What is Digital Marketing?
Digital marketing incorporates all marketing efforts that use an electronic gadget or the web. Organizations take advantage of the internet via digital channels such as online search engines, social networks, email, and other sites to get in touch with present and potential consumers.
In one’s on-going career, a digital marketing career will be a boon to get a job in different sectors and roles for job seekers.
How digital marketing works for businesses?
Digital marketing helps to build buyer personas to identify. The audience needs, no matter what products or services the company sells.
Let’s compare between B2B and B2C marketing:
a. B2B Digital Marketing: Digital marketing strategies will attract and convert the highest quality leads for the salespeople if they are business to business type.
b. B2C Digital Marketing: The cost of the element depends on the aim of the digital marketing efforts to bring individuals to the site if the business is an organization to the customer.
Different ways in which digital marketing helps a company or a personal Business:
a. Website traffic: One can find the exact number of people who have viewed the website’s homepage through several digital analytics software.
b. Lead generation along with Content performance: If one is posting a brochure online, it can measure how many people engage with content and generate qualified leads when people download it.
c. Attribution modeling: Tracing all the sales back to a customer digital touchpoint with business is an effective digital marketing strategy.
2. Background of Digital Marketing
It was in 1990 the term digital marketing was first used. Web 1.0 platform was developed, which helped users to find out their necessary information.
Background of Digital Marketing in Bangladesh
In Bangladesh, the total number of internet subscribers has reached 80.83 million at the end of January 2018. Almost all internet users in Bangladesh visited google, or Google partnered sites. Thus as of today, there is a huge market and demand for digital marketing in Bangladesh.
WORLDWIDE WEB (WWW) – 1990’S Onwards
1. The first use of the term ‘digital marketing’ – 1990
2. Launch of the first search engine: Archie – 1990
3. First Clickable web-ad banner – 1994
4. Launch of Yahoo – 1995
5. First e-commerce transaction over Newmarket – 1994
6. Launch of primary social media site: SixDegrees.com – 1997
7. Birth of Google – 1998
8. Launch of Microsoft’s web search engine – 1998
Facebook, Instagram LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube – 2000’s Onwards:
1. The first mobile marketing campaign by Universal Music – 2001
2. Launch of LinkedIn – 2003
3. Launch of WordPress – 2003
4. Google becomes publicly listed; Gmail is launched – 2004
5. Launch of Facebook – 2004
6. Launch of YouTube – 2005
7. Launch of Twitter – 2006
8. Launch of Hulu – 2008
9. Launch of iPhone – 2007
10. Start of Google’s real-time search engine results – 2009
11. Launch of WhatsApp – 2009
From 2010 to 2020
1. Launch of Instagram – 2010
2. Web-use overtakes percentage of TV viewership among the youth demographic – 2011
3. Launch of Snapchat – 2011
4. 64% of advertisers expect to increase social media budget – 2013
5. Amazon dominates e-commerce – 2013
6. Start of Facebook messenger app – 2014
7. LinkedIn features tailored ads – 2014
8. Mobile usage surpasses desktop browser traffic – 2014
9. Rise of content marketing – 2015
Heading into the 2020s
Digital marketing is now at its peak. Companies require to make sure they have an excellent foot in with existing practices to acquire the advantages of the developments that are to come. From an expert system in marketing to utilizing social networks for customer support, insight, and data-driven marketing, along with multilingual SEO—2020, it will see significant developments in the online sphere.
3. Why Digital Marketing is the future?
Future of Digital Marketing:
Digital marketing is very affordable, that is the most notable aspect of it. Earlier businesses made huge investments for their services by traditional marketing without any proper customer segmentation, neither by demographics, location, interests, hobbies, any more factors, and finally, the ROI was even not predictable.
These days it is possible for even local, small, or even medium enterprises to display online their services using digital marketing methods, which also needs low investment and a proper return on investment, which was lacking in traditional marketing.
How Bangladesh is shifting its base to Digital marketing and its growth statistics:
Bangladesh is a country with massive internet penetration. Thus here is a promising future for digital marketing. Digital marketing is cheaper than traditional marketing. There is no alternative to digital marketing in this fast pace world. Different companies in Bangladesh are now providing quality service to the customers and creating new frontiers.
In the era of digital marketing, more rapid, versatile, convenient, and simplified are digital methods of communication and marketing. It is more affordable and customer-oriented than traditional marketing. Online marketing is rising in Bangladesh.
Since 2019, the Bangladeshi market has faced new digital marketing challenges, as the atmosphere is unique. The agencies are adopting new trends and technologies to achieve the business goal. With 48 per-cent of internet penetration in 2018, Bangladesh is facing a digital revolution in 2019.
Job search, online shopping, sports updates, movies, restaurants, banking, and many more sectors have seen tremendous growth in digital marketing.
4. Who can Start a Career in Digital Marketing?
A. Passion for learning is the key to start
The digital marketing industry is fast-growing and competitive. So Candidates who are willing to learn and have passion, desire to learn, succeed in this changing industry.
B. Mentor or Institute
Find a mentor or join any reputed instituted or learn online digital marketing With help from an experienced digital marketing mentor by either joining any institute or learning online via different paid marketplace or free platforms like Google, Authenticate blogs, Guides, and Videos, one can learn different areas of digital marketing concepts and get started with their digital marketing career.
C. Get to know the basics of digital marketing areas and apply it
Since digital marketing or online marketing is a broad term, it covers vast components of areas or topics. So the first one has to learn the basics of digital marketing and then finally master one or a few respective regions from the below areas:
01. Search engine optimization (SEO)
02. Search engine marketing (SEM)
03. Pay Per Click (PPC)
04. Social Media Marketing, including Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Twitter and more
05. Video Marketing like (YouTube)
06. Email Marketing
07. Copywriting
08. App Store Optimization (ASO)
09. Content Marketing
10. Web Analytics
11. Digital Advertising
12. Growth Hacking
13. Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO)
14. Marketing Automation
D. Learn how to use Digital Marketing Tools
Besides learning digital marketing, there are several third-party tools or CRM tools that can make your work easier. Some of the tools include Semrush, Moz, Ahrefs, Mailchimp, Google analytics, and any CMS tool like WordPress, Shopify, Zoomla, Woo-Commerce. Apart from these few content marketing tools and graphics management software’s like Photoshop, Canva can boost your portfolio in a digital marketing career.
E. Get Digital Marketing Certificates
Get certified from the Digital marketing institute you are learning or get Digital marketing certification from a wide range of Certifications and courses offered by Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Hub-spot, Semrush, and many more. These certifications will prove your legacy in a digital marketing career once you clear their online exams. Though most certifications are free, for some you need to pay.
F. Start Networking and stay Updated with the latest industry changes
Start talking with your mentors, Sign in the newsletter of different reputed digital marketing websites of Google Webmaster, Moz, HubSpot, Neil Patel, Search engine journal, and many more. Read articles, Know the latest Google, and other search engine updates. Join Facebook groups and pages, Follow LinkedIn and Twitter profiles of renounced Digital marketers around the globe. Also, involve in guest postings and attend industry webinars to enhance your learning and meet industry experts. One of the other practical best ways is to solve queries asked in the different groups and communities. This way, you will nurture relationships with other digital marketers and see your improvement in your journey in a digital marketing career.
G. Start your website
After knowing the basics of digital marketing, one has to practice it. The best way to apply digital marketing concepts is to start one’s website, either a static website or a CMS tool website like WordPress, Shopify, or woo-commerce store.
H. Work on Personal Projects or Work on your website to build your personal brand
Digital marketing is less of a theoretical concept. Instead, it is practical. Learn to grow your website traffic, branding, collect leads, apply different optimization techniques to rank your website, and achieve the desired goals by the concepts you learned from the topics you learned.
I. Create a Resume
Before you apply for jobs, make sure you have a resume highlighting your strengths and certifications in your resume to start your digital marketing career.
J. Get an internship paid or free
It is always mandatory that at-least for three months, you work on industry projects as an intern before you start working as a full-time employee or start doing freelancing using marketplaces Fiverr, Upwork depending upon your preferences. It helps you to get a real hands-on practice on live industry projects.
K. Get a digital marketing job or start working as a freelancer
Once you have well accomplished your skills and follow steps, start your digital marketing career on a real-time basis. Some of the job profiles are :
Junior & Mid-Level Careers:
- Digital marketing intern
- Digital marketing executive
- SEO Executive
- Link Building specialist
- Social media specialist
- Google Ads specialist
- Email marketing specialist
- Web Analyst
- Online reputation executive
- Content marketing executive
Higher Levels in Digital Marketing careers:
- Digital marketing strategist
- Digital marketing manager
- Social media manager
- Digital Marketing Head
- Paid Advertising manager
- Digital Branding Head
Apart from working as a full-time employee, if you want to start some time on your own, you can:
- Become a Full-time Professional Blogger example Pro-Blogger
- Earn with Affiliate Marketing or by placing ads on your website by getting approved in Google AdSense
- Start Freelancing Services with Fiverr, Upwork and start building clients globally
- Become a Professional YouTuber in your niche and start increasing your subscribers, views, and watch time and make money by YouTube monetization.
- Start your Drop-shipping business in which you can sell products without owning the inventory with you. By creating a Shopify store website of your own choice, you have to connect it with the merchant or manufacturer website and sell them. The manufacturer will deliver the products to the customer, and you make a profit out of it.
6. Digital Marketing Areas / Topics
Digital marketing is a broad umbrella term. There are a vast number of areas and topics that comprises that combine to come under one roof of digital marketing. One needs to grasp the basics of all concepts of digital marketing areas, and finally, one needs to master a few of them based on one’s interest to have expertise in that field.
Below are the areas and topics that come under digital marketing:
i. Search engine optimization (SEO)
SEO stands for search engine optimization, which is the process of getting traffic from the “free,” natural, and organic search results on a search engine result page. Optimizing the website both front end and backend for increasing the quality and quantity of the sites is the practice of optimizing the website. The main aim of SEO is to attract visitors, get free traffic, and collect leads from the customers we are targeting and increase our SERP ranking through organic or unpaid methods.
Benefits of Implementing SEO:
- SEO makes our website authenticate and Built reputation in the SERP: Since SEO is the free and organic way to get traffic and increase our ranking in SERP, so it creates a sense of authenticity and brand value as compared to paid means.
- It enhances the quality and quantity of our website traffic: By performing the right optimization techniques of our website, we can get the traffic or visitors who are genuinely interested and more targeted audience to our website.
- Organic or non-paid ranking and results in SERP: SEO is an entirely natural and unpaid website optimization technique to increase our branding, get visitors, collect leads, and finally reach our target goal or close the deal. If we follow Google SEO guidelines and ranking factors, we can Rank our Website in the first fold, or even our website might come on image searches, or people also ask or instant queries. We do not need to spend any money on our website to rank on the first page or either in the first fold.
- SEO will never die and gets more clicks than PPC: There is a myth going that SEO is dead or it is going to be taken over by paid advertisement, but until one does not implement SEO techniques as per Google updates and algorithms that have more than 250 ranking factors even spending money on ads will also not be able to show our website on the first page of SERP as Google’s policy is first to check to maintain the ranking factors then deciding the rank of each website even by paid advertisement also.
- SEO increases our page rank and increases our page authority and Domain authority.
ii. Search engine marketing (SEM)
Search engine marketing is a marketing strategy where a marketer optimizes and advertises their website to make search results appear higher.
Benefits of SEM:
- It helps a marketer to send promotional content to the target audience of their choice. SEM combines benefits as the content is optimized for higher search rankings and is placed primarily in front of audiences most likely to convert when they click on the ads.
iii. Pay Per Click or PPC
PPC stands for pay-per-click, an internet marketing model in which advertisers get charged each time one of their ads is clicked. In simple language, we can say we get traffic and attract visitors by paying by placing ads. Search engine advertising is one of the most popular forms of PPC advertising.
Benefits of PPC:
- It is a pure target advertising based on factors like location, demographics, Interests, Hobbies, Likes, and past behaviour of users.
- It helps in measuring the accurate Return on Investment and gives instant results of the campaign of our goal, unlike SEO, which takes time.
iv. Social media marketing
Social media platforms help us connect with the desired audience to build the brand, increase sales, and drive website traffic. Marketing in Social media platforms involves creating and publishing content on social media profiles and engaging with the followers, analyzing the final results, and running social media ads.
Major social media platforms include Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, YouTube, etc.
Why Use Social Media?
- High Reach
- Customized Targeting
- Cost-Effective
- Brand Awareness
- Higher Engagement
- Customer Loyalty
- High ROI
iv.a. Facebook Marketing
Facebook Marketing and its Benefits:
- Start with Personal Account
- Users must have a personal profile on FB to use the platform.
- In a personal profile, we can add friends & follow them.
- Can post regular updates on Facebook e. Can follow the Brands you like.
- Can create a Business Page using a personal profile.
- Cannot advertise using a personal profile.
- It cannot get fans to our profile.
- I cannot see posts insights.
Facebook Advertisement Goals and its Benefits:
- Brand Awareness
- Lead Generation
- Sales
- App Promotions
- Customer Engagement
- Remarketing
iv.b. Instagram
A social network to connect with pictures and videos with an Audience that visual