Digital marketing is another term for online marketing. It covers everything you do online to attract more customers to your business. In this article, we’ll look at some of the best forms of digital marketing available. By the end, you’ll have a clear answer to the question ‘what is digital marketing’.
Digital Marketing in the UAE
You can use the internet to reach customers anywhere in the world. But you can also use digital marketing in the UAE specifically.
The Local Touch
Most people like the local touch, and by targeting your campaigns at the UAE marketplace, you can show the relevance of your business to UAE residents. A great way to begin is to buy a .ae domain name for your website. You can also target your PPC and SEO, social media and email campaigns at the UAE. Let’s look at how to do that…
PPC & SEO Marketing
Want to increase your website traffic? PPC and SEO could help you achieve that.
How Does PPC Advertising Work?
PPC – or Pay Per Click – is a type of online advertising. Unlike most advertising channels, with PPC, you only pay when someone actually clicks your ads. PPC ads are usually displayed at the top of the search engine results pages. You can see them when you perform searches on Google or Bing.
When you create a PPC ad campaign, you start by choosing which search terms you want to trigger your ads. Then you must decide how much you’re willing to pay for each click.
How Does SEO Help Your Business Grow?
As well as showing paid ads, search engines also display unpaid results. We call these the ‘organic’ results. The search engines use complex algorithms to decide which pages should rank highest in the organic results. The higher a page ranks, the more visitors it’s likely to receive. To help your page rank higher, you can use a method called SEO (Search Engine Optimisation).
Learn more: SEO is one of the most complex forms of digital marketing. But you can get ahead of the pack by reading our guide to the benefits of SEO in the UAE – or by exploring our top SEO tips for small businesses.
Focus on the UAE
UAE internet uses are targetable through both PPC and SEO campaigns. You can use geo-targeting to display PPC ads to users in set locations. And you can target search terms which include place names as part of your SEO efforts (for instance, ‘electricians in Dubai’).
Social Media Marketing
Social media marketing is one of the best forms of digital marketing overall. That’s because modern customers like to stay connected with their favourite businesses on platforms like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.
What if I Already Have a Website?
Some business owners think that they don’t need social media accounts if they already have a website. And some business owners think they don’t need a website if they already have social media accounts.
Both opinions are very limiting, and you should build your brand with a website of your own and a strong social media presence. You can learn more in our guide to websites vs social media.
A Local Solution
From their favourite hair salon in town, to their favourite coffee shop on the corner, people love connecting with local businesses on social media. It’s a great way to reach UAE residents – so don’t miss out.
Email Campaigns
Effective digital marketing in the UAE doesn’t stop with social media, PPC and SEO. You can also reach out to UAE internet users directly through email marketing campaigns. Solo ads are the perfect way to begin.
How Do Solo Ads Work?
Solo ads are simply marketing emails sent out by one business to another business’ email subscribers. Let’s imagine you run an online fashion store. You could pay for a solo ad that targets email subscribers for an online fashion magazine.
You could also get even more specific, and just target a subset of their subscribers. For example, you could send a marketing email to their female readers to promote your upcoming women’s fashion sale. Likewise, you can choose to target subscribers in a specific location. This makes solo ads perfect for digital marketing in the UAE.
Learn More
By now, we should have answered the basic question ‘what is digital marketing’. We’ve also explored how you can use digital marketing to reach internet users in the UAE. But the tips we’ve shared here are really just the start.
There are dozens of resources available online looking at this topic. Our favourite is this in-depth guide to digital marketing on HubSpot. Why not give it a read?
