Digital marketing refers to all online marketing activities that involve the use of electronic devices such as computers, laptops, tablets together with the internet. Seen as the future of businesses globally, digital marketing has been the cornerstone of most of the success that most businesses enjoy today. It has helped businesses achieve growth, increased revenues, better brand recognition, and stability. Digital marketing exists in various forms and we shall highlight the different types and their uses in this article. Let’s jump in!
Follow us on Instagram
Various Forms of Digital Marketing
1.Email Marketing
This involves using email to promote a business' products and services. A business sends information and content directly into the inbox of a particular client or lead who is on their mailing list. For email marketing to be effective a business is encouraged to send out eye-catching and emails that are not generic.
You can send out newsletters and inform your customers of the great offers that you currently have. Wise sellers can interact with their customers after they make purchases to seek their opinions concerning the services offered to them and how they find the product that they have bought. The feedback gotten from the clients is valuable in identifying your business strengths and areas of improvement.
2. Search Engine Optimization
This is generally the process that involves getting quality traffic from people’s search
results on Google and others like Bing, Yahoo, etc. Optimizing the content you need people to see from these search engines ensures that many people and potential customers are better-placed to come across your business profile online easily.
Good optimization ensures Google will rank your page high on the search engine results page (SERP). Using keywords that people search for, google comes up with algorithms that gauge the relevance of your page or site and thus determine where it will rank your page.
3. Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
SEM refers to a form of digital marketing whose aim is increasing the visibility of a website or page, in search engines, by using paid methods such as Google Ads. Simply put, SEM refers to the paid advertisements that appear at the top of the Search Engine Results Page.
Paid search results can be easily recognized in Google by an “Ad” sign that is located at the beginning of a particular URL.
4. Pay-per-Click Advertising (PPC)
This can simply be viewed as “buying” visits to your site or page as it is a form of advertising where sellers are required to pay a small amount every time someone clicks on their ad online. It is a form of paid search advertising that also encompasses display advertising (cost-per-click based), and affiliate advertising.
The cost-per-click of a particular ad of a business is determined by the quality score of your website and page, and the selected keyword’s competition. PPC generally involves buying your page’s “ranking” as opposed to the SEO process where ranking is organically earned and attained.
5. Mobile Marketing/Advertising
Mobile marketing and advertising have gained unmatched traction in recent times because billions of people globally spend a lot of time on their smartphones and tablets. With the ever-rising number of those using these devices, business brands have seen this as a good opportunity to market their products and services straight into people's mobile phones through text message marketing.
This strategy is considered one of the most effective forms of digital marketing as it has a low barrier to access and you can engage with people in real-time. It also requires generally little capital outlay compared to other types of digital marketing.
How to Use the various forms of Digital Marketing Types
1. Mobile Marketing/Advertising
A business can use mobile geofencing to effectively reach its target audience, For example, it can identify a particular town as its desired niche. It then collects relevant data about their potential clients based on their tastes and preferences and tailors their mobile ads to reach the people residing in that particular town.
The business can then use the short messaging service (text messages) to reach potential clients.
However, text messaging, in particular, needs to be practiced with utmost caution. Many people dislike the randomness that marketing messages come with and constantly bombarding people with messages about the products and services you offer without some degree of personalization involved works in contrast.
2. Email Marketing
As a business, you can use your existing mailing list as your list of prospective customers. Send well-crafted and personalized email messages that speak to the individual interests and needs of each particular client and avoid generic and frequent mailing.
You can inform potential clients of the amazing products and services that you offer and persuasively direct them into checking out your site, page, and even blog posts. You can also use email messages to inform your existing clients of the various improvements and upgrades that your brand has done to serve them better.
Email marketing also allows businesses to use analytic tools to analyze and track email open-rates and click through rates of shared links in the email.
3. Search Engine Optimization
To successfully do search engine optimization, choose keywords that have a high search volume and little competition. This ensures many people are in a better position to view your business and this serves to boost your ranking. This, therefore, requires business brands to do a lot of keyword research.
Creating a variety of fresh content regularly and that is engaging (has videos, images, infographics, etc.) and preferably in long-form i.e. 2000 words and above, ensures better rankings for your site as Google perceives this content as being more valuable to consumers.
4. Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
To embark on a fruitful search engine marketing process, establish a list of relevant keywords that your potential customers may use to find your brand when they are performing a search. You are then required to estimate the traffic that each keyword may bring to your website and select those which garner a lot of traffic.
Content used for digital marketing should contain specific keywords that correlate with your brand and business, this can be done using inbound links. These links are effective in boosting your serps on search results since content that comes from other sites is perceived to be very valuable. The brand is then required to develop landing pages for their ads and track how well they perform.
5. Pay-per-Click Advertising (PPC)
PPC advertising first requires you to bid on a selected keyword or search term. Google AdWords then assists you to identify keywords that would ensure your website performs more effectively.
Competition for the keywords determines the cost-per-click of every ad. Essentially, successfully bidding on these keywords against the existing competitors, ensures your ad appears in all relevant search results and you will consequently be charged for every click on your ad.
There exist a variety of many other types of digital marketing. As a business, you can select the ones that you deem most suitable and integrate them into your overall digital marketing strategy. The choice of a digital marketing type that your business may prefer to use is largely determined by factors that range from the overall cost of the process to the barrier of access the process offers your business.
After in-depth analysis over time, you may decide to shift onto other types of digital marketing should the existing ones not function as anticipated. Whichever form of digital marketing you choose to settle for and use, its effective implementation will put your business on the path towards achieving your business objectives.
Blog
Recent Comments