Digital marketing is an effective way to reach a specific audience with targeted messages. It can also track and measure results in real-time, which is not always possible with traditional marketing methods.
Whether it’s through text messages, social media, websites or mobile applications, digital marketers use data to develop content that engages audiences. Learn about six types of digital marketing techniques below:
Marketing on the Internet
Marketing on the Internet is a necessity for businesses today. It’s where the customers are, and where most of the sales are happening.
Digital marketing is a broad term that can include anything from online advertising to social media. However, there are 4 main types of digital marketing:
These strategies range from increasing website traffic to promoting products on social media. They also involve identifying and connecting with a targeted audience. For example, imagine that you want to send a special offer to young families who have looked at your life insurance products, and another to millennial entrepreneurs who have reviewed your retirement services. Without automated tracking, this would be extremely difficult to do. However, this is exactly what digital marketing can achieve. It allows companies to connect with potential customers through a variety of platforms, which can result in increased revenue and business growth. Find out more at WeekThink .
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Digital marketing encompasses a wide range of tactics, but it typically involves both paid advertising like Pay-Per-Click (PPC) campaigns and organic search engine optimization (SEO). The goal of SEO is to bring web traffic to a website or online content via unpaid results on search engines’ results pages (SERPs).
While the precise algorithm used by each SERP may vary, there are certain best practices that digital marketers can apply to improve their odds of appearing higher in non-paid search listings. These include making sure that a website’s web pages are intelligible and useful to search engines, and employing site architecture techniques like using structured markup for page metadata, creating an XML sitemap, and ensuring that internal links point to relevant pages.
In addition to standard organic SERP listings, Google also displays featured snippets that summarize content right within the SERPs, including carousels, lists, paragraphs, and videos, as well as news results, hotel and travel information, shopping results, FAQs, and job listings.
Social Media Marketing
The social media marketing (SMM) component of digital marketing utilizes various social platforms to promote and sell products or services. This approach to online marketing enables organizations to connect and engage with customers in real-time through comments and private messages, which can enhance customer satisfaction and build trust.
In addition, social media posts can direct website traffic and generate leads via click-throughs to specific webpages or landing pages. These efforts can be monitored using analytics tools to assess campaign performance and impact on business goals.
While many of the same tools and metrics used in traditional marketing are applied to social media, tying these activities to revenue generation can be challenging and requires additional skills in data analysis. Some social media marketers also manage paid advertising campaigns, though this typically falls under the purview of other marketing roles or agencies.
Email Marketing
Email marketing is an essential component of any digital marketing strategy. It allows businesses to interact with customers on a more personal level by entering their private inboxes. This channel can be used to achieve a variety of goals, such as driving new signups for a product, increasing event attendance, or collecting donations.
Emails are sent to a group of subscribers and often include articles, blogs, or customer reviews. They also contain call to actions that encourage recipients to take specific action, such as buying a product or signing up for a newsletter.
Creating emails that generate sales can be tricky, but the right mix of strategies can work. For example, adding a sense of urgency to an offer or letting recipients know that offers are only available for a limited time can encourage them to act quickly.
Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Advertising
PPC ads can reach your ideal customer on the websites and digital platforms where they spend their time. It offers many advantages over traditional advertising methods, including measurable results and detailed performance data. It also allows marketers to easily change budgets, like boosting campaigns that are performing well and pausing those that are not meeting their goals.
Advertisers choose keywords and demographics that are relevant to their business, and compete in an auction system for ad placement. The highest bidder, considering factors like ad quality and audience demographics, gets the top spot in search engine result pages (SERP). PPC can also be used to target audiences on social media platforms.