Digital Marketing for Businesses

What is Digital Marketing?

Most people do a poor job of nailing down the definition of digital marketing. The term is less vague than you might imagine from the outset.

What is digital marketing? Any type of marketing for products or services that use electronic devices.

If you can believe it, digital marketing is nothing new. Digital marketing came on to the scene as electronic devices entered our lives. People often assume that digital marketing is all about content marketing and social media. While these exist as types of digital marketing, they are not all encompassing. Digital marketing happens online and offline.

We’ll touch on offline marketing at the end of this article, but the majority of our time together will consist of online marketing tactics. You need both forms of digital marketing for a super effective marketing strategy. If you’re wondering why digital marketing matters at all, read on!

Why Digital Marketing Matters

The amount of time we spend connected to our electronic devices increases every day. In fact, Americans spend over 11 hours each day using electronic devices. I know what you’re thinking: “but there are only 24 hours in a day.”

This might scare you, but we’re so close to spending every waking hour on electronic devices, digital marketing is more important and impactful than ever before. Without digital marketing efforts, you stand to reach almost no one. As a result, your business will get left in the dust. Don’t get left behind. Consider the following types of digital marketing and think about which ones work best for your industry, your company, and your audience.

Types of Digital Marketing

01. Search Engine Optimization

Search Engine Optimization or SEO refers to the process of growing your online visibility in non-paid (organic) search engine results. SERPs or search engine results pages appear to users after they search for a given set of keywords using a search engine like Google or Bing. Each user receives an individualized results page based on keywords, the user’s location at the time of searching, and their browsing history.

Organic search results appear in a list and are ranked using the search engine’s algorithm. As users change the way they search and engage with online content, these algorithms change. The higher you rank on a SERP, the more traffic is directed to your site and the more chances of making a passive visitor an active customer. Search engine optimization includes many factors from keywords within your content to links to your website around the web. It includes both On-page and Off-page SEO. On-page SEO refers to the steps you take on your own website to boost your SEO. Off-page refers to the relationships you make and actions you take outside of your website to fuel SEO.

SEO trends change as algorithms change to fit user needs. In this way, SEO is never about building a website for the sole purpose of ranking high on a list results. At its core, SEO is about crafting the best possible website for your user. If you stay on top of SEO trends, you’re that much closer to more visibility online and traffic to your site.

02. Search Engine Marketing

Search Engine Marketing or SEM covers the ground SEO ignores, paid traffic from search engines. With SEM you purchase advertisement space that appears on a user’s SERP. The most common paid search platform is Google AdWords. Next, is Bing Ads.

The search engine charges a marketer a predetermined amount to display an advertisement in a number of places on a SERP generated from specific keywords or phrases. One example of SEM is pay-per-click advertising or PPC. PPC refers to a digital marketing method wherein search engines charge a company each time their advertisement is clicked.

Social media platforms began adopting PPC advertising in recent months. These ads show up in the news feeds of a company’s target audience. This system is a great example of how the different types of digital marketing bleed into each other to form a complete digital marketing strategy. In this example, SEM overlaps with social media marketing.

03. Social Media Marketing

By now you know that social media is a crucial part of your marketing strategy. But do you know the ins and outs of social media marketing? Social media marketing gives you increased exposure. It allows you to connect with your consumers in a more intimate way. From this interaction, you can gain valuable customer feedback that allows you to improve your customer service, product, or service.

Using social media marketing you’ll gain more reach when you post quality content. Everything you do to increase traffic or business on your social media channels is social media marketing. Whether you’re on Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, or LinkedIn these efforts all amount to social media marketing.

Most everyone benefits from social media marketing, but B2C companies stand to gain the most. Pay attention to what your target audience talks about on social media. Engage in the conversation. Use social media marketing as a way to gauge what content you put out does well by monitoring shares and likes. Shares equate to free advertising for you.

04. Content Marketing

Content marketing refers to the practice of delivering a quality piece of content to your users to generate sales and leads. This content can live anywhere online. Tweets, a YouTube video, and blogs on your website all comprise content marketing. Content Marketing works because it melds together exceptional content with other types of digital marketing like SEO and Social Media Marketing.

Keep your audience in mind as you create content. Remember who you’re talking to and what they’re interested in. This will dictate the subject of your content. Consider the language your audience uses when they search online for information. Use these keywords to boost your SEO.

Last, share your content across all of your social media platforms for maximum exposure and feedback. Content marketing is an ongoing practice. It’s not always about sales but more so about engaging and educating your consumer to build brand recognition, trust, and equity.

Stay away from fluff pieces. Think about how much content a user comes by every day. Creating relevant, quality content helps you stand out and boosts your SEO.

And consider having others blog and backlink to your site, a really great tool for this is basilinfotech.com.

05. Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing refers to the process of paying for conversions. Think of it like hiring a sales person for your product or service. That affiliate earns a commission. You determine the rate for affiliate marketing. You only pay for conversions. This means there is no upfront cost to affiliate marketing. Many bloggers or e-commerce websites use affiliate marketing.

When you choose to use affiliate marketing ensure that all of your terms and boundaries are discussed beforehand. The affiliate represents your brand, so you want them to carry your brand’s message close to them. Think about the kinds of words you want the affiliate to use. Of course, you need to make the deal work for the affiliate, too

06. Influencer Marketing

Influencer marketing is among the newer types of digital marketing. Influencer marketing uses people with an enormous online reach considered experts by your target market to drive traffic and sales.

Influencer marketing is popular on social media channels like Instagram and Snapchat. Companies hire Instagrammers with large followings to promote their brand by posting one or more photos with the product. Companies now engage in Instagram or Snapchat “takeovers” where the hired influence controls the company’s social media platform for a given amount of time, most often a day. These social media takeovers drive the influencer’s following to your social media channels increasing your new followers and unique views.

Always make sure to do your research on an influencer before you decide to do business with them. You might want to verify their Google analytics and make sure their following proves legitimate and not full of fake accounts.

07. Email Marketing

Email marketing allows you to update your email subscribers on a regular basis about your company. This fosters a relationship unlike any of the other types of digital marketing. Your email updates provide value to your consumer. As a result, you build brand trust and brand loyalty.

The best email marketing campaigns involve a list of subscribers earned by your content and company, not paid for by your company. People who opt-in to your email subscription prove more likely to become active buyers.

08. Viral Marketing

Viral marketing refers to a post of some sort that is trendy, funny, or strange enough to garner a massive amount of shares online. Viral marketing causes an enormous spike in website traffic over a short period of time. This is hard to do but the benefits alone make the effort worth your time. B2C companies stand to gain the most from viral marketing. B2C companies can use social media to reach an enormous audience across all of their active platforms.

09. Mobile Phone Advertising

Each of the types of digital advertising can happen on a mobile device. Some types of marketing using a mobile phone do not fit the above types of digital marketing.

These include SMS advertising which could prove an asset to local marketing efforts. You can prompt your consumers to use SMS to receive special offers, coupons, and updates from your company.

Offline Digital Marketing

It is worth it to know that your digital marketing strategy is not complete with online digital marketing alone. You should consider and implement some types of offline marketing to reach your goals. Enhanced offline marketing is offline marketing that uses electronic devices to boost the user experience. An example of this is a restaurant that lets customers put in their order with electronic tablets.

Radio marketing, television marketing, and phone marketing also comprise offline digital marketing.

Using The Types of Digital Marketing To Benefit Your Business

Now you know the types of digital marketing. You can use these online types of digital marketing to boost your visibility online and engage your consumers. We must stress that this is the real goal of all of the types digital marketing. Creating experiences for your target audience that boost your brand into the forefront of your mind. Quality marketing practices benefit both you and your target audience.

Your success is not yet contingent on online marketing alone. Yet the way people live their lives leads marketers to believe this is around the corner. Remember the key to visibility is boosting your SEO. Through quality content marketing that adheres to the best SEO practices and is shared on social media, you can increase your reach by leaps and bounds.