by USR
A very familiar term “digital marketing” is often confused with “online marketing” or “Internet marketing”. This phenomenon is a commonplace and trite among the mass as well as in conferences and events.
Although the terms share a handful of similarities in mutual, yet they also have salient main features that you should be familiar with while utilizing either of them in a marketing plan. Before we delve further, let us take a step back in order to have a clearer overview of the two main marketing channels.
Digital marketing vs Online marketing: The definitions
Digital marketing
Digital marketing is a general term that is used to refer to anything that entails the use of an electronic device, including internet marketing.
Some typical examples of this type of marketing are broadcasting, digital OOH advertisements, podcasts and e-books.
Digital marketing has been around and growing by leaps and bounds since the 21st century meanwhile replacing traditional marketing.
Online/Internet marketing
Online marketing is one of the cardinal parts of digital marketing. Any type of marketing that is done via the internet is termed as online/internet marketing.
Online marketing is carried out through websites, blogs, social media and emails. Online marketing is a magnet for pulling in customers and creating a remarkable online presence of a brand.
Digital Marketing vs Online Marketing: Shedding light on the differences
After reading the definitions of the two types of marketing, you would have observed slight differences. In short, Digital marketing can be used and harnessed without using any Internet strategies whereas Internet marketing does require the use of the Internet to market your business and pull in your target audience.
Digital marketing, being an umbrella term, allows Internet marketing to fall under it whereas Internet marketing is a more refined form of digital marketing.
Digital Marketing vs. Online Marketing: The channels
Since Internet marketing is a part of digital marketing, multiple channels overlie. Furthermore, a number of additional strategies are exclusively digital marketing and not Internet marketing. Let us take a look at where a handful of these strategies fall:
| STRATEGY | DIGITAL MARKETING | ONLINE MARKETING |
| Search Engine Optimization (SEO) | Yes | Yes |
| Pay-per-click Advertising | Yes | Yes |
| Mobile Marketing | Yes | Yes |
| Email Marketing | Yes | Yes |
| Social Media Marketing | Yes | Yes |
| Content Marketing | Yes | Yes |
| Social Media Advertising | Yes | Yes |
| Web Design & Development | Yes | Yes |
| TVCs | Yes | No |
| Digital Billboards | Yes | No |
| Radio Jingles | Yes | No |
| SMS Messages | Yes | No |
As you can see, many of these strategies fall under both Internet marketing and digital marketing. The only strategies that do not fall under Internet marketing are strategies that do not require the Internet to advertising to prospects.
Digital Marketing vs. Online Marketing: Finding converging strategies
Rather than pointing out differences between digital marketing and Internet marketing, it would be better to compare Internet marketing and digital marketing to find converging strategies. Here we give the mention of four key strategies you can use.
1. Search engine optimization (SEO)
While focusing on digital marketing vs. internet marketing, you will come to know that search engine optimization (SEO) is a technique that falls into both categories. SEO is a great tool that works wonders in stepping up the rankings of your brand in the search engine result pages and help pull in target traffic to your website.
While a lot of your target visitors conduct searches on a regular basis (a regular person conducts 3-4 searches a day), it is a down-to-earth idea to invest in SEO if you wish to pull in more qualified leads.
Let us take a look at the following key elements that will contribute to building an effective SEO strategy:
Add relevant key terms: Keywords play a seminal role in enabling your website to turn up in the search engine results pages. If you want your target visitors to arrive at your website, make sure you choose relevant, industry-relevant terms. In general, it is good to adhere to using long-tail keywords, containing three or more words, to ensure you can attract maximum target traffic to your business.
Better your site’s load time: Most decidedly, your target users expect your website to load fast, and search engines want to deliver it to them right away. With a view to perfecting your website’s load time, take a look at the Google PageSpeed Insights, you will come to know how fast your website loads and where you can tweak it. You can also invest in page speed services to get a professional to optimize your website.
Make your site mobile-responsive: Because Google nowadays gives preferences to mobile-responsive websites and includes them in the SERPs, it is important to ensure that your website is a mobile-friendly one. Conduct Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test to determine if your site is mobile-responsive. If it is not, you should add a responsive design to create a mobile-friendly site.
2. Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising
Another very common online marketing and digital marketing strategy that you can see these days is pay-per-click (PPC) advertising. PPC ads are visible at the top of the search results and are tagged with the word “ad.”
PPC ads are very instrumental in pulling in convertible and qualified leads. Retaining maximum odds for paid visitors to convert than an organic visitor, PPC strategy is a great way to help you grow tremendously.
The following are a few key aspects that will help you run a successful PPC campaign:
Select relevant keywords: Similar to SEO, your keywords resolve as if where your ad will be visible in search engine results pages. At this point, you should make sure to opt for long-tail keywords, as they cut your cost per click (CPC) down and help you pull in leads that are more qualified.
Tweak your landing page: Including a custom landing page is a great way to ensure improved results with your PPC ad. Meanwhile, you would want to ensure that your landing page is agreeable to the content in your ad copy. This is important to keep the leads engaged with your ad. In other words, if your ad copy is fixated on mobile phones, your landing page must be fixed on mobile phones only.
Utilize ad extensions: Ad extensions will add more enchantment and cost-effectiveness to your PPC ad. Ranging from well-thought-out snippets to local extensions, these modules can help you incorporate some more information to your ad only to prompt your audience to click.
3. Content marketing
Again reviewing digital marketing and Internet marketing, you will also come to learn in due course that content marketing is another strategy that they both share in mutual. Content marketing is a great technique to share your know-how with your target people so that they all will get to your website readily.
Content comes in a variety of formats, for example,
· Blogs
· Videos
· Infographics
· Podcasts
· Guides
· And so on.
Content is the ticket for online and digital marketing strategies, as it enables you to carve a niche for your brand as a leading firm, prompts your target audience to visit your webpage, and gives a boost to your brand recognition.
Here are a few salient elements to build a solid content strategy:
Utilize a content calendar: Perfect content is the one, which is created and updated back-to-back, that is why it is common for people to get lost or go haywire in the process. As you make the most of the content calendar, it will help your business stay well-organized and have the knowledge as if when you will have to publish content.
Try a variety of formats: While it is good to post new blogs on a regular basis but it also makes sense that you should try posting other content formats too. In general, apart from posting textual blogs, you can also create videos, infographics, etc. and do your best to make your content appear conspicuously new and engaging. The stratagem will work wonders in attracting people who are reluctant to reading blogs but have a special interest in watching videos.
Be attentive to industry topics only: Posting up-to-date and trendy topics on your weblog sound like a good idea, unless it is pertinent to your industry, it is better to avoid it. Industry unrelated topics might although pull in traffic yet will fall short in attracting target traffic having a specific interest in your business. Be specific to your industry topics will help you stand out from others.
4. Email marketing
Another popular and cost-effective Internet marketing and digital marketing strategy is email marketing. Email marketing facilitates you to send content in a straight line to interested leads. From promotional emails and links to blogs, you can send a variety of content to your target audience.
This strategy is very instrumental in turning leads into conversion. Another highlight of the strategy is that it enables you to establish a direct association with your target audience and churn out engaging content for them.
So if you want to make your email marketing campaign a real smasher, follow the following ultimate practices:
Customize your email campaigns: Using customized email campaigns will help you provide monumental success to your email marketing campaign. The stratagem will go the extra mile by adding a user’s name to the email — you should customize your emails to your target users’ interests to maximize the odds that they will engage with your content. After all, customization enhances the success rate by over 40% additionally!
Avoid paying for subscribers: While it may not be a hard thing to obtain the list of email recipients, paying for subscribers’ lists is not a down-to-earth idea. This is because most people in this list may not have any interest in your business, and therefore, your emails will end in the spam folder of the recipients, or most possibly, they will block you. As an alternative, it is better to get emails via organic means, for example, a contact form on your website. Create a click-worthy subject line: One of the major concerns is to prompt subscribers to open your email. With a view to making your email marketing a ripe success, it is important to create an attention-grabbing subject line that can prompt your subscribers to open your email readily. In this regard, you can use strategies such as emojis, adding a subscriber’s name, etc.
Digital marketing vs Online marketing: Creating your cohesive strategy
As it is easy to conclude, online marketing and digital marketing hardly differ in mutual in various instances. And whether you want to create a result-oriented digital marketing strategy or online marketing strategy, you should always have your target audience in mind. It can help you to use your marketing money by opting for the right channel. Not only that if you have the historical data, it is advised to consider analyzing them. If you do not have the historical data, please do not sweat, you can always refer to the industry reports and can make the informed decision.
Let me know your thoughts folks, please comment below.
