Notes

Digital marketing encompasses all marketing efforts that use an electronic device or the internet. Businesses leverage digital channels such as search engines, social media, email, and their websites to connect with current and prospective customers.

With how accessible the internet is today, would you believe me if I told you the number of people who go online every day is still increasing?

It is. In fact, "constant" internet usage among adults increased by 5% in just the last three years, according to Pew Research. And although we say it a lot, the way people shop and buy really has changed along with it -- meaning offline marketing isn't as effective as it used to be.

Marketing has always been about connecting with your audience in the right place and at the right time. Today, that means you need to meet them where they are already spending time: on the internet.

Enter digital marketing -- in other words, any form of marketing that exists online.
Click here to download our free guide to digital marketing fundamentals.
At HubSpot, we talk a lot about inbound marketing as a really effective way to attract, engage, and delight customers online. But we still get a lot of questions from people all around the world about digital marketing.

A seasoned inbound marketer might say inbound marketing and digital marketing are virtually the same thing, but there are some minor differences. And conversations with marketers and business owners in the U.S., U.K., Asia, Australia, and New Zealand, I've learned a lot about how those small differences are being observed across the world.

How Do You Define Digital Marketing?
Digital marketing is defined by the use of numerous digital tactics and channels to connect with customers where they spend much of their time: online. From the website itself to a business's online branding assets -- digital advertising, email marketing, online brochures, and beyond -- there's a spectrum of tactics that fall under the umbrella of "digital marketing."

- SEO
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
This is the process of optimizing your website to "rank" higher in search engine results pages, thereby increasing the amount of organic (or free) traffic your website receives. The channels that benefit from SEO include:
Websites.
Blogs.
Infographics.
- SMM
Social Media Marketing
This practice promotes your brand and your content on social media channels to increase brand awareness, drive traffic, and generate leads for your business. The channels you can use in social media marketing include:

Facebook.
Twitter.
LinkedIn.
Instagram.
Snapchat.
Pinterest.
Google+.

- Offline Marketing
Given the Internet’s tremendous rise in popularity, today’s marketers refer to other media channels that aren’t connected to the World Wide Web as “offline.” Offline marketing strategies utilize offline media channels to create awareness of a company’s products and services. These campaigns can include radio and print advertising – including billboards, signs and pamphlets – telemarketing, and television ads. (See also Outdoor Marketing)
The most perfunctory medium in an offline marketing campaign is normally the billboard. Even with the most creative marketing strategy behind it, a billboard is almost always just a much larger version of a print advertisement. But in one of the more creative offline initiatives, Heineken transformed one into a surprise concert performance tied to social media.

The beer company’s “Occasionally Perfect” campaign began with a simple billboard in Manhattan that, for one night, became the stage for the band TV on the Radio. The billboard will be appearing in other cities across the U.S. where it will host similar performances. To find out the details on where the billboard is going to be and its next performance, users have to follow the #occasionallyperfect hashtag on Twitter.

Since it’s almost a prerequisite for any business today to have its own website, offline marketing strategies are now frequently tied to company’s online efforts. For example, companies such as Ford have created print ads that include sparse information about new vehicles with predominant urls and references to Facebook or iPhones.