During the past decade, digital marketing has become a vital part of an organization’s overall marketing strategy. It provides companies with the opportunity to tailor messages to reach a specific target market, allowing them to market directly to people who are likely to be interested in their product.
What is Digital Marketing
The term “digital marketing” encompasses a number of strategies and technologies used to reach consumers online. As a form of online marketing, digital marketing lets organizations establish a brand identity and revolutionizes the marketing industry.
It is true that digital marketing appears to be a new world, but it is founded on many of the same principles that traditional marketers are familiar with, and it requires both marketing knowledge as well as technical expertise.
These topics serve to unite different groups of consumers, “…Traditional media is great for reaching a broad consumer base, while digital media can reach a very specific audience,” “Depending on the targeted audience, certain channels may be more accessible than others, as well as more effective than others.”
Types of Digital Marketing
Digital marketing can be broadly divided into eight main categories including: Search Engine Optimization, Pay-per-Click, Social Media Marketing, Content Marketing, Email Marketing, Mobile Marketing, Marketing Analytics, and Affiliate Marketing.
With a brief description of each, let us look at the types of digital marketing that are the most popular:
1.Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
SEO marketing aims to rank a business higher in Google search results, resulting in an increase in traffic to the business’s website. To accomplish this, SEO marketers research the terms consumers use to search online for information, and incorporate these into their own content.
Leading SEO software company Moz’s “Beginners Guide to SEO” states that SEO incorporates many factors, from the words you use on your web pages to how other websites link to you on the web to the structure of your website. Salary.com estimates that an SEO specialist may earn between $70,005 and $71,058.
So, what are some things that can improve a site’s SEO? SEO challenges have always been dependent on Google’s most current algorithm, so it’s extremely difficult to answer this question and predict what the answer will be. In light of that, Moz’s Beginners Guide to SEO provides a few essentials for SEO strategists and marketers in general to understand how SEO works today:
√. Content indexing
It is important to allow search engines to understand what the content of your site is by adding alternate text to images, as well as text transcripts for video and audio material.
√. Good link structure
Search engines should be able to “crawl” your website structure in order to find all of the information contained on your website. An SEO specialist can assist you in properly formatting links, URLs, and sitemaps so that they will be easily found by site crawlers.
√. Keywords and keyword targeting
One of the fundamental building blocks of SEO is efficiently deploying your keywords – which are the search terms you want your site to be discovered for – in your content and headers. It is no longer advisable to stuff your content with as many keywords and keyword variations as possible. The use of keywords in the headers and a few times in the crawl-able page content of high-quality content is now considered better practice and will help pages rank higher in search results.
2.Pay-per-Click (PPC)
Paid advertisements and promoted search engine results are referred to as pay-per-click advertisements, which means after you stop paying, the advertisement stops being visible. PPC is a great way to boost search traffic to your website.
Pay-per-click can refer to the ads you see on search results pages, ads you see while browsing the web, ads before YouTube videos, and in ads for mobile apps.
Another way that pay-per-click advertising differs from organic search is that you only pay for results. In a typical PPC campaign such as a Google AdWords campaign, you will only pay when the visitor clicks on your ad and lands on your website.
Pay-per-click advertising can be a very effective means of advertising. Some companies invest just a few hundred dollars, while large companies spend tens of thousands a month on pay-per-click.
The cost of running an ad or promoting your search results will be determined primarily by how much competition there is for your keywords. Keywords with high competition (i.e. ones that are frequently searched for, and for which a lot of sites are trying to rank high), will cost more and terms with lower competition will likely be less.
If you set up a pay-per-click campaign, you may choose whether you want the ad or promoted result to be shown globally or only in a specific geographical area. If you are marketing a brick-and-mortar business, this capability allows you not to waste your ad budget serving ads to people across the globe who have no connection to your business.
3.Social Media Marketing
Social media marketing includes everything a business does via social media channels. Nearly everyone is familiar with social media, but marketers must approach social media with an integrated and strategic approach. Social media marketing goes beyond simply posting to social channels and responding to comments.
In order for social media marketing to be effective, efforts must be coordinated and consistent, rather than being an afterthought. To automate and schedule social media posts, there are a number of online tools that can help marketers keep consistency, but marketers must use automation as a tool, not as a “set it and forget it” solution. Users will figure it out if there is no real person behind the posts.
The role of social media marketers is not isolated from the other marketing functions at a company. They should work with the marketing team to coordinate their message across all channels, online and offline, to ensure that each part of the brand is telling the same story.
A crucial component of social media marketing is analytics. Social media marketers need to be adept at analyzing their posts and making decisions about their strategies based on that data, writes marketing writer Jayson DeMers. Another reason for marketers to consistently measure and track their campaigns is that it allows them to calculate the return on investment and whether a particular campaign added any value to the company.
Aside from Instagram and Twitter, there are also free ways to promote your business, including Google My Business, eBay, and Facebook Messenger and Marketplace.
Social media marketing is a lot more challenging than managing a personal Facebook or Twitter profile; it requires creative thinking and an objective, data-driven strategy, and it may be the right fit for professionals who enjoy combination of these disciplines. According to Salary.com, a social media analyst with a bachelor’s degree can earn about $68,230.
4.Content Marketing
To increase brand awareness, content marketing is used to tell stories and share information. Its final goal is to compel the reader to take action towards becoming a customer, such as requesting more information, signing up for an email list, or making a purchase. Blog posts, white papers, e-books, digital videos, podcasts, and much more are classified as “content”. Generally speaking, the content should first and foremost provide value to the consumer, rather than just advertise the brand or try to make a sale. Content marketing is about building a sustainable and trusting relationship with your customers that potentially results in many sales over time, rather than just making a single transaction.
Using content marketing in tandem with other digital marketing activities: It is a way to incorporate SEO search terms into fresh website content, and the content you create can be shared via social media and in email marketing campaigns. Analyzing your content marketing analytics gives you insights into your customers. what are they looking for when they land on your site? What kinds of content make them stay on the site longer and keep looking around? What kinds of content make them lose interest and depart?
The goal of content marketing is to create a library of content (text, video, podcasts, etc.) with the goal of continually bringing users to your website via search engines. Marketo, a marketing automation company, says that content marketing is not a short-term strategy. Providing access to this content library helps users stay informed about your brand and is a way for you to establish your authority as a resource for information. And, if users are visiting your site for information, this will enable them to remember you when it’s time to make a purchase.
Content marketing is a great career choice for people who are good at writing, and/or who love video and audio production. And like other phases of digital marketing, it also requires analytic and strategic skills.
5.Email Marketing
Although social media, mobile applications and other channels have emerged, email remains one of the most effective marketing techniques, Rogers said. Email can form part of a content marketing strategy, providing value to consumers and ultimately turning them into customers.
In addition to creating compelling campaigns, email marketers also understand optimal audience outreach and are well-versed in analyzing customer interactions and data, and making strategic decisions based on that data, reports the American Marketing Association.
There are many different analytical measures that can be derived from email marketing software, but two that marketers are always striving to improve are the open rate – the percentage of recipients who opened the email – and the click through rate – the number of recipients who opened the email and clicked on the link.
Constant Contact, a leading email marketing software company, says that there are several things marketers can do to make their emails more appealing to users and more likely to be opened. These include:
√. Create a Sense of Urgency – If you write email copy that lets recipients know that time is running out to get a special deal, or that just a limited number of the offer are available, you can increase the number of people clicking through to your website.
√. Personalize Your Email – Incorporate the recipient’s name into emails and subject lines to increase open and click through rates (A sample subject line might read: “Katie, a special offer for you.”)
√. Let Recipients Set Their Preferences
–You may need to offer users the option to specify how often they would like to hear from you in order to keep some of your email subscribers subscribed to your list and open your emails.
6.Mobile Marketing
This type of digital marketing focuses on reaching your target audience through their smart phone or tablet, Mobile marketing reaches customers through texts, social media, websites, email, and mobile applications. Marketers can customize offers or special content to a particular geographic location or time, such as when someone walks into a store or enters an event.
Several recent TechCrunch articles show that Americans now spend five hours a day on their phones. This represents a 20 percent increase from the fourth quarter of 2015. Users are also spending greater amounts of time using apps rather than mobile browsers. It is estimated that in 2017, users will spend much more time using apps than watching television. According to a TechCrunch article, 15% of users’ app time will be spent using entertainment apps, such as Netflix and Hulu, 19% will use Facebook’s mobile app, 12% will use other social and messaging apps, and 11% will use gaming apps.
According to Retail Dive, 45% of all shopping involves a mobile device in some way, whether it’s to do research, compare prices, or to make a purchase. For Millennials (defined by Pew Research Center as people born between 1981 and 1997), that number is 57%.
Marketers know to take their message to where your potential customers are, and the evidence is clear: your potential customers use their phones.
7.Marketing Analytics
As one of the chief advantages of digital marketing, it is highly trackable and measurable. Once, the only trackable marketing pieces were coupons and similar direct mail offers. If the coupon was used, you knew the message had resonated. The use of analytics today allows marketers to track user behavior at a very detailed level: how many times they click on a link, how long they spend on a page, how often they open emails, and more. But the sheer amount of information available about digital marketing performance can feel like drinking from a fire hose, and marketers must be able to understand what the data mean and how it should inform strategy.
This allows marketers to learn what works for consumers and make changes accordingly moving forward, all the while demonstrating their value to the business. Using all of this data to make strategic decisions is a very important part of a digital marketer’s job, and one that sets them apart from their traditional counterparts.
The success of digital marketing campaigns can be measured by a variety of tools, and most marketers will use some combination of these tools based on their needs and their target audiences (Fortune magazine reported that many marketers use more than 100 applications when marketing their products or services). For marketing analytics, Google Analytics is one of the most commonly used tools. It can be configured in a variety of different ways so you can measure how well your site performs, which keywords are bringing users to your site, how users navigate through your site, and much more.
Marketers who have good, accurate analytics and a good grasp of the principles of how to interpret them can cut campaigns that aren’t working fast and build better campaigns around proven concepts. Over time, you’ll be using analytics more frequently for more than just measuring your campaigns – they’ll help you improve your campaigns.
You’ll study a wide range of marketing topics while studying a digital marketing degree, including marketing strategies, branding, mobile marketing and digital advertising.
8.Affiliate Marketing
With the increase in popularity of online marketing, affiliate marketing-also known as influencer marketing-has become common among many companies to help bridge the gap between consumers and enterprises. But, what is affiliate marketing?
As social media influencers and industry experts become increasingly popular, affiliate marketing uses them to market your products. By collaborating with these influencers, your organization will be compensated for the promotion of your products or services.
By collaborating, influencers will engage their audiences with posts, blogs, and videos to bring in more business and lead generation for your organization.
As new media outlets like TikTok, Instagram, Youtube, and blogs have become a mainstream form of entertainment, news and shipping, affiliate, or influencer marketing has grown tremendously. According to Inc.com, the affiliate marketing industry is expected to reach $6.8 billion in 2020. Online affiliate marketing is becoming one of the more popular methods of digital marketing.
As of 2020, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts a 10% increase in the number of advertising, promotions, and marketing managers. The median salary for those positions is $141,490, according to the BLS.
