What is Digital Marketing? 10 Most Common Channels of Digital Marketing

We live in a Digital World and to stay competitive in this digital world, your business must adopt digital marketing to have an impressive and solid presence in the digital space.

What is Digital Marketing?

Definition:

Wikipedia defines Digital Marketing as,

The marketing of products or services using digital technologies mainly on the internet, but also including mobile phones, display advertising, and any other digital medium.

Digital Marketing is the marketing of products or services using the internet as well as non-internet channels.

More simply, we can say that any form of marketing that involves digital devices is called Digital Marketing.

Marketing methods such as Search Engine Optimization(SEO), Search Engine Marketing(SEM), Content Marketing, E-commerce Marketing, Social Media Marketing, Email Marketing, E-books, etc., all strictly occur online.

The non-internet channels that provide digital media may include Mobile Phones(SMS & MMS), Callback and On-hold Mobile Ringtones, Digital Television, Radio Channels, etc.

 

Why Digital Marketing?

Digital Marketing is the future of marketing. And the best part? It is cheaper than the traditional methods of marketing.

Traditional methods of marketing like Billboards and outdoor advertising aren’t as effective as they used to be. We can’t say they’re dead but these mediums have also adapted to current technologies.

A study by Ignite Visibility reveals some key findings in how marketers will shift marketing dollars through 2021. It says that the majority of marketers will be shifting more and more of their marketing budget to digital. According to its study,

Businesses under 1 million invest the most in social media, while businesses between 1 and 5 million invest the most in search engine optimization. Businesses between 5 and 10 million invest most in online advertising, between 10 and 20 million invest most in email marketing, and those in the 20 to 50 million and 50+ million range invest evenly between all channels.

The Pew Research Center survey conducted in January 2018 says that 26% of American adults go online “almost constantly”, up from 21% in 2015. An increase of 5% in just three years.

According to Wikipedia, as of June 2018, 55.1% of the world’s population has internet access.

And, as more and more people are acquiring smartphones, the percentage of people going online will only go up from here.

We can say that people are spending and will spend most of their time on the internet.

So, it makes sense to target your audience where they are spending most of their time – the internet.

Also, the way people shop and buy products or services has changed.

Before making purchases, they want to get all the information about the products and services.

With the digital revolution, this has become very simple.

Now, they can get all the information about anything at the touch of a button.

 

Types of Digital Marketing:

As a Digital Marketer, your main objective is to find the medium of advertising that may give maximum two-way communication and a better overall Return on Investment (ROI).

The term Digital Marketing itself covers a wide range of marketing activities.

There are several ways you can use Digital Marketing to benefit your marketing efforts.

But, in this article, we’ll be focusing on the most common channels of Digital Marketing.

10 Most Common Channels of Digital Marketing:

1. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
2. Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
3. Content Marketing
4. Social Media Marketing
5. Email Marketing
6. Affiliate Marketing
7. Mobile Marketing
8. Marketing Automation
9. Viral Marketing
10. Inbound Marketing

 

Let’s get started.

• Search Engine Optimization (SEO):

 

It is also often referred to as “natural”, “organic” or “earned” results.

You need to attract visitors to your site when they search for products, services, or information related to your business.

SEO helps in getting your pages at the top of the Search Engines Results Pages for a specific set of keywords.

The higher your pages rank on SERPs, the more visitors your site will receive. You can then convert those visitors into customers.

Search Engine Optimization is of two categories – On-page SEO and Off-page SEO.

On-page SEO refers to optimizing the web page of your site to increase search rankings.

There are many techniques of On-page SEO. The most important ones are – creating valuable and engaging content, internal and external linking, image optimization, mobile-friendliness, etc.

Off-page SEO refers to the actions you take outside of your website, like acquiring backlinks, social media marketing, etc.

Related Articles:

• What is SEO and What are its Different Types?
• 7 Key Techniques to Increase Referral Traffic to Your Website

 

• Search Engine Marketing (SEM):

 

In this form of marketing, you try to promote your business by driving traffic to your site primarily through paid advertising.

You have to purchase advertisement space that appears on the top or side of a Search Engines Results Pages (SERPs).

One example of SEM is Pay-Per-Click or PPC.

The search engine company charges you a fee for including your website in their SERPs. And, you got to pay each time your ad is clicked.

There are also some other channels where you can use PPC – the popular ones are Facebook’s Paid Ads, Twitter’s Promoted Tweets, and LinkedIn’s Sponsored Messages.

 

• Content Marketing:

 

It involves the creation of content for a targeted audience and sharing it online in the form of a blog, video, or social media post.

In 1996, Bill Gates wrote an essay titled “Content is King”. He said that content is where the real money will be made on the internet.

You should always create content keeping in mind your audience. Creating valuable, relevant, and engaging content may help you attract prospects and transform them into customers.

James O’Brien of Contently wrote on Mashable,

“The idea central to content marketing is that a brand must give something valuable to get something valuable in return. Instead of the commercial, be the show. Instead of the banner ad, be the feature story.”

The formats in which you may present your content may include news, videos, email newsletters, white papers, e-books, infographics, podcasts, blogs, question-and-answer articles, content for microblogging and social media sites, etc.

 

• Social Media Marketing:

 

In this form of marketing, you promote your products or services using social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Snapchat, etc.

You have to create quality content and customize it for different social media channels.

Social media platforms are good mediums to get your site more and more exposure.

Remember that if you make relevant and engaging content, it will be liked and shared by your social networks. This way your site will get good exposure.

You can interact with your consumers and gain valuable feedback. With the help of their feedback, you can improve your products or services.

A good Social Media Marketing strategy could be to engage with your networks daily – two to three times a day.

Related Articles:

• What is Social Media Marketing and What are its Benefits?
• Best Social Media Management Tools To Grow Your Business

 

• Email Marketing:

 

We have been using Emails for over two decades now. Being cheaper and faster in comparison to other forms of Digital Marketing, Email Marketing is very popular with companies.

Email Marketing is all about sending emails to your potential customers to promote your content, events, and discounts.

In other words, when you use an email to send a commercial message to a potential or current customer, that is Email Marketing.

There are many types of emails you can use in your Email Marketing campaign.

For example, subscription newsletters, welcome emails, follow-up emails, purchase or order confirmation emails, order status emails, special offer emails, product catalog emails, etc.

Related Articles:

• What Is Email Marketing?
• How To Get Started With Email Marketing?

 

• Affiliate Marketing:

 

A type of performance-based marketing, Affiliate Marketing is the most lucrative way to earn money online.

As an Affiliate, you get a commission by promoting the merchant’s products or services on your website.

You can also get help from Affiliate Network which acts as an intermediary between Merchants and Affiliates. With Affiliate Networks, you have the opportunity to connect with different merchants and diversify the commission you make. You can also connect with other affiliates and cross-promote your products.

Affiliate Marketing is a win-win for the merchants as well as the affiliates.

The Merchants sell the products as well as reach potential customers. The Affiliates get commissions by recommending their products to their site visitors.

Related Articles:

• What is Affiliate Marketing and How it works?
• Top 9 Affiliate Marketing Programs and Websites
• How To Make Money With Amazon Affiliate Program?
• What are the Best Ways to Promote Your Affiliate Links? (10 Best Tactics)
• Top 5 Reasons Why Affiliates Should Join Affiliate Networks

 

• Mobile Marketing:

 

According to the GSM intelligence report, the number of mobile subscribers worldwide has hit 5 Billion. This means that more than two-thirds of the world’s population is now connected to a mobile service.

Also, mobile devices are becoming an integral part of people’s lives. They usually keep their mobile devices in their pockets or next to their beds.

So, it becomes very important that you focus on Mobile Marketing.

And most importantly,

There are some types of marketing using a mobile device that you can’t do with the above-mentioned marketing tactics.

For instance, SMS Marketing. SMS stands for Short Message Service. SMS messages reach the recipients quickly, with an open rate of 98%, and are read within 3 minutes.

 

• Marketing Automation:

 

It refers to the software that is designed for marketing departments and organizations to automate their marketing tasks and workflows.

You can use marketing automation to plan, coordinate, manage, and measure all of your marketing campaigns.

This helps you automate several repetitive tasks such as email newsletters, lead generation, lead nurturing and lead scoring, retention, social media post scheduling, updating your contact list, etc.

 

• Viral Marketing:

 

Suppose you are creative enough and make a funny, trendy, and unique post. And the people highly appreciate, like, and share that post, i.e., your post goes viral. This marketing strategy is called Viral Marketing.

Viral Marketing may take any of the forms. These may include email messages, e-books, video clips, images, web pages, or text messages.

It is a fantastic way to brand your website and drive massive traffic to your site.

And the best part,

You can do this by spending little time and money on your marketing communication.

 

• Inbound Marketing:

 

It refers to a technique of drawing visitors and potential customers to your blog or website. This you can do by using a combination of online marketing strategies – most commonly Content Marketing, Social Media Marketing, SEO, SEM, and Branding.

According to Wikipedia, in the Inbound Marketing process, there are four main steps: Attract, Convert, Close, and Delight.

First, you attract your potential customers to your blog or website with the help of relevant and useful content.

Once they arrive on your blog or site, you try to convert them into prospects. You just need to ask them for their emails in exchange for something valuable like an e-book or a tutorial video.

You can close your prospects, i.e., convert them into customers using some tools like Call-to-Action, CRM (Customer Relationship Management), or nurturing automation.

And finally, you have to delight your customers by continuing to provide valuable and relevant content.

 

Offline Digital Marketing:

 

To complete your Digital Marketing strategy, Offline Digital Marketing can’t be dispensed with.

There are four most common types of Offline Digital Marketing – Enhanced Offline Marketing, Radio Marketing, Television Marketing, and Phone Marketing.

In Enhanced Offline Marketing, electronic devices are used to enhance the marketing of some businesses.

For example, some restaurants give their customers tabs or iPads to create their orders on.

Radio and TV are also important mediums of advertising. Though they are not as effective as they used to be, they will likely never go away.