert your efforts into revenue.

It increases traffic to your website, offers more personalized content and it is a process that can be automated giving you the time and flexibility needed to craft your campaigns and analyze feedback. The mails can be personalized ensuring you are sending the right message to the right audience.

Social Media Marketing

Social media marketing is the use of social platforms to sell and promote a company’s products and services. Some of the Social Media Platforms include Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn.  Social media helps companies engage with their customers online, providing a great benefit of forming a connection with their customers.

This connection enables engagement, building brand loyalty, awareness and customer feedback to take place, bringing down all the barriers like delayed response due to use of snail mail and old communication legislation; time taken for TV ads and billboards.

Content marketing

Content marketing involves the use of content to capture an audience, the content is in the form of written, video and or audio material. It takes the form of blogs, posts and articles. Great content attracts people and makes them consume it(reading, listening or watching).

When creating content ensure that it is relevant to your target audience and engaging, offering them a chance to come back for more. In the process, it attracts more customers and entertains/informs the current ones. 

Web design

Source: Canva

The whole idea of web design is to plan your site in such a way that it eases the consumer’s journey while on it. This is done by ensuring the user interface is easy to read and understand, buttons are easy to locate, the links land on relevant pages and the consumer can easily achieve the goal they had when coming to your website. The website holds the content and platforms that an organization wants to share with the target audience.

Mobile marketing

Mobile marketing relies fully on mobile devices that facilitate the push of SMS and Apps services from a marketer to the phone’s owner. Its promotion of goods and services over a mobile device like a smartphone. The number of people owning smartphones is increasing day by day providing marketers with an opportunity to reach a larger audience on this very personalized device.

It’s affordable, promises instant results and it’s easy to collect and analyze responses from your customers. Its biggest con is that it poses a privacy risk and marketers have to keep up with the dynamic industry of smartphones in order to keep serving as many customers as possible. Mobile marketing takes place in the form of Apps, location, social media and SMS 

These tools offer such a diverse opportunity for companies to use and attract and retain customers. Acquiring the relevant skills is key in being able to execute a task and to execute it well at all levels, helping you drive your organization’s goals and missions. Institutions like Abacus Digital offer a variety of digital marketing certifications that will see to it you have the right amount of knowledge and skill to propel you further in the field of digital marketing. A combination of the right skills, tools and strategies help drive successful campaigns. 

Editor

Irene M, Digital marketing Analyst at Abacus Digital, Netherlands (February 20, 2022).

References

Baker, L. (2021, December 17). How Does SEO work. Retrieved from Search Engine Journal: https://www.searchenginejournal.com/seo-guide/how-seo-works/

Gilbert, D. (2021, February 4). What Is PPC & How Paid Search Marketing Works. Retrieved from Search Engine Journal: https://www.searchenginejournal.com/ppc-guide/what-is-ppc-paid-search/

O’shea, C. (n.d.). What is mobile marketing anyway? Retrieved February 20, 2022, from Business Development Bank of Canada: https://www.bdc.ca/en/articles-tools/blog/mobile-marketing

Riserbato, R. (2021, June 10). 12 Benefits of Email Marketing Your Marketing Team Must Know. Retrieved from Hubspot: https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/benefits-of-email-marketing

Schmitt, K. R. (2021, July 29). Social Media Marketing (SMM). Retrieved from https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/social-media-marketing-smm.asp: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/social-media-marketing-smm.asp

Contrary to popular belief digital marketing is more than just a blanket description or alternate name for online marketing, it encompasses several elements. In definition, digital marketing is the use of online platforms and tools to create awareness, engagement and eventually sales of goods and services to a potential consumer. At the same time creating…

Contrary to popular belief digital marketing is more than just a blanket description or alternate name for online marketing, it encompasses several elements. In definition, digital marketing is the use of online platforms and tools to create awareness, engagement and eventually sales of goods and services to a potential consumer. At the same time creating…