Digital Marketing

What is Digital Marketing and How to Do It?

In today’s world, regardless of your business size, ignoring digital marketing is almost impossible. This is a limitless realm where a vast majority of your potential customers are active. With digital marketing, you can effectively showcase your brand and provide your products or services at precisely the moment your customers need them. Best of all, you have full control over the process. You decide how long, through which channels, and with what budget you’ll reach your target audience. You can scale your spending up or down depending on your needs. These advantages make digital marketing a powerful tool for businesses of all sizes. However, there’s a critical challenge you can’t overlook: competition. Your rivals are also in this space, ready to compete with you both locally and globally. So, what’s your strategy?

As Albert Einstein wisely said: “Learn the rules of the game, and then play it better than anyone else.

This guide is designed for those who want to learn the fundamentals of digital marketing and for those looking to deepen their existing knowledge. It covers not only what digital marketing is and the benefits it offers to businesses but also provides comprehensive insights into the tools used in digital marketing strategies. We hope this article helps you gain fresh perspectives on the subject.

What is Digital Marketing?

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, digital marketing was initially perceived as either a digital adaptation of traditional marketing methods or a subcategory of conventional marketing. However, this perspective failed to capture the true potential of digital marketing. While there are significant intersections with traditional marketing, digital marketing is, in fact, a powerful and unique approach that combines personalization with mass reach. With the rapid advancement of technology, this approach quickly became an integral part of millions of lives worldwide.

As of December 2021, the global population stood at approximately 8 billion, with 5.5 billion mobile phone users, 6 billion internet users, and nearly 5 billion active social media users. People aged 16 to 64 spend an average of 7 hours per day online. Since our inception, we have encountered numerous business owners and marketers who view digital marketing as merely a “website” or a “Facebook page.” However, this narrow perspective limits the scope and impact of the tools at their disposal, potentially leading to missed opportunities that could be unlocked through a well-executed digital strategy.

So, what exactly is digital marketing?

At its core, digital marketing is the process of promoting products and services to a target audience through digital platforms. In other words, it encompasses all marketing activities conducted using electronic devices and digital tools. These platforms include social media, mobile apps, email, websites, search engines, and even digital mediums like radio and television.

Effective digital marketing involves the seamless integration of various tools such as social media management, search engine optimization (SEO), digital advertising, content creation, and email campaigns. All these elements work together under a unified strategy to achieve a common goal.

However, for this process to yield successful results, it must be carried out within the framework of a well-defined plan and strategy. This is the essence of a digital marketing strategy.

What does a digital marketing strategy mean?

Today, growing a business heavily relies on online marketing activities. The success of these activities is tied to having a solid digital marketing strategy. A digital marketing strategy helps drive valuable traffic to your website and convert this traffic into potential customers, thereby contributing to the growth of your business.

A marketing strategy is a plan designed to achieve specific goals related to marketing activities. A digital marketing strategy, on the other hand, helps your business reach its digital goals through online channels. A well-crafted digital marketing strategy defines clear objectives, identifies your target audience, analyzes the market, examines competitors, conducts a thorough SWOT analysis of your business, establishes your ideal customer profile, and outlines the digital marketing channels and how potential customers will engage with your brand.

So, once a digital marketing strategy is set, where should you start, and how should you implement it?

What Are Digital Marketing Tools?

Digital marketing is considered one of the most effective methods of the modern era, used to evaluate the overall success of a campaign and plan future strategies. To manage and analyze campaign processes effectively, a variety of digital tools are required.

However, the choice of which digital marketing tools to use and how to use them depends on your business structure, target audience, budget, and ultimate goals.

So, what exactly are digital marketing tools? How many types of digital marketing tools are there? And how can these tools be utilized most efficiently?

Website

Your website is one of the most crucial elements of your digital marketing strategy, often serving as the central hub for all your efforts. Whether you’re selling products or offering services, a mobile-friendly, well-optimized website supported by effective content marketing and thoroughly analyzed with tools like Google Analytics or Yandex Metrica is essential to achieving your goals.

The performance of your website directly impacts the success of your other digital marketing tools. Even minor issues on your site can negatively affect the efficiency of your entire strategy.

In short, your website needs to be not only visually appealing but also functional and capable of driving revenue for your business.

Search Engine Optimization: A Key Tool for Your Business

To truly understand search engine optimization (SEO), it’s important to first grasp how search engines operate. In essence, search engines are programs designed to gather, organize, and present content from websites and other online sources in response to user queries. Using “bots” or web crawlers, they systematically visit webpages, scan the information they contain, and then archive and index this data based on specific criteria.

Over 90% of people begin their journey to purchase a product or service with a search engine. Did you know that nearly 100,000 searches are made on Google every second? With search engines playing such a significant role in areas ranging from shopping to entertainment and travel, the opportunities for businesses are immense.

This is where SEO becomes essential. SEO is the process of optimizing your online content so that search engines recognize your website as a top result for users searching with relevant keywords. It often works hand-in-hand with content marketing to drive long-term organic growth.

SEO isn’t just about making small tweaks to your website. It involves a comprehensive effort to align your site with the standards set by search engines. SEO typically falls into three main categories: on-page optimization, off-page optimization, and technical optimization.

If you’re curious about how to rank higher in organic search results, learning more about our SEO services might be the perfect next step.

The Power of SEO in Digital Marketing

For example, on a search engine results page (SERP), the top result might be a paid ad (SEM or PPC), while the second result could be an organic listing (SEO). Upon closer inspection of the second result’s URL, you might notice that it has been carefully optimized through a content marketing strategy to achieve its top position naturally.

This demonstrates the importance of using all digital marketing tools in a cohesive and synchronized strategy, giving your business an unmatched competitive edge.

Content Marketing: A Strategic Approach

Content marketing, as the name suggests, involves creating targeted and valuable content to attract organic web traffic and guide that audience toward a desired action. Whether it’s a video, article, infographic, or guide, content marketing plays a critical role in helping your audience choose your brand during the awareness, consideration, and decision stages. When combined with SEO, it can deliver exceptional results.

Additionally, content marketing is often more cost-effective than other marketing methods, generating about three times as many leads on average.

For instance, a consumer searching for new running shoes can learn about the essential features of running shoes, performance comparisons, and pricing through content marketing. This helpful guidance can influence their decision and direct them toward purchasing from your brand.

The Power of Content in Digital Marketing Strategies

Consider this example: A search query might show both the first and second organic results as helpful guides related to a product or service. These results are the outcome of a well-thought-out content marketing strategy that directly addresses the audience’s needs. Ranking high organically in such scenarios also highlights the success of integrating SEO into your efforts.

This example underscores the importance of using all digital marketing tools cohesively and simultaneously to maximize impact and achieve your business goals.

Social Media Marketing

In today’s world, no matter the age, potential customers are highly engaged with social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. For example, according to 2021 data, Turkey has 60 million active social media users, with each of them spending an average of 3 hours per day on social media. This makes social media one of the most powerful tools in digital marketing.

Simply put, Social Media Marketing involves using social media platforms to connect with your target audience in order to build your brand, increase sales, and drive traffic to your website. It encompasses everything a business does through its social media channels. Social media marketing goes beyond just posting content and responding to comments—it requires a holistic and strategic approach that combines creative thinking with objective, data-driven strategies. That’s why brands working with professional agencies can easily stand out from their competitors.

Social media marketing not only covers the management of social media channels but also includes social media advertising. Social media advertising involves running paid campaigns on social media platforms to reach specific target audiences, making it another powerful branch of digital marketing.

PPC Advertising

In simple terms, PPC (Pay-Per-Click) Advertising is an online advertising model where advertisers pay each time their ad is clicked. It provides highly targeted potential customer traffic in a very short period of time. It is easy to track, allows advanced targeting, and can be easily managed, with the option to pause or activate the campaign at any time.

When you search for a term on Google or any other search engine, the results at the top or bottom of the page labeled as "Ad," or the banners you see on websites, are examples of PPC advertising. Banner ads are part of display advertising, while the ads you see on search engines fall under search network advertising. Known as SEM (Search Engine Marketing), this advertising model’s biggest strength lies in its ability to present ads to motivated customers who are ready to make a purchase. That’s why SEM is highly effective and provides significant opportunities to grow your business.

Example: The results shown in the image below are an example of PPC advertising, also known as SEM. As illustrated in the example, search network ads can quickly connect you with your target audience, even without using long-term content marketing or SEO tools.

Other Digital Marketing Tools

In addition to the main tools mentioned above, there are other frequently used digital marketing methods such as email marketing, affiliate marketing, and mobile marketing.

Email Marketing: Email marketing allows businesses to stay connected with potential customers by sending customized newsletters or offers based on their shopping history or interactions with the brand.

Mobile Marketing: This type of digital marketing focuses on reaching your audience through smartphones or tablets. It leverages tools like text messages (SMS) and mobile app notifications to engage with users.

Affiliate Marketing: Also known as affiliate marketing, this involves offering a commission to individuals or organizations who promote your product on their digital platforms. While it helps reduce costs and share the advertising burden, it also has drawbacks, such as handing over control of brand reputation to third parties.

How to Choose the Right Digital Marketing Tools?

The digital marketing strategy created for each business is unique and specific to that business. Even if two companies in the same sector are of similar size, their goals will likely be different. Therefore, although the digital marketing tools used may be similar, the way they are utilized will vary according to the strategy designed for each company.

When choosing digital marketing tools, it is essential to consider the following factors:

1. Goals: The choice of the digital marketing channel should be directed according to the marketing campaign's objectives, such as brand awareness, conversions, lead generation, or return on investment. It is also important that these goals align with the business model.

2. Budget: Advertising expenses vary depending on the channel. Some tools are free, while others require payment. For example, it is impossible to run a comprehensive digital marketing campaign with a budget of 10,000 TL across all channels. In this case, the appropriate channels should be selected based on your goals and priorities. For instance, if the goal is immediate sales, SEM (Search Engine Marketing) might be a better fit, while social media advertising or SEO (Search Engine Optimization) may be more suitable for long-term brand awareness.

3. Target Audience: The digital marketing tools you use, and how you use them, will depend on your target audience. For example, if you're selling macrame thread, your target audience may consist mostly of older, stay-at-home, or retired women. In this case, visual-based platforms like Pinterest and video advertising may be more effective. Additionally, the habits of the target market in terms of social media usage are crucial. For example, Instagram and Facebook are popular in Turkey, while VK and Odnoklassniki dominate in Russia. Selecting the correct platform for your target market can open up significant opportunities.

4. Competition: The level of competition plays a critical role in choosing the right digital marketing channel. If your competitors are using a particular marketing channel to reach customers and you have the budget, you can follow suit and take advantage of that channel’s market. However, if your budget is limited, you can explore less competitive channels. For example, if your competitors selling macrame threads use SEM, you can either join the competition or opt for affiliate marketing, which might be a more cost-effective option.

5. Status of Your Digital Assets: When selecting digital marketing tools, it's essential to evaluate the status of your existing digital assets. For instance, if your competitors are succeeding with PPC (Pay Per Click) advertising but your website isn't optimized, it may not be the best idea to focus on PPC just yet. Instead, you might opt for social media platforms and improve your website before moving on to PPC. Once your digital presence is stronger, you can introduce more advanced methods like PPC