Digital Marketing Methods & Tools

It is an undeniable fact that digital marketing is the key to reaching your audience on the internet. From the local market to corporate businesses, we are aware that digital transformation is inevitable. So, what is the first step for businesses that want to increase their brand awareness with digital marketing? What are the stages of digital marketing? In this article, we will provide a roadmap for business owners who are considering becoming a part of digital transformation but do not know where to start. If you are curious about the details, let’s take a look together.

Even if you have not conducted comprehensive research, you are likely to have some knowledge about digital marketing methods. Social media marketing and content marketing are now a part of daily life. Although they are relatively less known, Email Marketing, SEM, SEO, Mobile Marketing, Retargeting, Affiliate Marketing, and Influencer Marketing are methods that we encounter in every aspect of life.

Digital marketing tools are much more limitless than we can mention in a sentence. It is possible to use any tool available online as a material for digital marketing. For example, we can give social media platforms, banner/pop-up ads, design tools, Google Analytics, Facebook Insights, and similar analysis tools as examples. So far, it was quite clear. But where do we start doing digital marketing? What are the stages of digital marketing?

Stages of Digital Marketing

Determine Your Goals

The first step in determining a digital marketing strategy is to accurately analyze your business’s goals and target audience. Every decision you make afterward depends on the success you achieve in this step. What is your first goal for your business when marketing through online channels? What are your business’s annual goals? How much will digital marketing contribute to these goals? Who is your target audience? (age group, education level, interests, etc.) You will have taken the biggest step when you answer these questions and similar ones. At this point, we recommend that you be as careful as possible to ensure that your goals are realistic and measurable.

Choose Platforms Suitable for Your Business

The second step among the digital marketing stages is to determine the platforms suitable for your business. Since your target audience is now determined, targeting platforms where they are predominantly located will make your job easier. For example, if your audience consists mostly of desktop users, AdWords and email marketing are appropriate advertising channels. On the other hand, social media marketing is suitable for a younger and more social media-active audience. It is essential to determine the platforms where your audience is located, not only for advertising but also for creating the content you will produce in the next stage.

Create & Share Content

Contrary to what may come to mind when it comes to creating content, you can produce many different types of content in addition to written content, such as videos, visuals, and various other types of content in your field. At this point, of course, it is crucial to know your audience well and create content that is suitable for the spirit of the platform where you will share your content. One important tip when planning your content is to create a calendar for your content. Because, in order to keep your followers interested, it is important not only for your content to be liked but also for it to be consistent.

Achieve Stability and Permanence

Perhaps the most important among the stages of digital marketing is being able to sustain all these stages with stability. While everyone can achieve success once, sustainability can be a little challenging. Therefore, you should maintain your position by constantly staying up-to-date, producing content, and advertising, and aim for more. Otherwise, a competitor who is “one click” more up-to-date than you can easily climb one level up the next day.

Create an Analysis, Tracking, and Feedback Mechanism

A characteristic of digital marketing that we can describe as important is the fast feedback mechanism. If you are careful, it is not difficult to get very quick feedback from your followers and create action plans for them. For this, you should always be measuring the success of your digital marketing strategy with analysis and tracking programs. Sometimes an advertisement that does not receive enough interaction can be perceived as feedback, while sometimes direct user surveys can give clues about your success.