Understanding the Different Types of Digital Marketing

Strictly brick-and-mortar or completely digital, modern businesses without a strong online presence border being invisible to their audience. COVID-19 caused global shutdowns, forcing people and businesses to communicate and collaborate digitally. Trips to grocery stores were replaced by online shopping, online classes replaced on-site classes, and digital marketing became the primary approach for most brands.

With help from digital marketing, business across various industries can generate desired results in terms of engagement, conversion, and lead generation. But to get to those heights, every entrepreneur must first understand what internet marketing is about and the different types they can utilize to increase overall revenue.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

SEO is a strategy that digital marketers use to help them create content that can rank high on the search engine results page from Google or any other search engine. Google differentiates high-performing content from low-performing content with help from algorithms. These algorithms look for several things on a page that has content.

Google updates these algorithms frequently, and to adapt to these changes, business owners need to change their SEO strategies to compete with the competition. If done correctly, SEO can take your website on the first search engine results page, bringing you heaps of organic traffic.

The best part? It’s free!

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Content Marketing

Your customers are hungry for information that either solves their problems or tells them how to fulfill their desires. If your business gives them what they need through high-quality and engaging content, you can gain their confidence. In a case like this, your business will take on the authoritative position, and you’re going to be the customer’s priority – and that’s what content marketing is all about.

Whether it’s a product listing or a Shopify review, content marketing aims to answer questions and provide truly valuable information. This can either be done through blogs, emails, social media, or various other channels. There are also different formats for push notifications, mobile devices, and applications.

Every channel may require a specific format. Moreover, you can also achieve your business’s marketing goals through different kinds of content like:

• Quizzes;
• Videos;
• eBooks;
• Infographics;
• Datasheets;
• Templates;
• And so on.

Social Media Marketing

Social Media Marketing, or SMM, is a method of promoting your business using various social media platforms. Just like SEO, you can post content on social media or create advertisements for free, but in both cases, it is imperative to choose a suitable channel for the content you’re posting. Every channel caters to a different segment of the audience and requires a different voice.

If your content connects with the channel you’ve decided to post on, you get the chance to interact with your audience. This is a prominent benefit of social media. With help from SMM, brands can often gain credibility or validation when their content starts to gain recognition. Moreover, you can also use different social networks to communicate with your audience directly. But to do that, it’s essential to keep your communication efforts personalized.

Email Marketing

If a person visits your website, they must get a notification inviting them to your email subscriber’s list. Once they consent, you can send them emails about events, product releases, or annual sales. Often, the potential of email marketing is underestimated. According to research, for every dollar spent on email marketing, businesses get a return of $40, given they’ve applied suitable strategies.

That said, the most important element of this channel is value. Offer your email subscribers list deals that they wouldn’t receive on any other channel. Once your subscribers start to understand the benefits of the subscription list, your email marketing efforts will become a lot more effective.

Pay-Per-Click (PPC)

Pay-per-click or PPC is when people use search engines like Bing and Google for advertisements. One way of taking the top spot on the search engine results page is by paying for that slot. The reason it’s called pay-per-click is simple. Every time a person clicks on your ad, your ad account is charged. The cost of each ad slot, commonly referred to as CPC, depends on the quality score of your website and the keywords you use for your PPC strategy.

While SEO can promise long-term brand value, PPC excels when a brand is trying to achieve immediate results. PPC campaigns can be useful if a business is looking for a short-term solution, and several businesses use them for seasonal sales to boost their revenue. There are four spots for PPC on the first SERP, so getting your website selected for a keyword is a challenge.

Affiliate Marketing

Both affiliate and influencer marketing utilize people in positions of power, whether social media influencers, corporate leaders, or professional athletes. Their efforts can assist you in marketing a product or a service to the relevant target market. Over the recent years, it has become increasingly popular because of websites like YouTube and Instagram.

Collaborations can give customers discount codes, prize draws, and several other prizes on platforms like these. However, all of this depends on the influencer creating sufficient buzz around your product.

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Viral Marketing

We’ve all seen viral videos online. Well, for some companies, even these videos are a way of marketing their offerings. Whether they’re teaming up with a famous content creator or promoting their product themselves, the idea behind viral marketing is to create something shareworthy.

A viral image or a video aims to promote something indirectly, and it’s not too hard to execute. The efforts of marketers rely on subliminal messaging.

Mobile Marketing

Sending SMS messages is a sure way that your message will be opened and read. It is the best form of mobile marketing and is a tried and tested way of engaging your customers and keeping them interested in your products. Creating an app and activating push notifications is a direct way to interact with your customer. You can get geofencing and target a specific section of customers. Through mobile marketing, you can send messages about the latest product launches, discounts, deals, coupons, and generate persuasive content that will be eye-catching.

Video Marketing 

Digital marketers have started to target those who are repeatedly watching YouTube videos. Millions watch YouTube videos for looking for a particular product or finding out how customers have reviewed a product online. Not only these, but visitors to YouTube also watch how-to videos, entertainment videos, educational videos, and so many others. These viewers are a large market for digital marketers who know that they watch videos before purchasing a product. Targeting these audiences with the right video content and demographics data analytics is the key in video marketing campaigns and video content creation.

Television Advertising

Cross channel marketing is the latest trend that digital marketing teams are focusing on right now. They are incorporating television ads that stream during a television program or a live sports event. They use consumer data and demographic analytics tools to gather trends in consumer tastes and preferences, and target ads to be shown to that particular segment of the audience.

An increase in OTT platforms and on-demand TV has its audience, and if they watch an ad on TV, they invariably know that they will also watch it while browsing on the internet and it might just appear while they are using their social media. Targeting an audience with intelligent data targeting methods enables digital marketing agencies to create targeted TV ads that create immediate impact when aired.

Radio Advertising

It may be old, but with mushrooming radio stations everywhere, radio advertising also has turned into a digital marketing campaign tool. Radio advertising is very vocal. An announcer or RJ simply narrates a script or a written promotion of a product in his or her unique style in the beginning, middle, or at the end of a broadcast. Indirectly also, radio advertising helps, as each radio station is available over the internet, and listeners can just search it and find the radio station.

Radio stations have become a digital medium also. Digital marketers have started to target audiences here too. Radio commercials have started to target a specific audience depending on location and region. Demographic data such as gender and age have become crucial factors in creating radio commercial content. Ads are also made for premium and non-premium users. Such audio streaming platforms are ideal for radio ad commercials to target a particular group of people and showcase their product based on their requirements.

Electronic Billboards

Outdoor media advertising may seem odd in this digital age of mobile screens. Some may argue that people hardly notice outdoor LED signs and billboards. They are busy watching their social media accounts and browsing the internet. But location is key here. If the billboard is interactive and digital and placed at a location that can attract instant attention, then it pays to invest in billboards as a digital marketing tool.

Shopping supermarkets, malls, stores are the best places to place a digital signage billboard. Nowadays, even interactive signages can be seen at shopping malls, guiding customers to various shops and giving directions. But even on busy roads, they can be most effective, especially if they are bright and eye-catching. Festive season and events are the best time of the year to invest in digital signages and billboard advertising and it is the right ploy for digital marketers to get the message through to the end-users.

Augmented Reality & Virtual Reality Marketing

Digital marketing is evolving with innovations in science and technology. Making use of the phenomenal power of Virtual Reality, brands are using it as a tool to increase awareness about their products and services. Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality create an immersive visual experience for consumers. It changes their whole perception of how they viewed a particular product and creates a new image of that product.

Digital marketing professionals can use these two technological innovations to make a brand image that’s everlasting and impactful. It is yet to take off in a big way, and the costs are staggering too. But it does not deter marketers who are on the lookout for new ways to market their product and establish their brand in the minds of the consumers.

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Wrapping Up

Hopefully, now you understand a lot more about digital marketing and how you can benefit from it. If you use this knowledge correctly, you’ll be able to find the appropriate channel for your business. But if it takes time, there’s no reason to stress out!

There is no correct answer when you’re trying to build a digital marketing strategy that works. Every business has its unique target audience, budgets, and services. With all those considerations in mind, you should focus on creating your digital marketing strategy rather than replicating someone else’s.

Once you hit the sweet spot, you’ll see results that make your business thrive!

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