What is marketing? Types, functions, and strategies

What is marketing?

Marketing is a comprehensive process aimed at identifying customer needs, creating products and services that meet those needs, promoting them, and ensuring their sales. The goal of marketing is not just to sell products but also to increase customer satisfaction, establish long-term relationships with them, and grow the company's market share. Marketing can be carried out through both traditional and digital channels. In recent years, digital marketing has become one of the most popular areas in this field.

What is digital marketing?

Digital marketing is a set of marketing strategies aimed at reaching customers, meeting their needs, and increasing sales through digital technologies. It is implemented through various online channels, including websites, social media, email marketing, search engine optimization (SEO), paid advertising campaigns (PPC), and more.

The key feature of digital marketing is its measurability of results. This allows companies to track the effectiveness of their marketing campaigns and more accurately define their future strategies. The importance of digital marketing lies in this ability to measure outcomes and the potential to reach a global audience.

Digital marketing strategies

Digital marketing strategies can be implemented in various ways and adapted based on a company’s goals, customer base, and market position. Below are the most effective digital marketing strategies with detailed explanations.

SEO and PPC (or SEM)

• Search Engine Optimization (SEO): SEO is the process of improving websites to achieve higher positions in search engines. This process includes work on the site’s technical structure, content, and external links to align with search engine algorithms. SEO provides organic traffic to a company's website in the long term.
• Pay-Per-Click (PPC): PPC are paid advertising campaigns in search engines. This strategy allows companies to occupy top positions in search results for a specific fee. The advantage of PPC is the quick generation of results and the ability to target a specific audience.

Social media marketing

Social media platforms (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.) are crucial channels for engaging with customers, raising brand awareness, and promoting products and services. Social media marketing can be carried out through both organic and paid methods.

• Organic social media strategy helps companies build long-lasting and sincere relationships with customers. It’s important for providing valuable information to clients, answering their questions, and creating a positive brand image.
• Paid social media strategy aims to reach a broader audience and achieve specific goals. Targeted ad campaigns on social media allow companies to address people with specific demographics and interests.

Email marketing

Email marketing is used for regular communication with customers, providing them with valuable information, offers, and news. This is especially effective in the B2B (business-to-business) sector, where companies can directly interact with potential customers via email.

The primary goal of email marketing is to increase customer loyalty, inform them of new products, and encourage repeat purchases. Additionally, the measurability of email campaigns allows companies to track each campaign's effectiveness and adjust future strategies based on this data.

Video marketing

Video marketing has been one of the fastest-growing marketing strategies in recent years. Companies capture customers' attention and build emotional connections by promoting their products and services through videos. YouTube, Vimeo, and other video-sharing platforms play an important role in both brand promotion and product or service explanation.

The advantage of video marketing lies in its ability to attract attention and convey information in a more understandable way. Videos help customers better understand the product or service and make purchasing decisions.

Content marketing

Content marketing is a strategy aimed at attracting and retaining an audience by providing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to convert them into customers. Content marketing can be delivered in the form of blogs, articles, infographics, e-books, white papers, and other formats.

The primary goal of this strategy is to provide valuable information to customers and earn their trust. Since content marketing is a long-term strategy, it’s important to provide quality content on a regular basis to ensure customer retention.

Display advertising

Display advertising is a digital marketing strategy that uses visual elements to attract potential customers' attention. It includes banners, video ads, and other interactive formats. Display advertising is particularly effective for visually appealing products.

Display advertising allows companies to expand their audience and present their products and services in a more visually attractive way. Retargeting helps re-engage customers who have already visited the site or shown interest in a product.

Key performance indicators in digital marketing

Key performance indicators (KPIs) are used to measure the success of marketing campaigns. These indicators provide companies with valuable data to evaluate their strategies and adjust future methods.

The main digital marketing KPIs include:

• CTR (Click-Through Rate): The percentage of users who clicked on the ad.
• Conversion Rate: The percentage of users who performed the desired action after clicking the ad (e.g., making a purchase).
• Bounce Rate: The percentage of users who left the page immediately after visiting.
• Engagement Rate: A social media engagement metric that includes likes, comments, shares, etc.
• ROI (Return on Investment): The return on investment in the marketing campaign.

These metrics help companies understand which strategies are most effective and which need improvement.

B2B and B2C digital marketing

• B2B (business-to-business) digital marketing is implemented when one company offers its products or services to another company. B2B digital marketing strategies are typically aimed at building long-term and deeper relationships. Email marketing, LinkedIn marketing, webinars, and industry blogs are particularly important in this sector.
• B2C (business-to-consumer) digital marketing is carried out when a company offers its products or services to end consumers. B2C digital marketing strategies usually aim to create faster and more immediate responses. Social media marketing, SEO, influencer marketing, and retargeting are important here.

Benefits of digital marketing

Digital marketing offers several advantages over traditional marketing:

• Measurability of results: One of the main advantages of digital marketing is the ability to easily measure its outcomes.
• Targeted advertising: Digital marketing allows companies to more accurately define their target audience and run relevant ad campaigns.
• Lower costs: Digital marketing generally requires lower costs compared to traditional marketing and provides a higher ROI.
• Innovative technologies: Digital marketing enables quick implementation of new technologies, helping companies gain a competitive advantage.
• Global reach: Digital marketing allows companies to reach a broad audience worldwide.

Conclusion

Digital marketing is one of the most effective methods for reaching customers and meeting their needs in today’s world. These strategies, implemented across various channels, help companies promote their brands, increase customer satisfaction, and boost sales. With the right digital marketing strategy, any company can succeed in the digital marketplace.