How many different types of digital marketing practices are you presently aware of? A few?
Today, let’s cover them all. In this blog, we are about to discuss all types of online marketing and their prominent role in today’s results-driven marketing. Ready? Let’s dive in and explore!
20 years ago, you might be a laughing stock for investing in digital marketing, but now, you are unwise if you are not. Digital marketing has been around since the modern internet’s start but evolved and got popular let’s say mainly after Google’s launch.
Though many digital growth agencies often ponder about which produces a better ROI between traditional vs digital marketing, more and more businesses are now going digital and investing a major chunk of their budgets into online marketing.
As for February 2022, Statista, in their study, CMOs report a 16.2% increase in the digital marketing budget compared to last year. This rising percentage will help businesses understand why choosing digital marketing over traditional marketing is a necessity and not an option in today’s digital age.
What is Digital Marketing?
Digital marketing is a vast topic to talk about and is ever-evolving. If you believe you know everything about digital marketing, and have mastered it, simply follow a few industry journalists and you will be surprised to come across so many things you are still unaware of.
If we talk about digital marketing’s definition in layman’s terms, it would be: any marketing activity delivered through online channels such as social media, search engines, websites, mobile apps, emails, and others is digital marketing or online marketing or internet marketing whatever you name it.
Good online marketing strategies focuses on reaching audience segments with higher conversion-intent across multiple channels as they move down the sales funnel.
Why is Digital Marketing Important for Your Business Strategy?
Every business owner looking to go online has one thing clear: designing a website that can drive maximum leads and sales. But designing alone can’t do the entire work. Everything from designing and developing, to marketing needs to fall in place correctly.
As you look for new ways to market your business, you can’t overlook online marketing.
Did you know that over 80% of consumers look up a product online before buying?
If your business doesn’t have online visibility or not providing the content that users are looking for, you’re missing out on countless opportunities to reach out to your target audience.
Though many digital marketers have a sound knowledge of internet marketing, most don’t know how to plan effective digital marketing strategies to fuel business growth.
Well, by leveraging the right digital marketing practices and strategies suitable for your business, you can surely grow your brand and reach new heights.
Digital marketing plays a significant role when it comes to being competitive and relevant within your industry. It’s one of the greatest approaches that help you establish an impactful online presence that is much-needed in today’s time. Agreed?
9 Major Types of Online Marketing That Bring Remarkable Results
There are many different types of digital marketing practices, and we’re going to go through each one in detail. Bear with us to understand what you need to be investing in. Here is the list of various types of digital marketing you should be aware of. Let’s jump right in!
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
SEO is a mainstay long-term online marketing practice that makes your site optimized for search engines and helps you generate more business via search engines.
Believe it or not, search engine optimization has become a dire need in today’s time. It helps you drive high-intent users on your website pages throughout the audience phases.
It works towards ensuring that your web pages and content feature as higher as possible on relevant searches. Targeting the right set of keywords searched by audience segments and aligning content with search intent is the initial work. This is followed by optimizing website elements and signals for over 200 factors of the Bing and Google webmasters guidelines.
Content Marketing
Content is the reason the search began in the first place. Creating enriching and valuable content is more than crucial. It has become the backbone of digital marketing.
Content marketing has the power to educate and engage your user while promoting your brand directly or indirectly. Informative content on your site that serves your audience’s needs build up a loyal customer base. And they prefer you over competitors when they are in the conversion phase.
Native Ads
In simpler words, native ads help reach audiences in a very targeted environment without making them realize that it’s an ad. It is a great way for getting visibility on platforms where search engines or social networks don’t have reach.
It’s called native because your advertised article, media, video, etc., looks like a part of the promoting platform. Native ads are great to promote engaging content to the audiences in their awareness and remarketing phase.
Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
Unlike SEO, SEM helps you increase your web traffic from search engines and its network through paid means. SEM helps you put text, media, video, etc., ads on the search results page and partner platforms and websites.
It is one of the best digital marketing approaches to include in short-term marketing strategies and drive instant brand visibility and conversions. Google Ads and Microsoft/Bing Ads are the most used platforms globally for SEM.
Social Media Optimization (SMO)
In simple words, SMO is having a planned and optimized presence on social platforms.
You can use social platforms to connect with your users, share updates, interact, and build your brand presence and trust.
Social platforms have a huge number of daily active users and a small percentage searches to find different stuff. Optimizing your business page, profiles, content, posts, hashtags, playlists, and other features improves your brand’s visibility in front of users searching for products and services on social platforms.
SMO is a long-term strategy that is somehow similar to SEO but lesser complex and effective. You should focus on social media optimization while building your brand’s social presence.
Social Media Marketing (SMM)
As the name suggests, social media marketing is all about using the power of social platforms’ paid marketing tools to promote your brand. Irrespective of your business type, there is a social network for you to use in your digital marketing strategy.
With social platforms like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter, you can set your foot to market your business and creatively reach a pool of audiences with varied interests, behavior, and targeting.
Email Marketing
Email marketing remains one of the most popular and effective types of digital marketing over the decades.
It is a great way of reaching directly to your customers via emails, building relationships, inspiring customer loyalty, sharing perks and offers, sending them a newsletter, and a lot more.
Building an email database, writing compelling subject lines and copy, focusing on relevancy, and emphasizing CTAs are some best practices to follow.
Influencer Marketing
Influencer marketing is one of the newest forms of online marketing that includes influencers directly endorsing products/services on their digital properties or using them during online appearances.
Businesses are leveraging platforms like Instagram and YouTube to build and sustain buzz around their brand and product lines through influencer marketing.
Selecting the right influencers who are followed by your target audience is advisory.
Video Marketing
Video is the ultimate type of digital media that engages a lot of users. Leveraging video marketing is a powerful digital marketing technique.
The simplest example of a video campaign can be a brand video that has an emotional storyline, which connects the target audience with the brand. Such videos generate great traction on social platforms. On the other hand, informative videos can be used on business websites to build trust.
Also read: SEO-Friendly Website Development: Checklist and Ideal Process
Final Words
There you have it. That was our list!
As businesses continue to increase their digital footprint, understanding digital marketing approaches also continue to become increasingly important. Hopefully, now you understand the different digital marketing practices and their uses, we hope you will leverage all (or at least some) of them in your online marketing strategy and strengthen your digital presence.
