The Internet has opened the floodgates for a wide variety of opportunities for businesses of all sizes. According to Internet Live Stats, almost 4.5 billion people—more than half the people on earth—have used the Internet. That number was just 400 million in 2000.
A large share of Internet activity includes the search for products and services. So naturally, you’ll hear of a variety of companies that are perfecting their digital marketing strategies and techniques.
What exactly does that mean, though?
What is Digital Marketing?
Digital marketing encapsulates the marketing of services or products using various online technologies. It benefits business organizations of all sizes by giving them access to the mass market at a reasonable price. Digital marketing leverages the Internet, social media, mobile devices, search engines, and many other channels to reach consumers. It also includes advertising on mobile phones, TVs, and electronic billboards.
Today, instead of being a subtype of traditional marketing, digital marketing is a powerful strategy that brings together customization and mass distribution in order to accomplish various marketing goals. Compared to traditional marketing, digital marketing gives individuals more tools, control, and data to analyze the effectiveness and efficiency of their campaign.
Further, the widespread adoption of smartphones has opened up new ways in which people think about marketing and have pushed the boundaries toward a new concept of digital marketing, which is user-centered, more measurable, interactive and ubiquitous.
Types of Digital Marketing
Ideally, businesses should use a combination of different types of digital marketing to reach their audience through multiple channels—although some channels work better than others depending on the type of business.
Search Engine Marketing
Search Engine Marketing (also known as SEM) is used by businesses to get traffic from search engines, such as Google, Yahoo, and Bing.
SEM helps increase the visibility of websites by offering businesses the option to pay for specific keywords and searches that drive traffic to their webpages. Since search engines typically display paid search results above organic results on their search engine results pages, this can be extremely effective for capturing a potential customer’s attention.
Content Marketing
Content marketing uses storytelling to increase brand awareness with the objective of getting the target audience to take action. These actions might include signing up for an email list, requesting further information, or making a purchase. In a broad sense, content marketing is often a part of every other digital marketing activity that businesses undertake, be it email marketing or social media marketing.
Content is not limited to blog posts and web pages; it can also include online digital experiences, social media posts, videos, and even webinars. Content marketing aims to create and foster relationships with prospective customers by providing information and building brand trust.
Email Marketing
Email marketing allows you to easily update your email subscribers on a frequent basis about your company. This helps foster a relationship, unlike any of the other kinds of digital marketing.
By providing value and information with your email updates, you can easily build trust with your audience and eventually, you will be in a position to turn a specific percentage of your audience into customers.
While email marketing is one of the oldest types of digital marketing, it can still be relevant and successful if executed properly. There are several things that often contribute to the success of an email marketing strategy, including the content you create and the time you send your messages.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
SEO marketing is the process of growing your online visibility in organic (non-paid) search engine results by carefully optimizing your content and website.
If you do SEO right, you can easily attract considerable organic traffic to your website. You can use several methods to rank high on results pages, like building a suitable mix of outbound and inbound links or optimizing your content for specific keywords.
Social Media Marketing
Social media marketing involves the use of various social media platforms to promote a service or product. This type of digital marketing allows you to connect with your current and potential consumers in a more intimate way. Also, keep in mind that social media marketing is more than simply creating social posts for various channels and responding to comments; it offers an opportunity for a brand to further engage with their audiences and build awareness at scale.
