This article will change your mind.

What is digital marketing?

What does marketing mean to you and your business? Do you think it is a way to put your brand in front of as many people as possible or as a strategy to get more sales and money for your company?

Well, it is, but that is the outcome of a long journey, and not the process itself.

Social media and digital marketing are different from traditional marketing strategies. Through digital marketing you can tailor the content to reach a specific audience or create it so it reaches as many people as possible.

Digital marketing is also interactive, meaning you can engage and have direct contact with your audience and build a rapport with them.

Your customer’s social media profiles are like small windows into their personal lives; Facebook aimed to bring friends and families together, and you can do the same with digital marketing. Social media is a platform to use to get closer to your client, not a market to sell to them on.

Why not traditional marketing?

Traditional marketing strategies are effective to a certain point. Printing an advertisement in a local newspaper is only going to reach an audience locally, whereas if that advert was sold to an online magazine the amount of people that advert could reach is now drastically different.

An advert on TV is similarly only going to reach a certain audience. With more people using streaming services such as Netflix every day, the amount of people and potential customers you could reach by choosing to market digitally is much larger, and can be tailored to your specific clientele.

It’s about them, not you. 

Social media is not the place to be focusing solely on your business. Interacting with your customers and focusing on your audience – which social media allows you to do – means you can create an experience that they recognise your brand for, giving your clients a reason to come back to you and your business.

Think about the advertising of Coca-Cola. It is consistently about the experience they want their customers to associate with their products, but not the product itself or its taste. They want their consumers to think about joy, happiness, and good feelings when buying their products.

Many other businesses do the same thing, such as Starbucks and Apple; they sell experiences.

Starbucks, for instance, has built their brand over a long period of time. They encourage their customers to keep coming back by providing them with a comfortable space to enjoy a good cup of coffee and work with their laptop.

Apple has built a loyal following of customers who believe that their products are not only the best but make life easier, more fun and ultimately better. They have cleverly used positive feedback and testimonials to promote their products.

By using this method their customers can trust what the reviews say because they haven’t spent money on buying an opinion or review.

Selling an experience and having a clear mission or goal is key for digital marketing. When customers are coming to you or into your business you can talk about your brand, but on social media you don’t sell your brand, you give away experiences and emotions that will encourage them to come to you.

The psychology behind it.

Another example of how an experience affects a customer’s choice to come back for more is football.

According to Dr. Richard Shuster, a clinical psychologist, when your team wins or is playing well your brain starts releasing the neurotransmitter dopamine, which is directly involved in the brain for processing pleasure and reward.

Therefore a football fan will always watch a match because they have associated the good feeling and experience of their team winning with the sport, even though there are no advertisements about football itself, the goals, the ball, or the players. It is all about the experience they have associated with it.

So, how do you sell your brand? Do you talk on your social media platforms about the features of your product, repeat your name and display your logo everywhere?

Or do you share an experience with your customers, do you engage in their needs? Ask yourself, are you providing any value to them outside of your product?

These are a few questions you should think about before you launch your business on social media and use a digital marketing strategy.

By providing real value outside of your product you will get more sales in the long run because you are building a rapport, promoting customer loyalty and creating memorable experiences for them. It’s definitely something to think about!