Digital Marketing – What It Is and How It Can Help Your Business

Digital marketing is the use of online means of marketing products and services; this can include having a website, posting on social media, email campaigns, targeted online ads, and more (Barone, 2022). Digital marketing can also involve efforts to understand the customer through data collection methods such as tracking their location and the number of clicks on a certain page.  

There are many benefits to digital marketing which traditional marketing simply cannot achieve. One such benefit is the ability to get to know customers on a deeper level (Digital Marketing Institute, 2021). This can be done both through data analytics as well as directly contacting them through email or social media. Additionally, even reviews (whether positive or negative) left online can be responded to in an attempt to engage customers. According to a 2022 survey, over 70% of people read the reviews online before buying from a business (Pitman, 2022).  

Another benefit to digital marketing compared to traditional marketing is the visibility that comes with a strong online presence. Without paying anything at all for printing and transport costs, hundreds to thousands of people can be reached free of cost by developing a solid social media strategy. Company websites can also increase their visibility with something called Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), which is the process of using key words and other elements to ensure that your website appears high-up in a search engine like Google or Firefox (Search Engine Land). SEO and social media therefore increase the accessibility of your company to potential customers and legitimise the company in their eyes.  

In today’s world, companies without a digital marketing strategy will struggle to gain visibility and interact with their customers in comparison to those with a strong online presence. Nowadays, it has become increasingly more difficult to capture people’s attention due to the flood of ads found on nearly every online platform, so it is imperative for companies to become educated on digital marketing and how to use it to their advantage in order to ‘out-compete’ with their competitors.  

Aiming to promote digital marketing and help people develop relevant skills, our I’M NEW project seeks to give youth workers and NEETs access to high-quality educational materials on the subjects of digital, neuro, and nano marketing so they can gain the necessary skills for emerging occupations on the market today and combat the rising youth unemployment.