What Are the Different Types of Digital Marketing

By Daclaud Lee, Project Manager / SEO Consultant at Archmore Business Web

Digital marketing is a strategy that uses various channels to reach customers where they are with the goal of deepening customer relationships and generating leads, sales and revenue.

As an umbrella term, digital marketing incorporates all of the digital marketing channels available to your business. These channels includes:

  1. search engine optimization
  2. pay-per-click advertising
  3. social media marketing
  4. content marketing
  5. email marketing
  6. mobile and app marketing
  7. marketing analytics
  8. affiliate marketing
  9. influencer marketing
  10. banner ads

Search Engine Optimization

Search engine optimization is one of the oldest forms of digital marketing to gain visibility in search results. Search engine optimization (SEO) is a way to optimize the performance of your website in search engines such as Google. The goal of SEO is to get a business to rank higher in Google search results, ultimately increasing search engine traffic to the business’s website. This can be accomplished through a variety of techniques like creating keyword-rich content and backlinks from other sites.

SEO is simply the best long term digital marketing strategy. If you are able to rank your website for the right keywords, then you will always get visitors to you website. People are always doing searches in Google, so being ahead of the competition will help your digital marketing efforts tremendously. 

Pay Per Click

Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising is another form of digital marketing that makes your website visible in search results, but unlike SEO, you have to pay per result (each "click"). It is basically an online form of short-term marketing that allows a business to purchase ads in the search engines, on social networking sites and other paid websites. PPC ads are great for reaching a large audience quickly and efficiently. When using pay-per-click advertising, businesses place bids to have their ads appear at the top of the list for certain keywords or phrases. PPC also enables companies to target specific locations where people live.

PPC ads are usually the fastest and most efficient (albeit more expensive) way to compete with websites who dominate searches for the keywords you want to rank for. You may end up spending a lot more money on this PPC as a digital marketing strategy than you would on search engine optimization, but the results are immediate. 

Social Media Marketing

Social media is a type of digital marketing used to market a business or product online. Social media marketing includes everything a business does via social media channels. Just about everyone is familiar with social media, but marketers must approach social with an integrated and strategic approach. Social media marketing goes far beyond simply creating posts for social channels and responding to comments.

Usually a customer or fan will subscribe or follow a business' social media. As a business owner, you can also get more subscribers by asking for subscriptions of by posting content that people will share. 

Content Marketing

Content marketing on your website or social media platform is one of the most effective ways to reach customers and convert leads into sales. It serves to build a long-term relationship with your audience and stand out from the crowd. This can be achieved with blogs, video, podcasts, white papers, ebooks, images and infographics – anything that provides real value for your customer. If you’re looking for an affordable but powerful way to market your brand online, content marketing could be the answer.

The old saying goes: content is king. Therefore content marketing will never die as long as there is a consumer of content, then content will be the most effective form of digital marketing. 

Email Marketing

Email marketing is a great way to keep in touch with customers. It’s also one of the first forms of digital marketing and it’s still one of the most effective marketing techniques. Your company’s email marketing pros help craft compelling campaigns that reach an audience interested in your products, as well as nurture them over time so they will ultimately convert into customers. Email marketing pros not only know how to create compelling campaigns, they also understand optimal audience outreach and are skilled at analyzing customer interactions and data, and making strategic decisions based on that data.

Almost every customer who participates in email marketing does so willingly. It is a great digital marketing tactic as long as someone opts in. No one likes spam and even email has its limitations on how many messages it can store. Therefore, to prevent getting blocked, make sure you give your customers a good reason to subscribe.

Mobile and App Marketing

This digital marketing type is this focused on reaching your target audience on their smart phone or tablet. It includes all the marketing tactics used to reach customers through text messages, social media, websites, email and mobile applications. As opposed to traditional methods of brick-and-mortar advertising, mobile marketing allows you to tailor offers or special content to a geographic location or time, such as when a customer walks into a store or enters an event.

Mobile and app marketing is a powerful tool for businesses such as restaurants and retail stores to bring in more customers. By advertising flash sales, coupons and promotions, these businesses can often attract a regular following. 

Marketing Analytics

Marketing analytics is the science of "what does what" in the digital marketing world.  It is often considered a complex and often confusing discipline. To understand digital marketing, you need to understand how it differs from traditional marketing. Digital marketing is data-driven and accountable, while traditional marketing was more art than science. Data-driven means that marketers can track all habits of visitors on their website. This information is then essential to decide where to focus their efforts and increase conversions with the most effective strategies.

The discipline of marketing analytics is helpful for tracking the effectiveness of a website's digital marketing campaigns and requires proficiency in reading and understanding software such as Google Analytics and Adobe Analytics. 

Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is a cost-effective way to grow your business by using experts and influencers in the industry. By partnering with a third party, your organization will gain increased exposure through places such as social media platforms, podcasts and blogs. These works are created by industry experts who are driven by their love of your product or service; they want the best for their audience, which means they are also promoting you!

There are many ways to get involved with affiliate marketing as both a business and an affiliate. You can either recruit directly or place links with a tracking cookie on sites like Share a Sale or Click Bank for example. 

Influencer Marketing

Influencer marketing is a form of social media marketing involving endorsements and product placement from influencers, people and organizations who have a purported expert level of knowledge or social influence in their field. The difference between influencer marketing and traditional marketing is that an endorsement doesn’t have to be direct.

An influencer creates content on Instagram, Twitter or Facebook by using the product and then gets people to engage with it via clicks or likes, which gives them credit for sharing the product. It is a digital marketing discipline that combines social media marketing with affiliate marketing. 

Banner Advertising

Web banners are a way for advertisers to promote their products or services. These banners are served by an ad server, making it possible to display targeted advertisements on websites that host the advertising content. Web banners and other types of online advertisements can be useful ways to reach customers in your market. They enable you to maintain control over the creative material and timing of your marketing campaigns while expanding your reach by reaching potential customers through publishers' websites and search engines.

Banner ads can still be placed by anyone who is affiliated with Google Adsense or even manually by reaching out to different web masters. This is one of the oldest forms of digital marketing, but it can still be done today, albeit rarely. 

Beyond Digital Marketing

Digital marketing continues to be one of the most important forms of marketing. There is no better way to reach customers in a vast and complex marketplace than through digital media, making it possible for brands to deliver a consistent message to their audiences on an unprecedented scale.

Daclaud Lee Dublin Ohio

By Daclaud Lee,
Project Manager and SEO Consultant at Archmore Business Web

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