Digital Marketing: It is the use of all available means of modern technology, especially the Internet, in order to reach the potential customer and deliver the marketing message to them. Through digital marketing and the unlimited opportunities and possibilities it offers, any business can achieve exceptional results if it can be used correctly.
This is in short, my friend, the answer to the question of what is digital marketing, but from a practical and applied point of view, there are many details, points, and aspects of the world of digital marketing, yes, it is a world of its own, and there are those who study and train for months to master it in a professional manner.
The wonderful thing about digital marketing is that you do not need to study and train for months to benefit from it because even a simple service provider such as a “plumber” can, with some simple research, create a page for him on Facebook and put his number on it and some pictures that show his skill, and thus he has taken advantage of marketing digital to attract more customers.
In fact, I can not guess because of your interest in the world of digital marketing, and because of your reading of the article, but let me tell you that this article will be useful to you if you are one of those:
- Someone who loves to read and learn about new things, and you read the article for the love of knowledge.
- You have a business and want to understand digital marketing and how to use it to develop this business.
- You have a simple skill or business and you want to know if digital marketing can help you in any way in developing your business (like our friend the plumber).
- You have the ambition to become a professional e-marketer, and you want to learn this field and do not know where to start.
- A researcher or student wants to do research on digital marketing, and therefore you want to understand this field and get to know it closely.
In any case, allow me to tell you that digital marketing or digital marketing is a topic that really deserves attention, and let me also tell you that this particular topic that you are reading in the winners now is really a topic worth your time because here I will give you a lot of information, details, and sources that you will not You can find it on any other Arabic site.
It is worth noting that this article is the cornerstone of a large group of articles published in Winners about digital marketing, covering all aspects and information you need to become professional in digital marketing.
So from time to time, you will find me putting you links to other topics that talk in greater detail about certain points in digital marketing, which you can come back to learn more about.
Now let’s start our topic.
What is Digital Marketing?
Marketing is as old as time, and it is an essential element for the success of any business, regardless of its size and field, and for decades marketing has been confined to magazines, newspapers, and road signs.
These were the most advanced and effective marketing channels until the emergence of the Internet and modern technology and everything changed, and a new era and a new concept of marketing began called the era of Digital Marketing.
With digital marketing, many concepts about marketing and the relationship of the organization with the end user have been changed, through which the target customer can be reached at the right place and time, and even the best case for making a purchase decision.
Digital marketing is: the application of general principles in the science of marketing through the use of modern technology tools, especially the Internet, and it is also the tactics and strategies that are used to convert the target customer that you do not see with your eyes to a buyer.
Through digital marketing, the customer can be reached in innovative and modern ways such as E-Mail, SMS text messages, mobile applications, instant messaging, social networking sites, search engines…etc.
Marketing through the Internet is the most important and largest cultivation of digital marketing, but it still falls under digital marketing and is not synonymous with it, as digital marketing goes beyond the idea of marketing on the Internet to include under its banner everything related to modern technology.
For example, SMS marketing can be achieved whether the phone is connected to the Internet or not, and it belongs to digital marketing.
Digital marketing refers not only to modern communication technology, but also to the technological devices used (such as smartphones, and Internet-connected televisions), and to the digital platforms used (such as smartphone applications).
Digital marketing is concerned with business operations based on the concept of “E-CRM”, which is an abbreviation of the term Electronic Customer Relationship Management, which means electronic customer relationship management, by studying the market, searching for new customers, serving existing and old customers, and giving customers the opportunity to contribute to Development of products and services offered.
From here we understand that the new marketing theory adopted by digital marketing depends on modern digital technology to meet the needs of customers, achieve the goals of the organization, develop existing markets, and open new markets, and thus achieve a huge increase in profits.
Note: E-marketing is a term synonymous with digital marketing, and both terms are used to express the same idea.
Characteristics and advantages of digital marketing
1. The possibility of direct interaction between the client and the business
Through marketing, their desires can be expressed directly to the organization or business, by responding to talking about the business.
For example, the customer can express his opinion directly about one of the company’s products by writing a comment on one of its pages on social media. Of course, this helps the organization to understand customers, their desires, and problems, and then gives it an opportunity to develop and grow.
2. Good targeting ability
Through what digital marketing provides from accurate data and information about customers, organizations can make accurate targeting that enables them to reach potential customers who can achieve good sales through them.
Through digital marketing, you can target customers according to dozens of criteria, including:
- the age
- gender (male/female)
- interests
- Recent visits to websites.
- Research words.
- Educational Qualification.
- The geographical location in which the customer is now.
Of course, as one of the social media users, you must have experienced the appearance of some ads for hotels and tourist villages on your Facebook account, immediately after you conducted a search about these hotels, or even after you visited a hotel reservation site.
Are you now aware of the fact that you are part of the world of digital marketing, being a digital customer that companies target through digital ads?
3. Fair cost and the ability to control the marketing budget more flexibly
The fair cost of digital marketing comes as a result of its unparalleled effectiveness. The idea of cost here is measured by the size of the gains or profits that can be achieved through this cost.
In the world of digital marketing, you can pay for each target customer who watches a promotional video for your product, rather than paying a large amount for TV ads that you cannot control to display to each particular target customer.
Controlling the marketing budget is also a prominent feature in digital marketing, for example, you can start a marketing campaign on a social networking site with only $100, and you can stop it at any time in real-time.
- The ability to collect and reuse data
Through the advanced technology provided by digital marketing, business owners can collect and retain customer data, and then reuse it again to provide distinctive marketing offers or achieve more sales to the same customers who bought before.
For example, you can run an advertising campaign on Facebook and target only users who visited your site during the past month, through a simple code placed on your site, which collects information about who visited your site in order to be targeted in advertising campaigns.
- The ability to accurately measure results and then make the required improvements
One of the most important advantages of digital marketing is the ability to monitor, record and analyze marketing results, and then take appropriate decisions that help the business develop and improve.
In digital marketing, everything is subject to analysis, from the level of interaction on social media, to the percentage of opening marketing emails, watching marketing videos, monitoring website visits, and ending with achieving sales operations.
- Faster results compared to traditional marketing
With digital marketing, you often see results quickly. On the one hand, you can direct your marketing in the exact direction you want, and on the other hand, you can measure everything and see the results first.
For example, if you are the owner of a product, you can immediately create a social media page, start a marketing campaign and watch the interaction of your target customers with your campaign within an hour of its creation and approval.
I think you are now starting to get an idea about digital marketing, so I encourage you to keep reading to get a better understanding of it and learn more.
digital marketing challenges
- Diffusion of digital channels: Consumers use many digital channels, a group of devices that use different protocols, specifications, and different interfaces, and they interact with these devices in different ways and for different purposes.
- Great competition: Digital channels are more effective compared to traditional media, which makes them attractive to almost all businesses of all sizes. As a result, there is a lot of competition to reach potential customers through digital marketing channels.
- Databases bloated: Consumers leave behind a huge series of data in digital channels, and therefore it has become difficult to deal with this data professionally to reach the right targeting to achieve the best possible results.
- The difficulty of obtaining a professional marketing team: Despite the growth and spread of the idea of digital marketing in our Arab region, the market is still in great need of professionals in all disciplines, and this makes the task of obtaining a good digital marketing team somewhat difficult.
The most important digital marketing channels
There are many digital marketing channels. Digital marketing, as mentioned above, is any marketing process that incorporates technology, and modern and advanced means of communication.
- Content marketing by creating a project website
It is the most important marketing channel in digital marketing for professional institutions, in which the business owner creates a website that represents the company, and contains data and detailed information about the company’s products or services.
A blog is also created for the site to present topics in the field in which the business specializes, in order to attract customers who seek to gather information on the topic before making a purchase.
- Social media marketing
Marketing through social networking sites is one of the most important channels that have proven their importance in the past decade in the world of digital marketing.
Marketing on social networking sites aims to attract customers and consumers, introduce them to the brand, interact with them, and provide all the data and information they want to obtain about the product or service.
In the end, the goal is achieved which is to convert the target customers into real customers by completing the purchase process, and the most popular social networks are Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube.
- Email Marketing
It is one of the oldest digital marketing methods, but it is still highly effective in the marketing process and is widely used to highlight the latest developments or present new advertising content to customers.
When using this technique you have to be careful, many customers feel annoyed by the many emails, do not be persistent and provide your information only enough without exaggeration.
E-mail marketing in a nutshell consists in forming a mailing list for targeted customers, and sending marketing messages to these customers to attract them again to the site or the online store, and thus achieve more profits from the same customer.
- Search Engine Optimization
It is also called Search Engine Optimization, and it is a very effective marketing channel, through which the business owner makes the required improvements in the content of his site in order to appear in the first search results, and then attract more people interested in what he offers, and eventually achieve sales.
Search engine marketing is a very important marketing arm in the world of digital marketing, and it is a marketing channel that works alongside the rest of the channels, and therefore it cannot be dispensed with in any way.
- SMS Marketing
Text messages represent one of the very effective marketing channels in digital marketing, as it enables the business owner to send a text message directly to the target customer’s phone.
The text message will arrive whether the customer is online or not. Yes, text messages are limited in the number of words, but they are very effective if they are used intelligently.
What does the digital marketing team consist of in any organization?
The Digital Marketing Team is responsible for increasing your organization’s brand awareness and generating more sales.
This is done through all available digital marketing channels, whether free or paid. There are a lot of specializations in digital marketing, but not every organization has to have a team that includes all the marketing specialties that exist.
The size of the marketing team here depends on the size of the organization, the number of marketing channels you want to work through, the goals you seek…etc.
In small companies, for example, one marketing specialist may be assigned to perform many tasks.
Here are some of the most important and prominent digital marketing specialties:
a) SEO Specialist
His mission is to work on the company’s website in order to raise its ranking in the search engines, and also works with the content creator to ensure that the content they write performs well to keep pace with the requirements of search engines.
b) Content Marketing Specialist
The job of the content marketer is to write quality content for the company website blog to attract more potential customers. Also, the content writer must be familiar with the basics of SEO to produce search-friendly content.
c) Social Media Manager
His primary task is to schedule the publications, and textual and visual content of the company, and follow up on the impressions provided by the audience.
A social media manager should work with a content marketing professional to develop a strategy for disseminating content on social media.
d) Marketing Automation Coordinator
Its primary task is to select software that allows the entire marketing team to understand customer behavior, and measure the organization’s business growth rate, email open rate, ad campaign click-through rate, and lead acquisition rates.
e) Marketing Data Analyst
The job of a data analyst in digital marketing is to obtain and analyze marketing data and results through specialized programs, and then reach decisions that help the organization more efficiently direct its digital marketing efforts.
Of course, this is not all specializations, there are many other specializations in the world of digital marketing, including:
- Google Ads Specialist
- Social media advertising specialist
- Graphic designer
- Email Marketing Specialist
- Video Marketing Specialist
digital marketing steps
Suppose you are a business owner, or you want to create a new business, and you want to start now marketing your business through digital marketing channels, so what should you do?
This is what we will discuss in this part of our article in the form of simple and brief steps:
- Start doing market research
Market research represents the cornerstone of the marketing plan. In this step, marketing experts, through specialized market research tools, measure the size of the market demand for the products or services that the business owns and try to collect as much data and information about the target customers.
This step also includes studying competitors and accessing their strengths and weaknesses and then determining the competitive advantage through which the business will seek to compete (lowering prices, for example).
- Preparing the marketing plan
In this step, the steps of the marketing process are set, tasks are defined for the different work teams, the marketing budget, and the digital marketing channels that will be focused on.
The marketing plan is a very important step on which success depends greatly, and the plan must be accurate and divided into long-term and short-term, and it must contain innovative and smart ideas, in order to ensure the success of the marketing process and distinguish it from any marketing plan of any other competitor.
- Building digital marketing assets (business presence channels)
This includes creating a business website to promote it, and to help attract potential customers through digital content.
It also includes creating professional business pages on social media, as well as building the marketing system (purchasing marketing and analytical programs, subscribing to an e-mail marketing service…etc).
- Starting to create marketing campaigns, and strengthening the presence in front of potential customers
In this step, the specialized marketing team is supposed to start its marketing activities and campaigns, and based on it, data is collected and analyzed, which is supposed to help improve the marketing process and avoid future mistakes.
It is worth noting here that the digital marketing process is an extremely flexible process, and has no ceiling on quality. It is a continuous improvement process and always contains opportunities and possibilities to reap better results and profits.
How you as a young person can benefit from digital marketing
There are many, many ways in which you can benefit from the world of digital marketing, but here I will break these methods into three main points:
- Learn digital marketing to get a functional job
Digital marketing is a very important field and it is witnessing a very large growth in our Arab region. In fact, the Arab market is in a state of great thirst for more e-marketers. Every company, entity or business, sooner or later, will need at least one e-marketer to represent it electronically.
By learning digital marketing, it will open up a lot of opportunities and possibilities for you to get a modern job, and not only that, in order to work in this field, it is not necessary to be employed in a company, but you can also work in the field of self-employment from home.
- Learn digital marketing to market your business
In our time, digital marketing has become an imperative for all types of business, as even small businesses such as shops and restaurants cannot now ignore creating pages that they represent on social media.
By learning the basics of digital marketing, you can take your business to new levels, and you can seize many great opportunities to become superior to your competitors.
- Learn digital marketing to market others’ products
There is a large field in the world of digital marketing called Affiliate Marketing, in which you can directly market products or services to third parties and get commissions based on the results you achieve.
It is worth noting that commission marketing here is completely different from the first method. The first method is the full or temporary employment of a company or entity.
As for affiliate marketing, it is a program offered by many large digital companies and entities, in which any marketer can participate, and profits are based on results, and work here is not mandatory.
How can you learn digital marketing?
Now we come to the last part of our article, which I think you have been waiting for since the beginning of the article. In this part, I will put in front of you a solid and clear plan to learn digital marketing.
- Study the winners’ articles on digital marketing
In the winners, as I mentioned to you at the beginning of the article; We have published many and many articles about digital marketing, in which we dealt with many details and practical aspects of learning digital marketing and its practical application.
Not because it is our site, but with the testimony of our followers who always send us; Winners are the most comprehensive and best Arabic resource in the world of the web, and our articles were written by specialists working in the field, so you will find them explained in a simple practical way, and we promise you that you will learn a lot from them.
Above I have put a lot of links to articles for you, but there are a lot of other articles that you can access via the Marketing section of Winners.
- Study what is available to you from free Arabic sources, whether on websites or on YouTube
I can say that the winners are the most comprehensive and best Arabic resource in the Internet world, according to the testimony of the followers, but I cannot claim that the winners are the only good Arabic source, or that there are no other excellent Arabic sources that you can learn from.
In fact, there are many great Arabic sites and YouTube channels that talk about digital marketing, which you can make excellent use of.
Remember well that research, reading, and practice using Google a lot, and training yourself to read will make a big difference in your learning journey.
You also have to understand that one of the most important skills that an e-marketer must possess is the ability to search and access information.
- Go to search, read and read in English
We cannot deny that the English language is the language of technology and that the content in English, whether read or listen to, is more quality and more abundant compared to the Arabic language.
Being fluent in the English language will give you a better chance to learn, there are many leading sites in the field of digital marketing that you can learn from, also when you read in English you will get two very important advantages:
You will learn the terms of digital marketing in English and this will help you a lot in the practical application.
You will have the basics that will enable you to move to the next stage, which is the course stage.
- Go to the stage of the course
In fact, you can learn a lot in digital marketing through articles and YouTube videos, but the courses will give you a focused, sequential approach in one aspect, so the courses, in general, are the best learning source for anyone who wants to learn something professionally.
If you search for courses in digital marketing, you will find hundreds, perhaps thousands, of them, and you will find a variety to cover all areas and sub-skills of digital marketing.
- Consistently apply what you have learned
This step should accompany you in all the previous four steps. Digital marketing is one of the areas that you cannot learn in theory, because a large part of it is based on trial, right and wrong, monitoring results, and improving performance to reach the best possible result.
You should always work on applying what you have learned, and here are some ideas that may help you to put into practice what you have learned in digital marketing:
You can create an entertainment page on any social media platform to practice social media marketing.
You can create a free blog, practice posting content on it, and optimize it for search engines.
You can volunteer unpaid with a site or organization for training and learning.
You can collaborate with a friend who is learning like you and make a small online project for you to learn, and who knows, this may be the project of your life.
Here I have finished my article today on digital marketing, which I hope will be a guide for every business owner and for anyone looking to start in this wonderful field as a digital marketing specialist.
Do not forget to share the topic with your friends in order to benefit.