Digital Marketing

On a larger scale the term “digital marketing” refers to advertisements that are delivered via digital channels like websites, search engines as well as social media, emails, and mobile applications. Utilizing these online media channels online marketing can be described as the process in that companies promote goods or services and brands. The majority of consumers rely on the internet to search for products. For instance, Think with Google marketing research found the majority of people begin their search engines, whereas 33% visit brands’ websites, and 26% use mobile apps.

In the present day, an era without the internet is almost unimaginable. With more than 4.5 billion users worldwide, the internet is now the primary platform to share and distribute information. If it’s updates on family news, information about politics and science or even entertainment shared between friends. 

The shift to an online world has also altered the way companies market the products or services they offer. As with everything else in marketing, the entire field has shifted to the internet, with the creation of websites and social media and online ads replacing billboards, cold calls, and printed ads.

In this article, we’ll go over the concept of digital marketing and the best way to utilize it to help promote your brand. We’ll also discuss the various forms of digital marketing so that you are aware of the best methods that can help your company.

What is Digital Marketing? 

Digital marketing can be defined as using digital media for promoting a product or service. The purpose of this strategy is to make contact with customers online, the location where they will spend their most time looking for details or engaging in entertainment.

Marketing via digital channels is wide practice simply because of the number of available channels. Social media posts are an example of marketing that is digital, and so are blogging and email marketing. Together with the content that promotes your business on these platforms forms an integrated online marketing strategy. It doesn’t matter if you’re focused on marketing events or making an email list the digital aspect of marketing plays a vital aspect.

The benefits of digital marketing

All businesses – from huge multinational corporations to smaller brick-and-mortar shops – can benefit from advertising their business online. Here are a few ways that digital marketing can benefit your company:

• Brand recognition by stamping your mark on the internet
• Involving prospective customers and creating leads
• Building stronger customer relationships and the foundation for a loyal customer base
• Helping customers navigate the marketing funnel, starting from the initial interaction to the point of purchase

Types of Digital Marketing

Digital marketing isn’t a singular method but rather is the combination of many aspects. The most well-known instances of marketing using digital technology are:

1. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
2. Content Marketing
3. Social Media Marketing
4. Pay-per-click (PPC)
5. Native Advertising
6. Affiliates Marketing
7. Influencer Marketing
8. Email Marketing
9. Marketing Automation
10. Online PR
11. Mobile MarketingConversion rate optimization (CRO)

It may appear like a variety of kinds of marketing but keep in mind that you don’t have to apply each of these methods. It’s essential to be familiar with them to get more knowledge of the strategies that should be part of your strategy for marketing.

01. Search engine optimization (SEO)

An essential component of digital marketing SEO is the process of optimizing your site to appear higher on results from search engines. If your site appears as a top result in Google as well as other search engines, users will be more inclined to click your website’s link, discover more about your company’s reputation and maybe even turn into customers.

There are three ways to improve your site’s SEO.

• On-page SEO is the process of optimizing the content on your site by performing keyword searches. If you use strategic keywords across your site it will rank highly on the search results pages and help customers navigate the sales funnel by providing relevant, reliable information. On-page Seo

• Off-page SEO is the process of improving your SEO by analyzing websites that are not linked to your site. Links that are inbound to your site also known as backlinks are a crucial element for off-page SEO. Connecting with publishers, writing guest posts, and putting up valuable posts on your website could assist in improving off-page SEO.

• Technical SEO is concerned with the backend aspects of your website, including code, structured data as well as image compression, and many more. Optimizing these elements could aid the search engine in “reading” your site and improve the speed of your site.

02. Content marketing

Closely tied to SEO, content marketing is also a core component of digital marketing. This involves creating and promoting content with the goals of building brand awareness, increasing traffic to your website, generating leads, and converting customers.

The content you create can take many forms:

• Blog posts: Creating a blog – and using strategic, long-tail keywords in your articles – is a great way to bring traffic to your site and engage your customers.

• E-books and whitepapers: Adding in-depth, long-form content to your website establishes your expertise in the industry and builds trust among your audience. You can also offer this content for download in exchange for your readers’ contact information, helping you generate leads.

• Videos: Website content doesn’t need to be in written form. Adding videos to your website is an engaging way to provide valuable information to your audience.

• Infographics: Another form of visual content, infographics are a fun, helpful way to make information easier for readers to conceptualize. Complex explanations and statistics are particularly well-suited to this content format.

• Podcasts: This audible content format is a useful way to strengthen your connection with your audience and build a loyal community around your brand. To start a podcast, try repurposing existing website content, such as blog posts, and adapting it for audio.

• Webinars: A merging of “web” and “seminar,” webinars further engage your audience, establish your authority, and delight customers with the extra value they provide.

Whichever content formats you choose, be sure to focus on subject matter that’s relevant and valuable for your audience and that will help boost your website’s SEO.

03. Social media marketing

Another cornerstone of a strong digital marketing strategy is social media marketing. This involves promoting your brand on social channels to increase brand awareness, drive traffic to your website, and capture leads. You can do this by creating posts on popular social media channels such as:

• Facebook
• Instagram
• Twitter
• YouTube
• Pinterest
• LinkedIn

Your posts can include anything from insightful blog articles to videos of your product in action. Choose channels on which your audience is most active; often, this is a factor of their demographics, such as age and location, as well as their interests. You can even invest in sustainable marketing in these channels, which has become popular as consumer demand for environmentally-friendly products has grown.

04. Pay per click (PPC)

Some digital marketing methods, such as blogging, SEO, and social media posting are organic – meaning that they draw traffic “naturally” to your business rather than requiring that you spend money directly. Other practices, however, come with a price tag.

PPC, an acronym for pay per click, is a particularly powerful form of paid online advertising. Like SEO, PPC is a type of search engine marketing or SEM. If you’re familiar with posts labeled “Ad” at the top and bottom of Google search results pages, you’ve already seen PPC in action.

By this model, advertisers pay a fee every time their link is clicked. As with other forms of digital marketing, the goal of PPC is to drive traffic to a website to generate leads and make sales.

Generally, PPC is used on either search engines or social media platforms:

• Google: Search engine marketing PPC is most commonly associated with Google Ads. Take a look at this article to learn how to advertise on Google.

• Facebook: You can further use the pay-per-click model to advertise on Facebook. Creating paid Facebook posts helps you expand your reach, exposing your content to people who don’t follow you.

• LinkedIn: You can also do PPC on LinkedIn, helping you get in front of professional audiences.

• Twitter: Likewise, you can use Twitter Ads to target your relevant audience and expand your reach.

05. Native advertising

Native advertising, too, is a popular online marketing model. In contrast to large pop-ups and other intrusive ads, native ads match the format and tone of the platform on which they appear. Native ads often appear on websites, and they display content that “blends in” with surrounding articles or blog posts. For example, they might appear as a video embedded within a blog post, or as recommended reading at the bottom of the page.

The goal of native advertising is to guide users to click on content that will take them to your company’s page. If the advertised content is unobtrusive and highly relevant to the material at hand, users may be more enticed to click.

06. Affiliate marketing

Affiliate marketing is a digital marketing practice in which one party, such as an influencer or a brand, receives a commission for promoting someone else’s products or services. For businesses, this practice is beneficial because it allows them to reach that party’s followers.

By the affiliate marketing model, a company provides that party (called the affiliate) with a special link, usually leading to a page to purchase their product. The affiliate, in turn, will post about that product (usually on their blog or social media pages), promoting the given link in their content. When users click on that link and buy, it’s a win-win for both the brand and the affiliate: the company makes a sale, and the affiliate earns a commission on that sale.

Brands can connect with affiliates using platforms such as ShareASale or CJ Affiliate, or by reaching out to influencers directly.

07. Influencer marketing

This practice is similar to affiliate marketing in that it involves another person promoting your brand, typically on social media or within their blog. Unlike affiliates, however, influencers get paid by the company simply for the promotion – regardless of whether people purchase the product.

Influencer marketing is effective because it helps brands reach a particular influencer’s fanbase. When that influencer is trusted among their followers, they have the power to sway their fans’ purchasing decisions by recommending a product.

On the business side, the key to a successful partnership is to choose influencers whose audience matches your target market. For example, a company selling athletic wear would benefit most from collaborating with a well-known athlete. Likewise, a business selling cosmetics would be wise to seek out a collaboration with a beauty influencer.

08. Email marketing

You’ve almost certainly experienced email marketing in some form – in fact, you probably have branded emails sitting in your inbox right now. This popular digital marketing strategy involves communicating with your target audience via email with the goals of improving engagement, promoting products, and driving conversions and sales.

Broadly speaking, there are four different types of marketing emails you can send to prospects and customers:

• Email campaigns promote products, provide special offers or coupons, or encourage people to sign up for a product or service.

• Email newsletters are sent consistently to provide subscribers with regular updates, such as new blog posts, industry news, or upcoming events.

• Automated marketing emails are sent automatically based on predefined triggers, and they include welcome emails, birthday emails, and reminder emails.

• Automated transactional emails include automatic order confirmations, shipping updates, and appointment reminders.

You can use Wix Email Marketing to set up email campaigns, newsletters, and automation for your business. This platform is particularly effective because it tracks statistics on email opens, views and clicks, giving you insight into your business’s performance. It also allows you to customize the design of your emails so that they match the look and feel of your brand.

09. Marketing automation

Speaking of automated emails – they’re examples of a broader digital marketing practice called marketing automation. As the name suggests, this involves the automation of basic marketing tasks.

The idea behind this practice is to streamline repetitive tasks that would otherwise be done manually, such as transactional emails, data analysis, and more. Some tasks that benefit from automation include:

• Thank you, confirmation and welcome emails
• Social media post scheduling
• Live chat
• Data analytics

Marketing automation is a critical way to build relationships with your customers while sustaining an organized and productive workflow. To set up your automated responses to actions and account activities on your site, try Ascend Business Tools.

10. Online public relations (PR)

Online PR is the practice of obtaining coverage from online publications and blogs. This tends to require outreach to reporters and editors at relevant publications, which you can do through LinkedIn or Twitter.

PR also involves monitoring your brand’s reputation on the web overall. For example, you’ll need to engage with comments on your blog and social media posts, as well as respond to online reviews of your company.

11. Mobile marketing

Often, converting customers through the screens of their laptops seems like the ultimate goal. It’s important, however, that we also take full advantage of a smaller – but equally important – device: the smartphone. This is especially important considering that mobile internet usage comprises more than 50% of online traffic worldwide.

Mobile marketing involves adapting standard digital marketing practices to fit the mobile experience. This includes:

• Optimizing your mobile page speed: Google uses page speed as a ranking factor for mobile as well as desktop search. In addition, users are quick to navigate away from a site with a slow load time. To improve the speed of your mobile site, try to keep your site lightweight – for instance, avoid heavy images, and minimize redirects.

• Designing your website for mobile: Your site is a fundamental marketing tool that represents your brand, showcases your product or service, and persuades people to buy. As such, the way it appears on mobile plays a crucial role in whether or not your audience will convert. Take a look at this article for mobile website design examples and tips.

• Creating mobile-friendly emails: Research shows that mobile accounts for nearly half of all email opens. With this in mind, your email campaigns must be designed for the mobile screen. That means short subject lines, concise text, and a clear and prominent CTA.

• Experimenting with in-app ads: Don’t limit your ads to websites and search engines. Advertising within relevant mobile apps is also a valuable practice that can expand your reach even further.

12. Conversion rate optimization (CRO)

If we need to sum up the goals of digital marketing, we’d say it’s about bringing traffic to your site and increasing conversions. This latter component – called conversion rate optimization – requires designing your website with an understanding of the way users interact with it.

To do this, you’ll need to take into account how users navigate your site, which actions they take, and what guides them toward – or prevents them from – achieving your goals. Tracking tools and analytics can provide you with quantitative data about the ways users engage with your site, helping you guide them smoothly through the sales funnel.

Why you need digital marketing

Overall, digital marketing is a broad concept that covers a variety of practices and uses a wide range of online channels. Underlying these different elements, however, is a common theme – the ability to take advantage of the huge marketplace of prospective customers online.

Whether you decide to grow your blog, create an email newsletter or advertise on Google, you’ll be able to bring more traffic to your site, build stronger connections with your customers, and track and measure your results. Not only will this help you gain customers in the short term, but it will also help you build a sustainable, long-term strategy for future improvement and growth.