E-marketing: what is it? What is its importance? How do you start?

you believe me that electronic marketing has become an imposed part of your marketing process?
If you have not yet made the most of this rapid development, then you are exposed to loss on a daily basis…
Therefore, I have prepared this article for you carefully so that you can benefit from every word in it…
I am writing it for you to help you take the right steps towards marketing your business online professionally.

What’s the online markiting

E-marketing simply includes all marketing efforts that take place via digital platforms or the Internet in general. These marketing efforts include search engine marketing, social media platforms, email, websites, and other means that help entrepreneurs reach potential customers.

In fact, some people may think that electronic marketing (or digital marketing) is a new era of marketing that has emerged again, but electronic marketing has been around for a long time, but it has developed in its strategies and methods in the recent period.

Digital marketing has been around since the first radio ad, (the popular machine of the 1980s) and was one of the best promotional methods at that time

However, soon there were many marketing developments. Marketers began to turn to podcast marketing instead of radio advertisements, and marketers began to prefer influencer marketing more than traditional advertising.

This is just an example, and I will explain e-marketing to you more widely in the rest of the article.

What is the importance of using e-marketing?

You might ask who needs to learn digital marketing: Business owners? Or owners of service companies? Or employees interested in this field?

Let me tell you that everyone needs to know the basics of electronic marketing, as we are in a world where we spend the majority of our time on digital devices.

Think about when you wake up from your sleep: the first thing you do is look at messages and conversations on your phone, then you browse some applications, and then when you get to your car, you will find most of the passengers immersed in their phones, and sometimes the driver himself is busy with the GPS…
but when you arrive at your workplace, you are at work. Through your desktop or laptop computer, and then the same scenario repeats when you return home.

The same scenario is repeated almost daily for most people: including university students, women, and even housewives. Most of their time is on the phone and computer, and there is a study that Americans spend +10 hours a day using digital devices.

This is where users spend the majority of their time, and is an ideal place to deliver your various marketing messages. Whether you are the owner of useful content, an advocacy organization, a non-profit association, an existing business owner, an online store owner, or intend to establish a start-up project, or provide e-marketing services to interested people, or even a woman who wants to sell fresh meals to those who do not have time to cook… in fact The list goes on for those who benefit from learning e-marketing.

In addition, if a customer wants to buy a new home, phone, computer, or any product, the first thing he starts doing is searching the Internet and asking his friends on social media platforms…
Therefore, brand owners must find a place for themselves in this digital world to be Part of the customer’s decision.

On the other hand, this gives you a negative impression of the death of traditional marketing in the form of (road and bridge advertisements, newspapers, television, etc.). These marketing channels did not collapse completely, but they were undoubtedly greatly affected, and were replaced by the digital world.

Areas of electronic marketing

When we talk about e-marketing, it includes several areas that agree on the basics, but differ in some practices and methods. There are many areas of e-marketing, but let me explain to you the most famous areas:

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Content marketing
Social media marketing
Pay per click
Affiliate marketing
Influencer marketing
Native ads
Email marketing
Public relations

These are perhaps the most famous areas in electronic marketing, and let me tell you about each of these marketing channels and how to make the best use of them.

1. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

It means the marketing process that you undertake with the aim of improving the appearance of your site in search results through targeted keywords, the most famous of which is Google. The visitors who come to you from the search engine are highly targeted. The visitor is the one who searches for (buying a laptop, buying an iPhone, clothes, or even educational or technical content) and then finds your site for what he is looking for.

In order to achieve your goal of appearing in the search engine, the SEO process is divided into three main parts:

On-page SEO: This process focuses on improving the site completely, and this includes the content that you provide to the searcher that meets his intent in the search process and obtains a wonderful user experience while browsing your site.
Of course, this includes all types of content, whether you are the owner of a blog, a service platform, or an online store. What is required of you is that when a searcher arrives at your site, he finds what he is actually looking for. If so, you have accomplished your responsibility to significantly improve your internal SEO.
Off Page SEO: It means the marketing work that you carry out outside your site with the aim of gaining users’ trust in you, and this is reflected in people talking about you on other sites, talking about you on social media, and trustworthy people who talk about you positively.
Google has search spiders that recognize other sites that talk about you, thus increasing your credit for getting priority in appearing in search results.
Technical SEO: If you are building your site based on WordPress , technical matters will be easy by making some settings and using some plugins. If you rely on building your site based on special programming, you need the programmer’s recommendation to prepare the site from a technical standpoint, including making a site map, improving the site’s structure, compressing CSS and Javascript files, and compressing images and site files.

2. Content marketing

Content marketing is an integral part of the assets of your marketing process. It gives your brand confidence and spread, and more opportunities to reach potential customers.

This content takes many forms to benefit your target audience. For example, IKEA provides content in the form of a free decor catalog that helps them arrange home furniture. Of course, this content is related to IKEA products and helps the company reach potential customers.

Anyway, let me mention to you the most important types of content that are recommended to be produced for users:

Videos : It is the most effective means of communicating with audiences and understanding your marketing messages easily. Recently, most marketers are relying on video as an essential part of the marketing plan due to the quality of access it achieves for them, and the extent of users’ interaction with video.
Articles : You can write an informational article that will benefit your potential visitors on a specific topic, such as this article that you are reading now explaining e-marketing (the necessary topic for most visitors to the WPar website ), or it can be news articles about developments in your business and news of interest to users about your products.
Digital files: This means any file that can be downloaded and read by the user (such as a PDF book, a printed report, or the like), and they are among the distinctive contents that contribute to enhancing the confidence of users and contribute to your reaching more potential customers, such as the IKEA catalog that we mentioned.
Infographic: It is a form of visual content that gives the reader a lot of valuable information smoothly and quickly in an attractive visual design, and is also frequently shared across other sites for easy simplification of the information contained within it. This type includes infographics for mind maps, report, informational and news content, and other content.

Content marketing + SEO = a great combination that contributes to gaining user trust in your brand in general.

3. Social media marketing

It means marketing the brand or content of your business through social media platforms, and as it is evident from being social, you need to be more social and friendly with your followers.

You can rely on social platforms to provide content that increases awareness of your brand in general, or to send them to your site. There are several platforms you can rely on, but the most famous of them are as follows:

Facebook: The platform that includes the majority of users from all categories around the world and is suitable for providing many types of content (photos, videos, written content, sharing links, etc.)
Twitter: The most popular platform for building conversations with followers and interested people through short tweets and through interaction with appropriate hashtags.
LinkedIn: The most official platform for communication, which is most suitable for providing official content that benefits business owners, employees, or those searching for appropriate opportunities in the world of business.
Instagram: A platform for interactive photos and short videos, where users mostly interact with visual content, and also with hashtags. You can collect a number of targeted visits through the link in the bio.
Snapchat: A platform for short, fun videos (10 seconds). You can present behind-the-scenes videos or videos explaining your products through multiple Snapchats. The platform is more famous in the Gulf.

There are many other social platforms through which you can generate highly targeted visits depending on your target market. In order to start on any social platform, I advise you to study the platform’s algorithms and find out what content is appropriate for the target audience on this platform.

As we mentioned in the previous examples, the Snapchat audience is different from the Twitter audience, for example, and the appropriate type of content on Snapchat is different from the appropriate type of content on LinkedIn, and so on.

4. Pay per click

The pay-per-click (PPC) system is considered one of the most popular advertising methods used by many advertising platforms, as you pay a certain amount for each click on the ad according to certain conditions set by the advertiser.
For example : I want to deliver my ad to men aged 18-35 residing in Riyadh, and I pay $0.01 for each person who clicks on the ad and goes to my site (this is just an example).

Of course, advanced tracking systems are used, especially with trusted advertising networks, to ensure that there are real people clicking on your ad, and not just fake visits.

The most popular PPC advertising systems:

Google Ads: It is the largest advertising platform that provides you with ads through the search engine, its available display networks, YouTube, and Gmail. Ads appear in various forms, such as text or banner ads, and are often paid per click.
Facebook Ads: Through the Facebook advertising system (Ads Manager), you can create a sponsored advertisement that appears in users’ News Feed, whether the advertisement is for a post, video, or link, and you often pay for each click. You can also create an advertisement on Instagram through the same advertising system.
Twitter Ads: Through Twitter Ads, you can create sponsored tweets to appear in the target audience’s News feeds in order to complete the advertising goal of the advertising campaign.

There are other platforms such as Linkedin ads, Bing, adroll, Pinterest, Snapchat, and others, which have different features, prices, and the features they provide you in exchange for delivering your ad to the target segment.

Note : I am talking about the advertising systems found in the previous networks where you pay them for direct advertising, and this differs from the platform’s algorithms for building social accounts.

Advertising systems and social media are often used to send the user directly to your site

5. Affiliate marketing

One of the most popular marketing systems for large and medium companies is the affiliate marketing system , where the marketer bears all the marketing burdens until he makes a successful purchase, and in return he takes a commission from the merchant in exchange for completing this purchase.

The system is good and many big brands rely on it, such as: Amazon, eBay, Ali Express, Adidas, Microsoft and others because it reduces the element of risk undertaken by the company (it avoids the risk of disbursing a lot of advertisements, and the affiliate marketer plays this role).

However, the drawback of this method is that it requires a strong tracking system to ensure that marketers do not commit fraud and do not deceive customers in describing the products so that they can complete the sale quickly and receive a commission.

6. Influencer marketing

One of the effective marketing methods to reach target customers and ensure that they interact with you quickly while gaining trust is influencer marketing.

For example, imagine that you are the owner of a paid application on the Android store, and you asked to talk about the features of your application in one of the episodes of Khawater (before its presentation ended), and then Al-Shugairi asks the users to download your application? (This is just an example)

It is certainly one of the most effective marketing methods, especially since users often trust the person speaking and if your product actually adds value to users.

7. Native ads

It means ads that appear as an essential part of the content and not just an advertising banner that appears at the top of the page or to the right or left of the page.

Imagine, for example, that I show you 10 videos about learning the English language on this page, including an advertising video about teaching English. Facebook provides this type of advertising through the ads that appear in News Feeds. The user browses the posts of his friends and the pages he likes and finds an advertising post. In the middle of these ads.

There are many other forms of native advertising whose basic idea is to be part of the site’s content.

In fact, areas 4, 5, and 6 are considered very similar, as they often depend on reaching the user through trust, rather than reaching a user who knows nothing about you, and each method undoubtedly has its advantages and disadvantages.

8. Email marketing

There is a famous saying that says: Money in the mailing list “Money in the list.” Relying on marketing through the mailing list has a great benefit and it is still continuing until now because the user registers on the mailing list once after he gets to know you well and then you send him periodic messages. Free of charge without paying additional costs (unlike advertising systems that you pay for every time your ad appears).

But this is different from the annoying concept that makes you obtain a user’s email without his permission and then send him dozens of promotional messages on a daily basis (this is not what we are talking about).

But I mean that the user registers an email of his own choice, then you send him a newsletter with the latest developments and some posts and advice that benefit him on an ongoing basis, then recommend some of your distinctive products that suit him.

9. Public relations

In general, you can establish public relations with famous websites, blogs, journalists, and content creators with the aim of gaining their trust and building mutual cooperation opportunities, exactly as is the case in public relations in its traditional sense, but here it is done through digital platforms.

You can establish these relationships with the aim of talking about you or making reviews of your products, and no financial compensation is required. The compensation may be a benefit that the other party receives from you in exchange for this review or this meeting (depending on the nature of your business).

Note : There are many journalists looking to enrich their news websites with informational reports that cover the latest developments in events. If you can help them with such reports, they will welcome the publishing process without asking you for financial compensation.

There are many other electronic marketing channels that you can rely on, and I do not want you to get distracted by many channels without being able to make the right decision, but you can start with one or two of the previous channels and find a wonderful impact on your sales volume.

In the end, you make many communications to your potential customers in different ways to convince them to buy the product or service that you offer them.

Let me tell you what is most important in understanding the optimal use of electronic marketing.

What does an e-marketing officer do?

Among the problems facing business owners is defining the responsibilities of the e-marketing specialist. The same applies to the e-marketing official: how does he set measurements for his practical performance (KPIs): is he progressing or lagging behind?

Do I, as an electronic marketer, perform well-known marketing tasks and have nothing to do with the impact of this on the development of business? Isn’t he responsible for increasing sales? Or collect visits to the site? Or increase views and reach? Or collect potential customer data? …… Or what?

First, let us go back to the ancient era…
the era of (television, radio, and printed advertisements). When you go to a marketing agency, does it guarantee you the volume of sales? The short answer: No, but it ensures that you reach targeted people in a certain way (even if the ultimate goal is to increase sales).

It is similar in the basic idea, but the method and consequences differ. Online marketing helps you reach the ultimate goal of increasing sales, but it does not get you to this goal from day one.

On the first day, you aim to increase the spread and awareness of your business, on the second day you aim for potential customers to reach your site, then on the third day they register their phone numbers, then buy your products on the fourth day (this is an example).

These tasks may be carried out by one person or a multi-talented team, depending on the size of the company and the goals it wants to reach. Of course, the goals of startup companies differ from the goals of large companies.

In any case, at each stage of marketing, he sets his own goals for this stage, and here are some examples:

SEO official

Primary goal: Increase traffic from search engines

The primary goal or performance measurement criteria (KPIs) for the SEO administrator is the volume of visits that come from the search engine through the targeted keywords, and he ensures achieving this goal by monitoring the performance of the site’s pages in coordination with the content team, the external communications team, and the programming team.

Content Administrator

The primary goal: to increase the visitor’s sitting time and spread the site’s content more widely

The content officer reaches this goal by developing a content plan that includes its various types (readable content, video content, and sales content) and monitors the impact of the content while developing continuous improvement plans for the content.

Social media channels official

The primary goal: increase reach, increase followers, and increase site visitors

The official reaches these goals (which change from time to time) through the company’s social accounts, publishes visual content on each of the social channels, and interacts with users as appropriate.

E-marketing tools

It is never a good idea to rely on performing e-marketing tasks manually as long as there are tools that help you with that. Think, for example, if you rely on an automated tool to send emails (Autoresponder), and how much time will it save you compared to sending emails manually?

On the other hand, I do not want to make a list of the 100 most important electronic marketing tools for you, and you use many tools just because of the popularity of those tools, but what is more important is that you know the tasks required of you and then search for tools that help you facilitate those tasks.

Anyway, let me tell you the most important e-marketing tools that will help you manage your online marketing business smoothly:

Mailchaimp

It is a tool that helps you gain subscribers to your mailing list, then send emails automatically. It contains a free plan that enables you to get 2,000 subscribers to your mailing list, and therefore it is a good option to start marketing via email.

If you have a higher budget, I advise you to use the GetResponse tool , as it is a distinctive tool that contains more accurate algorithms, and it starts with a monthly subscription of $15.

Google Analytics

There is no doubt that the Google Analytics tool is important for every website owner, as it is a free tool that helps you view the website’s statistics, including the number of visitors, the source of visits, the time the visitor sits on the site, and other analyses.

Crazy Egg

It is an analytics tool that helps you analyze your site in a more advanced way by recording a video of the visitor’s behavior since he starts entering your site, and knowing the places that caught your attention the most on some pages of your site. This definitely helps you improve your user experience design continuously, especially if you are building pages to sell products and want to come up with the best design to convince the customer to buy.

Hootsuite

It is a distinctive tool for managing your social accounts in one place with the work team, through a secure environment for implementing marketing publishing operations and interacting with users. This includes your Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Pinterest accounts. You can manage all of these accounts in one place and it starts at around $20 per month.

aHrefs

If SEO is an essential part of your marketing plan, you will need the aHrefs tool. From experience, it has been a great tool for analyzing sites in general and giving you an idea of the most important information you want to collect about competitors. The tool’s subscription starts at $100 per month.

There are other tools that you can rely on to manage and analyze your marketing plans, but as I said, the important thing is to know what this tool will accomplish for you and whether you need it or not. If your budget is limited, you can consider free alternatives that will undoubtedly consume you additional time.

How do I start in e-marketing? What is the required budget?

You may be familiar with the basics of e-marketing and its various strategies, but how do you get started in the best way? How do I choose the best traffic source? Start learning PPC Ads or SEO? Or start in all areas of e-marketing at the same time?

There are thousands of free and paid courses on digital marketing, but before I recommend some courses, I would like to advise you on how to choose the right course for you.
Until I give you a satisfactory answer to this question, you are one of three

The owner of a medium-sized or large company wants to appoint a team to manage marketing campaigns
An emerging business owner who wants to manage the marketing process himself
An employee or company owner who provides electronic marketing services

Whoever you are is one of these three, let’s think about it in reverse: What is the goal of my business, and how do I get e-marketing services that help me with this goal?

You need to think

What goal do I want to reach now? (Sales, deployment, customer data registration)
Who is the target audience for my products? (Age, gender, geographic region, purchasing segment…)
What is the budget allocated for advertising campaigns?
What possibilities are available now?
Who are the biggest competitors in this industry?

Such questions help you choose your destination correctly, which will often begin by identifying the most important traffic source in the beginning, then knowing how to exploit it properly and expand step by step.

The most important equation that I advise you to follow is: learning >> experience >> repetition.

Like a new car driving trainee, he obtains some basic information about how the engine works, then he begins to experience driving and has some failures, then he begins to repeat it again and again until his driving experience improves and he becomes a professional driver.

As I told you, there are many sources for learning electronic marketing, but the most important thing is to know exactly what you need to learn, and how you will benefit from it.

As for the required budget, it varies based on all the variables that we mentioned previously in the beginning, but if you are in the starting stage, you can start by relying on creating a WordPress website that suits your business activity while relying on only one traffic source from the previous sources, and you will find yourself beginning to reap your marketing efforts. gradually.

Conclusion:

The field of electronic marketing is one of the interesting fields that anyone needs to learn, or even learn the basics. I myself have benefited greatly from learning this field outside the work environment, as it is the field that develops the way you think about supply and demand and deliver your marketing messages effectively to users.

In order to achieve effective spread across digital platforms, it requires calmness and patience in practicing many experiments to become a professional marketer.

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