Wikipedia describes Digital Marketing as “the practice of promoting products and services using digital distribution channels to reach consumers in a timely, relevant, personal and cost-effective manner.”
That’s a pretty big explanation; but again, digital marketing is a pretty big topic. I asked several friends what digital marketing meant to them and the answers included thing such as ads on the internet, blogs, and email marketing.
So exactly what are the components of digital marketing?
Is it a banner ad? Or a viral video? Perhaps it’s a marketing campaign that uses optimized keywords to drive traffic to a website. Whatever it is, it certainly changes quickly.
Digital advertising can refer to telemarketers calling cell phones, or television ads, or spam. For the purposes of this site, we will discuss advertising on the internet. The first types of digital marketing this site will explore include: Affiliate Marketing (also called CPA marketing), Relationship Marketing, and Social Media Marketing.
1. Affiliate Marketing. Also called CPA Marketing (Cost per Acquisition), affiliate marketing is where you market someone else’s offerings. This is a win-win situation for both you and the creator of the product. You win because you get a commission on the products and the creator wins because their items are marketed on more than just their home website.
I personally love affiliate marketing and you will see products and services that I personally use featured on this site.
2. Relationship Marketing. Relationship marketing is exactly how it sounds; attracting prospects and turning them into friends and then into customers. Relationship marketing values customers and focuses on keeping them long term.
Blogs are one form of relationship marketing. E-mail campaigns are another. (Note: relationship marketing can also be an offline way to advertise by networking and through opt-in direct mail campaigns.)
3. Social Media Marketing. This is another type of Relationship Marketing that uses social media such as Twitter, Facebook, Digg, and Del.icio.us. There are many different ways to use social media for marketing.
According to Lloyd Salmons, first chairman of the Internet Advertising Bureau social media council “Social media isn’t just about big networks like Facebook and MySpace, it’s about brands having conversations.”
Lots of people are talking about digital marketing and how to make money on the internet; but because there are so many different ways to market digitally, and things change so quickly, it is hard to agree on exactly what is digital marketing.
So, what do you think?
