Digital marketing: How to make money on the internet

Digital marketing seems to be the new buzzword making the rounds. Wikipedia describes it as an “umbrella term for the marketing of products or services using digital technologies, mainly on the internet, but also including mobile phones, display advertising and any other digital medium.”

Though digital marketing sounds new, understanding other terms used in its place, which include online marketing, internet marketing or web marketing, tells us the concept has been practised longer than the term has existed.

However, with the proliferation of digital devices, the opportunity to carry out marketing activities on these platforms becomes more appealing.

According to a publication by Nielsen Insights Media and Entertainment, “it is increasingly advantageous for companies to utilise social media platforms to connect with their customers and create these dialogues and discussions. The potential reach of social media is indicated by the fact that in 2015, each month, the Facebook app has more than 126 million average unique users and YouTube had over 97 million average unique users.”

The use of digital marketing in the digital era not only allows for brands to market their products and services, but also allows for online customer support through 24/7 services to make customer feel supported and valued. The use of social media interaction allows brands to receive both positive and negative feedback from their customers, as well as determining what media platforms work well for them has become an increased advantage for brands and businesses.

So how does one take advantage of the opportunity digital marketing affords? “In today’s information age, you can reach just about anybody in the world who has internet access if you market your products digitally. Another aspect that has attracted so many people towards digital marketing is the fact that you don’t have to have your own products in order to get started. In digital marketing, anyone can start earning money just by selling, or even just by trying to sell other peoples’ products,” Albert Owens of VG Business Consultants notes.

According to him, “the most popular and the fastest growing method of selling other peoples’ products digitally is affiliate marketing. Affiliate marketing, in its simplest definition, is a relationship between an online merchant or retailer who has products to sell, and his affiliates, who are willing to promote the merchants’ product or products on their own website or blog.

“In a normal affiliate marketing set up, the merchant provides his affiliates with banners and text ads that back-link to his site. The affiliates will then get these ads posted on their website and they get paid whenever traffic or sales is directed to the merchants’ website. Affiliates, for the most part, are paid on a commission basis, but there are also other web merchants who choose to pay a fixed fee for the affiliates’ compensation.”

Throwing more light on the subject, he said “affiliate marketing is when you create a website and affiliate your site with a particular product. This could be brand name products you buy every day, educational services, or even digital products.

“Then once someone comes to your site, clicks on the affiliate link or banner and goes on to buy something, you as the website owner makes a commission from the transaction.

“Affiliate marketing can also be where you create a digital product (such as an educational course) or a physical product and then sell that product through affiliate marketers. You are either the affiliate marketer or the affiliate product creator,” according to learntogrowwealthonline.com.

Making money via digital marketing will almost definitely require creating a blog, as the Chandigarh Institute of Internet Marketing, India notes. This means digital marketing requires being internet/technology savvy.

On the institute’s website, it lists ways to make money from Digital Marketing:

1. As a freelancer working on projects for clients that need a digital marketer. Just sign up with upwork.com, www.freelancer.com to see what project opportunities you could get.
2. As a digital marketer for an employer or company.
3. As a blogger who shares articles via a blog or a website creating traffic and then selling advert space for income.
4. Start online e-commerce business.
5. If you have indepth knowledge of Search Engine Marketing or Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Social Media Marketing, you can join any company and make money.
6. If you have good content writing skills, you can become a freelancer content writer.
7. You can make an authority blog site and start affiliate marketing by joining @Commision Junction and other similar sites. If you want to earn money from your website, then Google Adsense is the best tool. Submit your website on Google Adsense and Google Adsense will monetize your content by analyzing how many visitors you will get per second or per minute, or per hour or per day or per month. If Google Adsense finds that you will get high web traffic, then Google Adsense will put ads on your website and if someone clicks on the advert, then you (owner of website) will get paid.
8. If you have content on YouTube also, then you should also monetize your content with the help of YouTube Monetization Option. Actually, if you enable Monetization Option on YouTube, it will connect your YouTube Account with Google Adsense Account so that Google Adsense will monetize your YouTube Channel including your website also. In a similar manner as the blog, the YouTube channel can earn money if it is noticed to attract high traffic as noted above.
9. You can also submit your blog to Google Adsense to monetize your blog content too.