There are many different definitions of marketing. Our favorite one is from Seth Godin: “Marketing is the generous act of helping someone solve a problem. Their problem. Marketing helps others become who they seek to be."

In other words, marketing is all about serving people who are trying to solve a particular problem. Therefore, understanding the “needs” and “wants” of your core audience is an essential part of marketing. Needs refer to products and services that can satisfy a specific requirement, such as buying food from a grocery store to prepare a meal. Wants refer to our need for status and acceptance in a social context, for example, going to a restaurant with friends to have a meal and socialize.

Digital marketing, also known as "online marketing," is the entire set of marketing activities that are conducted using digital channels. These channels include search engines, social media, video, email, and many other forms of online content.

One key difference between digital marketing and traditional marketing is measurement. Digital marketing technology enables us to measure the return on investment of particular marketing strategies using various tools, such as "pixels." As long as these measurement efforts respect the privacy of consumers, they will continue to add significant value to digital marketing campaigns.

In today’s business world, digital marketing offers one of the most efficient and cost-effective ways to find new customers, and to build trust and a long-term relationship with existing customers. Digital marketing is very useful for building brand recognition, getting leads, and increasing revenues as more customers than ever are shopping online. Digital marketing can help consumers and business owners at the same time. Consumers can find what they want or need as quickly as possible, while businesses can scale up their marketing efforts in a measurable way.

Digital marketing is particularly useful for small and medium sized businesses because it enables them to compete with larger corporations. It gives access to a global market to promote goods and services. Most digital marketing channels are scalable: you can start with campaigns that only cost you some time and effort, add some paid channels over time, and build more sophisticated marketing campaigns over time.

Measuring the performance of digital marketing campaigns gives businesses useful information about how customers act and what they like, which lets them adjust their marketing strategies to fit. Businesses can improve their return on investment (ROI) and do better than their competitors by using digital marketing. Digital marketing makes it easier for businesses to keep up with changing market trends and customer tastes while also giving customers more value.

There are several key digital marketing channels, and each has its own strengths and weaknesses. These include paid advertising, content marketing, search engine optimization (SEO), email marketing, and social media marketing. Paid ads enable marketers to reach the right audience with the right message at the right time. Search engine optimization (SEO) allows businesses to optimize their websites for search engines to increase organic traffic. Through different social media platforms, companies can connect with their customers through social media marketing and raise awareness about their brand. Email marketing is a great way to stay in touch with people and build relationships with them. Content marketing can help businesses become known as experts in their field while giving customers useful information. Video marketing and marketing through influential people are also becoming more popular in today's digital world.

Within each digital marketing channel, companies can use a variety of strategies to promote their goods or services. For example, paid ads can include text ads and video ads to find customers who are actively shopping for a particular product or service. SEO strategies are typically longer term and they include keyword research, page speed and design optimization, and building links. Creating interesting material, running targeted ads, and building a community of followers are all ways to market on social media. Building an email list, dividing users into groups, and sending personalized emails are all ways to use email marketing. Content marketing strategies include making high-quality content, optimizing it for SEO, and promoting it across different platforms. Some ways to market with videos are to make videos that teach or entertain, optimize videos for SEO, and distribute videos through different channels. Influencer marketing strategies include finding and working with important influencers, creating content with influencers, and measuring the impact of influencer marketing campaigns. Ideally, all of these channels work together in an “omni-channel” strategy to create more value from marketing campaigns.

Digital marketing is an important part of the customer journey because it lets businesses connect with consumers at every step. Digital marketing is important at every step of the customer journey because it helps businesses find customers, interact with them, and build connections with them that last. Businesses need to know the customer journey in order to make marketing campaigns that are personalized and relevant for each step of the journey. This journey is also called the “customer acquisition funnel” or simply, the “marketing funnel”. It consists of several stages, including awareness, consideration, purchase, and loyalty.

Businesses can grow their reach, customer engagement, and sales by adding digital marketing to their overall marketing plan. Digital marketing can help businesses focus on their customers by making sure that their marketing efforts are in line with the needs and wants of consumers. Digital marketing also gives businesses measurable and actionable information about consumer habits and preferences. This information can be very valuable in optimizing marketing campaigns and giving customers a better experience.