Welcome to the wild world of digital marketing. At first glance, the online advertising frontier is a crazy place full of unknowable and constantly changing variables, and for many, that can be overwhelming (trust us, we’ve been there). But there are a few fundamentals at the heart of it all that anyone can understand. Let’s go over the basics first.
Digital marketing is just marketing done digitally. While this might seem incredibly obvious, many people who try to learn digital marketing think it’s a mysterious creature with no resemblance to anything they’ve ever known. To be good at digital marketing, you just need to know the basics:
Without these fundamentals, your digital marketing efforts will consist of chasing after the latest trends and fumbling around with the shiny new tools.
To illustrate the above point, it’s time for a story. So, there’s this balloon-flying competition in town (sounds like a blast, right?). Only two people enter the contest, the goal of which is to see whose balloon can float the highest. (Please don’t ask how they measure this, just go with it.) Anyway, one guy has a red balloon filled with helium. The other competitor has a green balloon filled with air (like, from his lungs...that he blew into the balloon). Needless to say, red balloon guy wins.
In a fit of rage, green balloon guy demands a rematch, so the next day, our two competitors return to the stadium, with thousands upon thousands of spectators (everyone’s invested at this point, right?). Red balloon guy pulls out his helium-filled red balloon again. Green balloon guy shocks the crowd, sending everyone into a frenzy, thinking he knows the secret of successful balloon flying when he smugly pulls out his own red balloon. Both competitors release their balloons. Formerly-green-but-now-red-balloon guy’s balloon flops to the ground just like yesterday.
The point of this supremely entertaining story is that helium is what makes balloons fly - not the color of the balloon.
The same thing applies to digital marketing. The content of your marketing is what matters - not how many fancy online advertising gadgets you can use. So we’re not going to distract you with what specific type of online ad you should place or what particular website or social media platform you should put your ads on.
Without marketing helium, your digital ads will flop, no matter what color digital ads you use.
Focus on the fundamentals. Don’t worry about the latest, flashiest trends or what the internet and blogs tell you (except for ours *wink*).