Setting up a business is not good enough. To stay ahead of the curve; you need a strong online presence. Digital marketing has increasingly become one of the most effective ways of reaching out to customers. A smart marketing plan will get you started on the right foot, it essentially prompts you to carry out in-depth audience research so as to know what type of products or services are suitable for them. You then will need to understand the available types of digital marketing to get your word out there.
What is Digital Marketing?
Digital marketing is any form of marketing that uses electronic devices to promote products and services. This type of marketing allows you to reach your audience on the right platform and evaluate your marketing efforts regularly. We have discussed 8 types of digital marketing so that you are able to easily choose the most suitable for your business. Remember each business is unique in its way. Let’s get started already!
1. Pay Per Click Advertising
In Pay per click advertising, the marketer pays for every single click to a website. Traffic is mainly via paid ads. This type of marketing is also available on social media; the ads usually appear on the newsfeed of your targeted audience. You will need to have a budget set aside for pay per click advertising if you so wish to use it as your main digital marketing strategy.
2. Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
Search engine marketing is another way of increasing traffic from search engine to your website. This digital market type allows for advertisement of products or services in the search engine; the product appears on top of organic results as a paid result. The search engine, for example, Google, displays a small icon “ad” before the website URL.
Google Adwords and Bing are the most common types of paid marketing. These two engines sell an ad space depending on your targeted audience. This is one of the most effective methods of digital marketing as a search engine only displays results to your target market.
3. Social Media Marketing
There is no doubt that social media has undergone a major revolutionary. There are several social media platform, from Facebook to twitter the list is almost endless. Business to customer type of business can take advantage of this digital marketing type to grow fast.
For you to succeed in social media marketing; you need to determine what type of content your targeted audience shares often. By doing this you will be able to know what type of content to create in order to increase your shares and followers across these platforms.
4. Email Marketing
Through email marketing, you are able to update your subscribers about new products and services. Your consumers are likely to trust you more when you engage them on a regular basis. Additionally, providing valuable information through your emails helps build trust and sets your brand apart.
You get email subscribers through campaigns on your business website. The subscribers are likely to purchase your products or services as long as they are kept informed.
Make use of free and premium email automation tools to help you frequently send newsletters, thank you notes and notifications.
5. Content Marketing
Content marketing is an indirect type of digital market that strives at creating informational content that is engineered to generating leads that will turn into sales. It is important to know your audience’s needs before you get down to any content writing. You also need to use the keywords that they use on search engines. You are likely to gain trust and recognition when you share meaningful information across all your social media platforms.
The main aim of content marketing is to increase your audience. You may mix content marketing with other types of digital marketing such as SEO to gauge the outcome. Content that is created around specific keywords is likely to do better on search engines as well as social media.
There are so many ways in which you can publish your content. Sharable content can be in the form of posts, webinars, podcasts or reports.
6. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Search engine optimization is a strategy of optimizing your content for specific keywords so that you are able to rank for them. It is an organic form of digital marketing (non-paid) where users receive results from search engines after keying in for specific keywords through the search engine result page. Search engines use algorithms to ranks websites. More traffic is directed to your website as it ranks higher on the result page.
Your content can be optimized for voice searches or even backlinks. There are two types of SEO; on-page and off-page SEO
On-page, SEO explains all the strategies involved in optimizing content within the web pages while off- SEO deals with creating or building links and signals to a webpage. Both of these SEO types are important in helping you find your way to the top of search results.
7. Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is a term used to describe the process of paying commissions for products or services purchased. Affiliate marketing only pays for conversations at the rate that is pre-determined. It is advisable to go into affiliate marketing when you know about monitoring your affiliates and educating them about your products and services.
8. Landing Page Marketing
A landing page is a page that your visitor gets to when they first visit your website from whichever source. targeting specific land pages on your website is another sure way of increasing leads and conversions. You may use your home page as your landing page but for optimization sake, have a landing page for lead generation.
An effective landing page is created by linking it to ads usually displayed as banners on search engines or websites. The user is then directed to the page on your website once they click the ad. Landing pages are designed for marketing campaigns and can be created differently depending on your end goal.
Conclusion
Some digital marketing types such as SEO and social media can be used across all businesses while others will largely depend on the type of business. Having enough knowledge about these 8 types of digital marketing will help you choose one that best suits your brand. Even though, The best way to dominate the market effortlessly is to create content that your audience finds useful. Trust is an important aspect of digital marketing.
Swansea Digital Marketing, 306 Llangyfelach Road, Brynhyfryd, Swansea, SA5 9LG. Tel: 07946 212 620
