In the past decade, digital marketing has become an essential part of an organization’s marketing strategy. It allows companies to specifically target certain demographics with laser precision, making it possible to sell directly to people who are quite likely to be interested in what they’re offering.

Two academic team members from Southern New Hampshire University (SNHU) spoke about how digital marketing can be used in conjunction with traditional marketing tactics, and shared information on some of the types of digital marketing currently in practice.

Digital Marketing

Digital marketing describes the various marketing techniques and technologies used to reach consumers over the internet. As an online marketing tool, it allows organizations to create a brand identity and has completely changed the marketing industry.

Although digital marketing may seem like a new world, it is based on many principles that familiar to traditional marketers. Both foundational marketing knowledge and technical know-how are required.

the challenge is understanding what your audience really needs and how to craft a marketing message that’s going to speak to them.” According to Dr. Jessica Rogers, two different types of consumers can be reached by studying business and communication respectively. The challenge lies in understanding what a specific group of consumers need and then being able to deliver a marketing message that meets those needs.

According to the speaker, traditional media is good for reaching many people while digital media excels at targeting specific audiences. It’s important to note that which type of media is better depends on who the intended audience is.

Types of Digital Marketing

1. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

SEO’s main aim is to boost a company’s ranking on Google search results so that there is more traffic directed to the company website.

SEO marketers research the words and phrases that consumers use to search for information online, and then use those same terms in their own content.

SEO according to leading software company Moz, involves many elements such as the words on your web pages, how other sites link to you on the web, and how your website is structured.

An SEO specialist can make a salary of around $70,999, according to the website Salary.com.

Keeping that in mind, here are a few of the most important things for SEO strategists and marketers in general to understand about how SEO works today, from Moz’s “Beginners Guide to SEO”:

Content indexing

It is important to make sure that search engines can easily understand the content on your website. This can be done by adding alt text for images and transcripts for video and audio content.

Good link structure

It is important that search engines can access your site’s content easily. This is done by “crawling” your site structure. An SEO specialist can do many things to make links, URLs, and sitemaps more accessible to site crawlers. This includes formatting them correctly and providing the right information.

Keywords and keyword targeting

Deploying your keywords properly in your content and headers is a fundamental building block of SEO. It is no longer a good idea to try and fit as many keywords and keyword variations into your content.

It is now considered better practice to write high-quality content that uses keywords in the headers and a few times in the crawl-able page content. This will make pages rank better in search results.

2. Pay-Per-Click (PPC)

Paid advertisements that show up as promoted search engine results. This form of digital marketing only lasts as long as you are paying for it. Once you stop paying, the ad disappears. PPC is similar to SEO in that it is a way to increase traffic to a business online.

The term “pay-per-click” can be used to refer to the advertisements you see at the top and sides of a page of search results, the ads you see while browsing the web, ads before YouTube videos, and ads in mobile apps.

If you are running a pay-per-click campaign, you can choose to have your ad or promoted results shown to people all over the world, or just in a specific geographic area.

If you are marketing a physical business, Google says that this capability to customize by location will stop you from wasting money on ads that are shown to users who don’t live close to your business.

3. Social Media Marketing

This refers to all the ways a business can interact with customers and promote itself using social media. Almost everyone is familiar with social media, but marketers must use social media in a coordinated and strategic way.

It goes beyond simply creating posts for social channels and responding to comments.

For something to be effective, it is important that the related actions are coordinated and consistent with each other, rather than just being done as an afterthought.

There are many online tools available that can help you keep your social media posts consistent. However, you should only use automation as a tool, and not as a “set it and forget it” solution. If there is no real person behind the posts, users will quickly figure it out.

Social media marketing should not be siloed off from other marketing functions. It is important for social marketers to coordinate their message with the company’s other marketing platforms to ensure that the brand is consistent across all media.

A crucial part of social media marketing is analytics. As a social media marketer, you must be able to analyze the performance of your posts and create strategies based on that data.

You should measure the performance of your social media posts before continuing to implement your new strategy.

4. Content Marketing

Content marketing is use of storytelling and information sharing to promote a brand. The goal is for the reader to take an action that will lead to them becoming a customer, such as requesting more information, signing up for an email list, or making a purchase.

The word “content” can refer to a lot of different things, like blog posts, digital video, podcasts, and white papers. It is most important that the product provides value to the consumer, rather than just advertises the brand or tries to make a sale.

Instead of looking at content marketing as a way to make a single sale, it is more useful to think of it as a way to build a trusting relationship with your customers that can lead to multiple sales over time.

Content marketing and other digital marketing methods work well together. For example, content marketing can help improve website ranking in search engines, and the content created can be used insocial media posts and email marketing campaigns.

5. Email Marketing

Even though there are other channels like social media, mobile applications, email is still one of the most effective marketing technique, Rogers said.

The goal of content marketing is to provide value to consumers and convert them into customers over time.

Email marketing experts not only know how to create eye-catching campaigns, they also understand the best way to reach their audience and are skilled at analyzing customer interactions and data. With this information, they can make strategic decisions, according to the American Marketing Association.

There are many ways that marketers can make their emails more appealing to users and more likely to be opened, according to the leading email marketing software company Constant Contact. These include:

Create a Sense of Urgency

If you want more people to click through to your website, try writing email copy that makes it clear that time is running out to get a special deal or that there are only a limited number of the offer available.

Personalize Your Email

Addressing your emails to the recipient by name is a known method to boost open and click-through rates. “Hey Katie, we noticed you’re a big fan of our product and we wanted to give you a special offer. For a limited time, you can get 20% off your next purchase.”

Let Recipients Set Their Preferences

If you let your subscribers choose how often they want to hear from you, it can help stop some of them from unsubscribing or ignoring your emails.

6. Instant Message Marketing

The use of instant message apps is increasing. Almost all social media platforms offer direct messaging, which is a great opportunity for marketing strategies.

There are several channels through which your clients can get support when they need it, which is beneficial to both your brand and the relationship between your brand and your customers.

More than 1.6 billion people use WhatsApp, according to Statista. This demonstrates the power and reach of this particular channel.

Thereby, you can’t ignore this type of Digital Marketing. An instant messenger strategy will allow you to be available to your customers.

7. Affiliate Marketing

Content producers are paid a commission for each conversion they generate for a product or service through affiliate marketing. They work to promote your business as if it were their own.

They create their own content that is relevant to your service/product and link to it. If someone clicks on an advertisement and then buys the product, the company that made the ad pays the person who put the ad on their website.

The biggest advantage of Affiliate Marketing is that you don’t need to have a large audience because you will be able to reach a target market that is already established by content producers.

Choose producers that match your services and products for Social Media Marketing. Individuals who create and share digital content in order to influence others are known as digital influencers. These individuals can be used in content marketing in order to promote and sell products or services.

8. Influence Marketing

Once we are talking about digital influencers, it is time to explain who they are:
 
specialists in specific subjects with a big audience interested in what they’re saying

Content creators who have a large online following can be hired to produce specific content for your brand, as long as it is in line with their normal style of content.

Tests of your products can be conducted publicly, and the results – whether positive or negative – can be shared with the public. They can make or break your brand.

Influencer marketing is becoming increasingly popular among brands, and many are seeing positive results.

The loyalty of an influencer’s followers may get your brand a lot of new clients, even with some risks. The influencer may speak or do something that affects your image negatively.

9. Mobile Marketing

Nowadays,
 
mobile marketing
 is almost mandatory if you want to reach customers. 
Google research
 shows that 27% of the global population use
 
voice search
 on mobile, and the consumer journey is becoming increasingly complex.

This research also indicates that being immediate is just as important as being loyal. -There is nothing more immediate than being able to solve a problem with a smartphone no matter where you are or what time it is.

Mobile marketing is no more just a trend. This must be a reality for brands that wish to be side-by-side with their customers at all times. Some ways to invest in mobile marketing include:

  • create an app: and spread push notifications when you want to talk to your audience;
  • adopt instant messenger marketing: speak to your public directly;
  • offer products or services by geo-localization: and be where your consumers are;
  • explore SMS potential: keep your audience updated about their interests;
  • offer mobile content: hold your public attention with engaging content such as videos, which they can consume anywhere.

10. Video Marketing

According to the blog
 
Think With Google, there are 2 billion people per month looking for something on YouTube. Entertainment, news, how to do something, content to study, whatever, it is a big opportunity to reach new customers.

Many businesses are benefiting from using video marketing strategies to improve their results throughout the marketing funnel, not just from blog posts and emails. People are looking for videos in order to see credible reviews about products or services.

People mainly use search engines and videos to learn more about products and to see how others have used them. And 55% of consumers do it before buying. This is a good opportunity to make sales easier.

11. Audio Marketing

In the mobile era, Audio Marketing deserves some attention from marketers. Even don’t have the same dynamic of videos, formats like podcasts are increasingly being consumed.

Podcasts are definitely a thing and they’re becoming increasingly popular, especially with radio audiences. This is likely because they’re easy to listen to while doing other things like cleaning the house or working out.

You may want to consider topics for your podcasts that are related to the activities your target audience may be engaged in while listening.

This will allow you to insert your product or service contextually and turn audio marketing into a chance to make a large sale.

12. Virtual Reality Marketing

VR or Virtual Reality is already in our lives and may be used by marketers to achieve a brand’s audience. It brings the ability to give your public an immersive experience with the brand, product, or service.

This type of communication sticks with people and sets your brand apart from others who offer similar products or services.

Virtual Reality Marketing makes your brand look innovative and modern, putting you ahead of your competition.

This article discusses different types of digital marketing and how they can help improve sales by growing the leads base. To see better results, implement one or more of these strategies in your digital marketing plan.

About the Author Brian Richards

See Brian's Amazon Author Central profile at https://amazon.com/author/brianrichards

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