When we talk about digital marketing, the first thing that comes to our mind is – Instagram, Facebook, and so on. But that is just the beginning of it. So what exactly is digital marketing? What is it that makes digital marketing so important in 2021?

Here’s digital marketing explained in 4 easy steps! 

Ideation:

1. This is one of the most important aspects of creating a digital marketing strategy. Here are 2 reasons why:
   • It helps in narrowing down what is required for a particular project.
   • It helps in understanding the audience’s emotion and thought-process, which in turn, helps in creating a watertight strategy which will help in reaching out to the right, and most importantly, the maximum number of audience.
   • Ideation also assists in understanding what kind of creation plan you should put forward.

For example, let’s look at a project we worked on Project X. We found it particularly hard to come up with a strategy for Project X as the brief given to us was vague. When our team sat down for ideation, we devised multiple plans on how to go ahead with the strategy to increase their engagement and audience exposure. How did that help? 

Even though the client liked our very first idea, we were also prepared with spare ideas in the truck in case they weren’t convinced. The spare ideas were eventually utilized on another project that we worked on. 

Creation:

Creation is one of the most beautiful and significant processes of digital marketing. In this, YOU, the digital marketeer, are responsible for working in close coordination with your graphics and design team. Your comprehensive skills need to be up to the mark. Here’s why: So, on project X, post the approval of the idea, we had to start working on the design. During the design process, I briefed the designer on the copy and graphics. But, as things would have it, I missed out on one crucial aspect of the design – the mood. Eventually, the client sent us back to our drawing board and made us redo the post. Thus, it’s imperative to ensure clarity in communication. This makes your execution process and reaching out to your audience simpler! 

Execution:

Ah-ha! Execution, a funny phrase you see. I say funny because execution is all about how you call your shots on the social handles of your clients. This is primarily because depending on your clientele, you need to determine a posting time, a set of hashtags, geo-tagging, so on and so forth. For instance, if your client is a kickass pub down the road, you may want to post your creative around 7 am to 1 pm. This is because every party hopper is occupied between 6 pm to 1 am in the night. So, why post when they are not looking at their phones? Having in-depth knowledge of your audience helps gain maximum eyeballs. Feel like Zuckerberg yet?

Analytics:

1. This is literally what everything comes down to – Your ideation, creation, execution, everything! If you have done your job right in the above steps, you are going to come out of your analytical phase with great results and a super happy client. But, if you have made some mistakes, you know where you’ll find yourself – back to the drawing board. 
2. Now, why do I emphasize the analytical part? Because it tells you exactly what you missed out on. For instance, our project X was a great hit, it delivered on 8 out of 10 things that we wanted. How do we know? Analytics! It allowed us to understand and learn about what we missed, thereby, giving us clarity on focus points and making our next campaign a bigger hit.

Analytics gives you a chance to grow, to understand where you failed. And trust me, failing is FINE! It is all about experimenting when it comes to digital marketing. Abide by the 4 pillars and never give up on a good digital marketing idea.