Digital and Online Marketing: Complete Guide to Key Differences & Benefits

What is online marketing?

Online marketing encompasses all forms of marketing conducted via the internet and online channels. It mainly promotes and distributes advertising, builds brands, and communicates with customers.

Well-designed and executed online marketing enables brands to reach their target audience and increase sales of their products and services. The results of individual campaigns can be tracked in real-time, allowing you to respond immediately.

Online marketing is a great way to reach customers. Due to the fact that billions of people use the internet worldwide, it not only provides many opportunities but is also more affordable than other forms of advertising (like TV). Even smaller brands with limited budgets can now afford simpler marketing campaigns.

What is the difference between digital and online marketing?

1. Online Marketing: Refers specifically to marketing activities that require an internet connection. This includes strategies like SEO, social media marketing, email marketing, and online advertising (e.g., Google Ads).
2. Digital Marketing: Encompasses a broader range of marketing tactics that involve digital platforms and technologies, both online and offline. In addition to online channels, digital marketing includes things like SMS marketing, digital billboards, TV and radio ads, and any other digital medium that doesn’t necessarily require an internet connection.

The difference between online and digital marketing is often unclear. This is mainly because many people confuse the terms or use them interchangeably. This is not correct. Each of these types of marketing means something different.

• What is digital marketing – a broader term that refers to all forms of marketing that use digital technology to promote services and goods. This means that in addition to online channels such as social media, websites, PPC ads or newsletters, it also focuses on television, radio, and other digital tools.
• What is online marketing – this is a more specific term for marketing that occurs exclusively online, i.e., via the Internet. It is currently very popular and suitable for both large brands and smaller individuals.

In essence, online marketing is only focused on tools and outlets utilized on the internet while digital marketing makes use of a larger spectrum of electronic platforms and resources. Online marketing allows you to precisely contact with technologically engaged consumers, gather comprehensive data, and greatly personalize yourself. Knowing these variations between digital and online marketing, can help marketers ensure that their approaches fit their objectives and target population.

Online vs. offline marketing

In the context of online marketing, you may also come across the term offline marketing. The latter refers to a form of marketing that takes place outside the internet. It uses traditional channels and methods such as radio, television, print, billboards or events (trade shows, conferences, etc.) to promote a brand or products.

Offline marketing is often more expensive than online marketing. Therefore, big businesses and businesses with high profits are more likely to use it.

Expert advice

Although online marketing is becoming increasingly popular, offline marketing still plays an important role in the overall marketing strategy. For example, it effectively targets groups of people with limited internet access or minimal use.

What are the main advantages of online marketing?

Online marketing has several advantages, including:

• Wide reach

Online marketing allows you to communicate with your customers globally, which is an excellent advantage if you ship your products overseas. This automatically gives you access to millions of potential customers that you wouldn’t be able to reach through traditional channels.

• Precise targeting

With traditional offline marketing, you have little control over who sees your content. Even if you pay to advertise in a trade magazine or on a TV channel, you can choose who you want to target when setting up online campaigns.

Conversely, when creating an online campaign, you can create a precise target audience based on age, gender, demographics, buying behaviour, values, and many other factors. This guarantees that people who are likely to be interested in your products will see your advertisement, which will give you much better results.

• Measurability

Online marketing is very easy to measure. You can analyse individual campaigns based on a number of parameters and factors such as conversions, site traffic, clicks or content shares.

Depending on the campaigns’ results, you’ll get important information about what’s working with your customers, what’s not working, and what you don’t need to do anymore. This effectively saves you time and money.

• Increased engagement

Traditional marketing methods only allow for one-way communication. This means the interaction is over once you have provided customers with some information via TV, print or radio. You don’t know how the other party feels about the product or service.

Feedback is critical in marketing. It can help you learn how customers interact with a campaign and how they feel about it. Based on this data, you can then modify and adapt it.

Feedback is then also needed when creating further ads or content. It helps you get to know your existing and potential customers better and lets you know what to offer them and how to offer it.

Expert advice

Two-way communication is also excellent for online marketing because it allows you to answer customers’ questions, such as those on social media. You can help them choose a product, solve another problem, and increase sales.

• Lower costs

Online marketing costs depend on many factors, including the type of campaign, the size of the business and its budget, the person or company doing your marketing, and so on. However, advertising on TV or radio is generally lower than the amount you would pay.

• High availability

The Internet never sleeps. People are on it day and night, browsing websites and social networks. Online marketing takes advantage of this fact by showing customers relevant ads regardless of time or date.

• Personalised approach

Do you sell products that appeal to different types of customers, such as younger and older people? Online marketing allows you to tailor your advertising campaign to each target group, giving them a personalised approach.

Personalisation and an individual approach lead to a better customer experience and a sense of connection with the brand. Advertising campaigns that highlight the values of a generation or gender can lead a person to form a positive opinion of a company and become a loyal customer.

• Flexibility

Online marketing is very flexible and allows quick adjustments or optimisations to be made to current or planned campaigns based on results and feedback. This is a big plus that traditional offline marketing does not have, which significantly reduces its effectiveness.

Flexibility is also crucial today because of rapidly changing trends. Marketers can easily react to them and incorporate them into current or future campaigns or content.

• Testability

Online marketing offers the opportunity to test different strategies and creative approaches at a minimal cost. For example, A/B testing is a popular way to compare the performance of various ad or web content versions.

• Improved conversion rates

A conversion is the achievement of a specific goal by a website visitor or potential customer. This can be clicking through to a website, signing up for a newsletter, or making a purchase. The conversion rate is, therefore, the percentage of customers who take the desired action.

In general, the higher the conversion rate is, the more successful your marketing efforts are.

According to Adobe, traditional marketing methods typically only achieve a 1.7% conversion rate, which is very low compared to what you pay.

The good news is that online marketing does much better. The average conversion rate is 9.9%, almost six times higher. Not to mention, you don’t have to spend as much. So you can save money and get a lot more customers at the same time.

• Virality

Online marketing allows marketers to create quality, entertaining, and engaging content that many users share. This content can go viral and spread awareness of your brand at a meteoric rate—all without paying for advertising.

• Different formats

Traditional marketing allows you to use a very limited amount of content. In print, it’s images, on TV, it’s videos, and on the radio, it’s audio. On the other hand, banners, GIFs, intriguing graphics, brief and succinct videos, and much more are available online to complement these formats. So, you can easily attract all age groups – from teenagers to senior citizens.

What is online marketing?

Online marketing is made up of several activities that you should combine to get the best results. The main ones are:

SEO

Search Engine Optimisation, or SEO for short, is a process of optimising a website to improve its position in search results. It also includes getting organic and unpaid traffic from search engines such as Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc.

SEO consists of various activities, techniques, and practices applied to a website’s content. These improve and increase its relevance, leading to higher Google rankings.

And what are the most common techniques and practices used in SEO?

• Keywords – if you want your content to rank as highly as possible, you should study the relevant keywords you will use before you create it. Include the most relevant ones in your title, meta descriptions and image captions. Properly chosen keywords will help search engines determine the topic of the content and, based on other parameters, where to rank your site.
• Content structure – An article, product description or any other text found on the web should be easy to read and well structured. At the same time, it should answer the questions or solve the problems it promises in the headline or introduction. This will keep customers on the site longer, which tells the search engine that your content is relevant and can lead to it being ranked higher.
• Technical content optimisation – Technical factors such as responsiveness (the ability of the site to adapt to smaller mobile or tablet screens), design and loading speed also affect a site’s search rankings. In fact, this last parameter is crucial in establishing a trustworthy relationship with customers. This is because ordinary internet users consider fast websites safe and like to stay on them. Conversely, sites that take too long to load will be abandoned almost immediately.
• Link building – getting quality backlinks from relevant websites can increase your credibility and authority. This can help a website appear at the top of search engine rankings.
• Analyse and track results – an essential part of SEO is regularly analysing your website’s performance using tools such as Google Analytics or Google Search Console. You can find out how much traffic you’ve had in the last week, month, or six months, your conversion rate, or your current search engine rank. All of this information can be used later to create optimised content or advertising campaigns.

SEO is a complicated and challenging area that brands and businesses are constantly working on. Even though they manage to rank in the top results, doesn’t mean they will always do so. Search trends change daily and greatly impact where a website appears. So, it is a constant cycle of improving old content and creating new optimised content.

Did you know that…

… according to Google, a one-second improvement in web speed can increase conversions by 27% for phone users. On the other hand, slow loading times of more than 3 seconds can turn off up to 40% of people, negatively impacting both sales and SEO itself.

Email Marketing

One of the primary forms of online marketing is email marketing, which allows you to communicate with potential or existing customers via email. With email campaigns, you can:

• Build customer loyalty
• Encourage repeat purchases
• Attract new customers

Depending on your objective, you need to choose the right email type. There are several available:

• Newsletters – regular promotional emails that inform customers of news, promotions and other updates. They are usually sent at regular intervals, such as twice a week, four times a month, etc.
• Reminder emails – are sent to customers who have not verified their email address after signing up or have abandoned their shopping basket without completing their order. They are usually clear and concise.
• Welcome emails – are for new customers. They usually provide more information about the brand or discount codes.
• Feedback emails – are sent after a customer has made a purchase. You can use them to find out what they found wrong or missing with their order and what they liked.

Regarding email marketing, be careful not to spam customers unnecessarily. Too many promotional emails will cause people to lose interest and unsubscribe.

You should also keep up to date with current legislation. If you want to send newsletters to customers that are not directly related to goods you have supplied them with in the past, you will need their consent. You can get this by sending them an email with a confirmation link that they have to click on.

Tip from us

Remember that by law, every newsletter must include an unsubscribe option.

Pay-Per- Click (PPC) Advertising

Pay-per-click advertising, also known as PPC, is one of the most popular forms of online advertising today. It is characterised by the advertiser paying per click on the ad rather than for its display in search results or web pages.

PPC advertising can be targeted to a particular audience. At the same time, it can be launched and adjusted relatively quickly. One of the benefits of PPC advertising is that you get detailed statistics, such as the number of clicks, during and after the campaign.

If you decide to use PPC advertising, there are several types to choose from:

• Search ads – appear at the top of search engines such as Google. At first glance, they look like regular organic results, except they have a “Sponsored” next to them. There are several technical criteria to consider when creating a PPC ad such as this. These include selecting appropriate keywords and creating a catchy headline and interesting text to attract attention.
• Banner ads – graphic PPC ads that appear on websites, magazines and blogs. It can consist of an interesting graphic, photo or video accompanied by concise and powerful text.
• Google Shopping (Google Ads) – your ad will appear at the top of searches with a product image, product name and price. This allows potential customers to compare your offer with your competitors without ever having to visit an e-shop.
• Video ads – advertising campaigns that appear as videos, for example, on YouTube or directly within the content of regular websites. Shorter ads are usually impossible to skip. Longer ones can, with the advertiser only paying to watch the whole ad.
• Social media ads – PPC ads can also be used on social media. Here, they can take the form of a photo, graphic or short video. They have the advantage of exact targeting and are relatively easy to set up.

Social Media Marketing

Social media is a popular online marketing channel used by both large and small businesses. Its advantages include:

• Dozens of different platforms – there’s a vast number of platforms to choose from, from the classics such as Facebook, Instagram and YouTube to newer alternatives used mainly by younger generations such as TikTok. Each social network has a different way of using it and a different type of content. Get to know them and determine what ads will work best on them.
• Creating an ad campaign is easy – once you know what content is popular on a social network, creating an ad campaign isn’t difficult. Just make a target audience, target them and choose other parameters.
• Low cost – Social media advertising is suitable for smaller businesses and individuals with small budgets. You can get reasonably good results for a small amount of money.
• A large number of users – social networks are used by billions of people worldwide every day, making them a great place to promote your products or services.
• Ability to communicate with your customers – social networks allow you to communicate with your customers to answer their questions or feedback. This allows you to quickly and easily resolve various issues or prevent them from having a negative opinion of your brand due to ambiguity.

Content Marketing

Content marketing is a general term for an online marketing strategy that involves creating and distributing high-quality, relevant content. The aim is to reach a specific audience and motivate them to make a purchase. Quality content can also help potential customers solve various problems or provide practical advice and tips.

Content marketing goes hand in hand with SEO. Product descriptions, articles or other text should be optimised to rank higher in search engines and sell your product or service to customers. There are several types of content that are part of content marketing, including:

• Blogs and magazines

A basic type of content that you can create and then publish on your website. An optimised copy can attract new visitors who can then become customers.

When writing blog or magazine articles, you need to remember that you are creating them for people you want to share information with. So, it can’t just be text full of keywords with no added value. After reading a few paragraphs of such content, a person will immediately leave the website and go to a competitor, where they will likely make a purchase.

• E-Books

A great type of content to motivate customers to sign up to your newsletter. E-books don’t have to be long, but they should be interesting. Ideally, they should be accompanied by graphics or various graphic elements to break up too-dense text.

In addition, e-books should provide information on a topic related to your products or services and offer practical advice.

• Guides

Guides are similar to e-books, except that they are usually intended to provide some guidance, hints, or tips. They can be available directly on the website or sent to customers after they subscribe to your newsletter.

• Podcasts

Podcasts have become very popular in recent years, so it would be a shame if you didn’t use them to your advantage. However, finding suitable topics to entertain people and add value is essential.

Influencer Marketing

Influencer marketing involves using influencers and celebrities with large social media followings to promote products and services. Compared to other methods, it is often very successful, mainly due to the high level of trust between the influencer and the fan.

However, it is important to remember that the success of the collaboration will be greatly influenced by the influencer you choose. Only some people will be suitable to promote your products. Think carefully about the audience you want to reach and the territory you wish to cover.

The cost of influencer marketing can be higher than regular social media advertising, especially if you want to use the services of an influencer with hundreds of thousands of followers.

Expert advice

You don’t have to choose only the most prominent influencers to work with. Many small and medium-sized businesses are happy with influencers who have between 10,000 and 50,000 followers. Their audiences tend to be more loyal than those of very famous people. They are, therefore, easier to persuade to buy.

The most common online marketing mistakes

There are many mistakes you can make when you do your marketing online. Some of the biggest are:

Lack of keyword analysis

If you want to create content relevant to both customers and search engines, you need to conduct keyword analysis first. Without this, you won’t know what topics are being searched for, which could lead to new visitors.

You can also carry out a simpler keyword analysis yourself using free tools. However, only a marketer with enough experience in this area can give you deeper and more detailed information.

Lack of strategy

You’re unlikely to achieve all your goals if you don’t have a plan and a strategy. So, the first thing to do is think about methods to achieve the desired results and then compare them. Find out which are realistic and can be put into practice.

Lack of online channels

Do you only use one website or social network to communicate with your customers? That’s not enough these days. Customers expect you to be active on at least two or three different platforms, ideally on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube.

Ignoring trends

Online marketing is a dynamic and ever-evolving field. If you want your content to be good and meet all the necessary parameters, you need to keep up. Keep an eye on the latest changes social networks and Google regularly make, educate yourself, and keep trying new things. This is the only way to prevent customers from becoming disinterested after a while.

Developing a digital marketing plan

One crucial component of digital marketing that has to be done well is creating a thorough plan. Among the most crucial stages of this process are situational analysis, SWOT analysis, and market study.

Situational analysis

Doing a situational analysis comes first in creating a digital marketing strategy. It entails considering your current marketing, the state of the company, and your market share. This assessment provides you with a platform for creating realistic goals and plans and helps you to know where you stand.

A situational analysis consists on some key elements including:

• Examining the resources, capabilities, and current digital presence of your company becomes part of internal considerations.
• Examining industry trends, competition behavior, and new technologies are among the outside influences.
• Customer research involves determining your ideal clients’ preferences, behavior, and websites they enjoy visiting.

SWOT: Analytical Approach

SWOT analysis is a great tool in the field of digital marketing that will enable you to identify your strengths, weaknesses, prospects, and hazards. This study might provide you helpful data for your planning.

• Strengths: Determine in the digital sphere what distinguishes your company. This could imply using sophisticated analytics tools, uploading excellent content, or having a strong social media presence.
• Weakness: Figure out which areas of your digital marketing might be lacking. This could result from an outdated website design that isn’t mobile device friendly, or from insufficient digital marketing expertise.
• Opportunities: Look for ways your digital marketing may improve or develop. This could include brand-new social media sites, technology, or market clusters unmet yet.
• Threats: Look for outside elements that can compromise your efforts at digital marketing. Among these include changes in search engine algorithms, growing competitiveness, and consumer behavior.

Market Research

You must undertake extensive market research in order to create a decent digital marketing plan. It clarifies your target audience, company trends, and digital rivals as well as other aspects.

Important components of digital marketing market research consist in:

• Audience analysis: Learn about how your target audience uses the internet, what they like, and what annoys them by means of Google Analytics, social media analytics, and customer polls.
• Competitive analysis: See how your competitors are doing online by visiting their websites, social media plans, content marketing initiatives, and SEO results.
• Trend analysis: Know about the most recent technologies, best practices, and digital marketing trends relevant in your area.
• Keyword research: Search for items or services like yours by looking for the terms and phrases used by members of your target market.
• Channel analysis: Figure out which digital channels—search engines, social media sites, email—help you most likely reach your target market.

Including these elements into your digital and online marketing strategy will enable you to create targeted, successful plans that enable you to interact with your online audience and fulfill company goals.

Frequently Asked Question