Digital Marketing Basics for Beginners: Learn an Overview of Digital Marketing

This guide is for all our readers who want to understand digital marketing basics along with its application. Although, if you’re someone who likes watching videos and can understand things faster through that format – Watch this Free Digital Marketing Masterclass. 

And for all our reading fanatics, let’s get started. 

What is Digital Marketing?

Digital marketing is the marketing activities or promotion of products/services via digital channels. It is a wing under the marketing umbrella but it has started evolving as a standalone department today. Here’s why we need digital marketing today. 

Importance/Need of Digital Marketing

Digital marketing methods have expanded the geographical barriers which allow businesses & brands to tap into the global markets. It is very important today because the pandemic has made humans prone to staying at home and spending more time on the Internet. 

Thus, to reach the right people at the right place, online marketing is the best option. There are multiple more benefits of digital marketing that make it important and the need of the hour. Read about the rising scope of digital marketing if you want to know more. 

So how does digital marketing work? Here’s all you need to know about the digital marketing basics and fundamentals that include all the top channels and ways. Also, you must know that Inbound Marketing & Outbound Marketing are holistic channels when it comes to digital marketing. 

Note: If you are preparing for an interview and looking to quickly brush up on the digital marketing basics, read our guide on digital marketing interview questions and answers instead. 

Digital Marketing Basics for Beginners 

1. Search Engine Optimization 

Meaning: Search engine optimization is the process of optimizing your website including all the web pages to be able to rank on search engines organically and increase traffic to your website.

Application: Some of the best practices in SEO is including the right keywords and search terms on all relevant pages. Building links, acquiring links, SSL certificates, reducing the load time of your pages, etc are some of the ways to integrate SEO. 

Learn More: Online SEO Course

2. Search Engine Marketing

Meaning: Advertising on search engines is called search engine marketing. When you search for something on Google, for instance, you will be able to see the first few results marked as “Ad”. Or you will come across ads on a website while you’re surfing. It is also referred to as PPC at times because you are only charged if someone clicks on your ad. 

Application: Google Ads is a popular SEM tool. You need to bid for specific keywords and search terms where you want your ads to appear for search ads. When its display ads, you can specify your target audience or upload a ready customer base. Add creatives/landing pages and choose your duration. 

Learn More: Online Google Ads Course

3. Social Media Marketing

Meaning: Social media marketing is promoting your brand/products on various social media platforms organically as well as via paid ways. Some popular social media platforms are Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.  

Application: Creating engaging and useful content on social media in the form of posts, stories, videos, collaborations, etc. These were the organic ways. Paid includes advertising on social media as well as influencer marketing. Facebook Ads Manager is a dual tool to run ads on Facebook & Instagram. 

Learn More: Online SMM Course

4. Content Marketing

Meaning: Content marketing is the effort of promoting your content on different platforms. Certain tweaks are made to the content to suit the intent & requirements of the user base of the platform. 

Application: A 10-minute long youtube video can be converted into a bite-sized reel and promoted on Instagram for your userbase over there. Similarly, you can promote your blogs or resources as a swipe-up link on social media.

If an Instagram post has done really well, you can write an article on it and now promote it on your website. 

Learn More: Online Content Marketing Course

5. Email Marketing

Meaning: Reaching out to your users and email databases for promotional reasons is called email marketing. It can be sent to 10 users also or 1000 users as well. In both cases, it is considered an act of email marketing. 

Application: Email marketing processes have now automated thus you just need to make use of a tool, for example, Mail Chimp. With such tools, you can choose your database, feed the email copy for it, add the personalization points and schedule it for a specific date and time.

Such tools also give you reports and data after the campaign to see your open rate, clicks in the mail, delivered numbers, etc. 

Learn More: Online Email Marketing Course

6. Website Development 

Meaning: Website creation & development is the planning of your website to make it easy to navigate and enhance the user experience. 

Application: Using platforms like WordPress, which is an open-source content management system, is a free platform to create some aesthetically pleasing and user-friendly websites. It supports various plug-ins which let you develop & optimize your website with great ease as well as integrate all kinds of elements. 

Learn More: Online Website Planning & Development Course

7. Online Reputation Management

Meaning: ORM is a very important part of digital marketing even when it doesn’t deal with marketing directly. Crisis management is also a part of ORM. 

Application: It is managing a company’s reputation on the digital platforms, increasing the digital footprint with PR, and also dealing with feedbacks, reviews, and grievances. There are quite a few ORM tools that help you automate and set some standard rules & processes when dealing with ORM

Learn More: Online ORM Course

8. E-commerce Management 

Meaning: E-commerce management is basically handling the end-to-end processes of an e-commerce store. 

Application: Building an e-commerce website, adding products, managing the current pages, modifying them time-to-time, adding shipping details, payment gateways, etc are all a part of e-commerce management. Platforms like Shopify allow you to do this. 

Learn More: Online E-commerce Management Course

9. Media Planning

Meaning: Media planning & buying is the process of choosing the right media outlets & spaces to promote your brand/company. It can be a mix of various media channels depending on the allocated budgets. Some popular media channels include e-newspapers, e-magazines, websites, OTT platforms, etc. 

Application: It starts with the analysis of your target audience and their behavior. Next, you’ll need to state the media objectives and goals you want to achieve. Accordingly, you strategize by choosing the right channels, implementing your campaign, and evaluating once it ends. 

Learn More: Online Media Planning Course

10. Copywriting 

Meaning: Copywriting is the art of writing strong & impactful messages in the least possible words or characters. 

Application: Find out what the audience needs, what the relevant search terms/keywords are, the intent of the reader, your copy goal, and most importantly conduct a competitor analysis. 

Learn More: Online Copywriting Course

11. Ad Designing

Meaning: Ad designing may not be a direct channel of digital marketing but it is a very significant digital marketing skill. Ad designing includes making creatives and copies for all digital ads.  

Application: Photoshop, Canva, Adobe Illustrator are some of the popular platforms for ad designing. Using the right colors, fonts, messages, graphics, etc is important for ad designing.

Learn More: Online Ad Design Course 

12. Tracking and Analytics

Meaning: Tracking & Analytics is a very important part of digital marketing. The results of every campaign that you run or the organic performance of your website can be tracked via tools. It helps you assess your performance and plan future campaigns/projects accordingly. The data also helps you find some new unknown insights for your business. 

Application: Google Analytics and Google Search Console are 2 of the most widely-used tracking and analytics tools available for digital marketers. After setting up your website on them, you will be able to find out the search patterns, impressions, clicks, CTR, top-performing pages, page on time, and a lot more data. 

Learn More: Online Google Analytics Course

13. Video Marketing

Meaning: Video marketing is done to either promote/market/educate/increase engagement for your products/services via video content. 

Application: You can create brand videos, demonstration videos, review videos, event videos, expert interview videos, animated videos, case studies, and more. These types generally gain a lot of traction. 

14. Affiliate Marketing

Meaning: Affiliate marketing is the act of employing affiliates (third persons) to promote your products/services in their circles to get you sales/leads/clicks and as a part of this, a small percentage commission is granted. 

Application: You can either find such bloggers/affiliates who fit your relevancy criteria or you could also find out the affiliates of your competitors and get them to work for you. A fixed percentage commission can be given.

15. App Store Optimization

Meaning: ASO means optimizing mobile applications for app stores/play stores. To start ranking on the top during searches and increase the number of downloads, ASO is used. 

Application: SEO optimize your app, your titles and descriptions should be crisp yet explanatory, run ads on the store, etc. 

Learn More: Online ASO Course

Conclusion

With that, we conclude our article on the digital marketing basics. A greate takeaway from this blog is that marketing automation is the latest trend in digital marketing. It’s changing the operations & processes. 

Hope this has been an informative read and opened your horizons about digital marketing. 

If you think you will make a good fit in the digital marketing field, consider opting for IIDE’s 3-month Advanced Online Digital Marketing Course. It prepares you for all the digital marketing skills in detail along with practical hands-on training. 

For all graduates, here’s a professional program that you must consider – IIDE’s 11-month MBA-Level Post Graduation in Digital Marketing. It’s a perfect blend of digital marketing and managerial skills that helps you bag jobs directly at the mid-senior managerial career opportunities.