Back to Basics: The 5 D’s of Digital Marketing
In a world with over 4.7 billion online users, it’s become essential for every business to have an online presence. Additionally, with a majority of purchasing decisions happening online it’s crucial that stores move towards ecommerce and SEO to ensure customers can find them. This requires digital marketing! The umbrella term to describe all the methods that brands can use to market themselves online. Stripping it back to basics, there are “5 D’s” in digital marketing that are crucial for anyone looking to make a splash online.
What is Digital Marketing?
At its core, digital marketing still adheres to the traditional ideas of marketing. So it’s all about getting your brand out there and connecting with prospective clients and customers.
Rather than hang up posters in busy shopping centres or place ads on the side of a bus, digital marketing is about connecting with audiences online. Therefore, brands need to stand out in the online spaces that matter most: social media, news sites and at the top of search engines.
“Digital marketing is the act of promoting and selling products and services by leveraging online marketing tactics such as social media marketing, search marketing, and email marketing.” Digital Marketer, 2020.
The 5 D’s of Digital Marketing
- Digital Devices – Audiences experience brands as they interact with business websites and mobile apps. Typically, this is through a combination of connected devices including smartphones, tablets, desktop computers, TVs and gaming devices.
- Digital Platforms – Most interactions on these devices are through a browser or apps from the major platforms or services, that includes Facebook (and Instagram), Google (and YouTube), Twitter and LinkedIn.
- Digital Media – This refers to different paid, owned and earned communications channels for reaching and engaging audiences including advertising, email and messaging, search engines and social networks.
- Digital Data – After audiences interact with content on digital platforms/media, insight businesses collect data to analyse later about audience profiles and interactions. This includes audience data (age, sex, location, names etc) as well as observing how audiences behave online (liking, sharing, purchasing, clicking). Storing or sharing valuable information like this is now monitored by law in Europe following the implementation of GDPR regulations in 2018.
- Digital Technology – This marketing technology or martech stack is what businesses use to create interactive experiences from websites and mobile apps to in-store kiosks and email campaigns.
How Can We Use Them?
Having a basic understanding of these terms is a great starting point to begin thinking about your own digital marketing strategy. The best thing about these tools is that they are widely accessible (and useful!) for small businesses as well as big. By teaming up with our digital agency, you can use our expertise to develop a consistent, approachable and tailored online presence that works for you.
Ultimately, getting familiar with these facets of digital marketing is key to giving your online campaigns an edge. Every ‘D’ has played its part in transforming traditional marketing. With these developments, there are endless possibilities for cost-effective and creative solutions to increase your brand awareness and thrive in this competitive, dynamic and technology centric era.
At Yellow Cherry, we want our services to be transparent. If you have any questions about your project regarding digital marketing or you want to find out how your own business could benefit, please contact us.
Alternatively, if you feel like you don’t know what you should be doing or where to begin then please get in touch, we’d be delighted to help you get started!