What is Digital Marketing and Types of Digital Marketing Strategy

Any form of promotion that uses electronic devices and can be used by marketing experts to disseminate promotional messages and track their efficacy along the customer's journey is considered electronic promotion. By definition, digital marketing refers to any form of advertising that takes place in the digital realm, such as on a computer, smartphone, tablet, etc. It comes in many shapes and sizes, including video on the web, banner ads, SEO, PPC, social media updates, and more. The term "traditional marketing" is often used to describe methods like magazine ads, billboards, and direct mail in contrast to digital marketing. Somewhat paradoxically, television is often grouped with more conventional forms of advertising.

Did you know that more than 7 in 10 Americans use the internet regularly? Plus, 43% log on more than once per day, and 26% are "almost constantly" connected.

The percentages increase even further when considering only mobile internet users. More than eighty-nine percent of U.S. residents go online at least once per day, with 31 percent staying connected for hours at a time. It's crucial for businesses to have a strong online advertising presence in order to capitalize on the growing number of customers who are searching for products and services just like theirs.

A digital marketing strategy lets you reach out to current customers and potential new ones through a variety of online mediums, including social media, pay-per-click advertising, organic search engine optimization, and email marketing. Because of this, you can establish credibility, delight customers, and attract new ones.

 

What is digital marketing?

When businesses use the internet and other forms of digital communication to reach out to potential customers, this practice is known as digital marketing or online marketing. Email, social media, and online ads are just the beginning; now consider text and multimedia messages as another avenue for spreading your message.

The term "digital marketing" is commonly used to refer to any promotional effort that makes use of electronic means of contact.

 

Marketing in response to consumer interest, or digital marketing?

The terms "digital marketing" and "inbound marketing" are often used interchangeably, and with good reason. Email and online content are two of the many inbound marketing tools that are also used in digital marketing. Both serve the same overarching purpose, which is to attract and convert leads into paying customers at various stages of the sales funnel. But the two methods look at the tool and the outcome in very different ways.

The goal of digital marketing is to increase conversions by using a variety of digital channels and tools. Digital marketing for a brand may involve using a variety of channels, or it may concentrate on just one. A company may focus exclusively on social media and email marketing, for example, and neglect other forms of digital promotion.

Conversely, inbound marketing takes a more all-encompassing approach. It starts with the end in mind, examines the tools at hand to figure out which will most efficiently reach the target audience, and then decides when in the sales funnel that should occur. Take, for instance, the case of increasing website traffic in order to increase the number of prospects and leads produced. Search engine optimization (SEO) can be prioritized during the planning stages of a content marketing strategy, leading to better optimized content across the board.

Digital and inbound marketing are two distinct strategies, but there's no need for marketing professionals to pick and choose between them. In fact, they complement each other very well. To ensure that all of your digital marketing channels are working together to achieve your business goals, you should implement an inbound marketing strategy.

 

What are the benefits of using digital marketing?

Your company can benefit from advertising of any kind. The widespread availability of digital channels, however, has boosted the significance of digital marketing. In April of 2022, there were 5 billion people online around the world.

It is possible to reach your demographic through a variety of digital marketing channels, from social media to SMS. In addition, the start-up costs for digital marketing are low, making it a particularly attractive option for businesses with limited budgets.

 

B2B versus B2C digital marketing

Both business-to-business and business-to-consumer companies can benefit from digital marketing, but the two sectors have vastly different ideals. This article delves into the specifics of B2B and B2C digital marketing strategies.

  • As a result, sales cycles for B2B clients are typically longer than those for consumer businesses. Relationship-building tactics are more successful with these customers than the more transactional approaches used with B2C clients.
  • Skilled B2B digital marketers present compelling arguments and data to sway business-to-business buyers and sellers. More often than not, the goal of B2C content is to make the consumer "feel good" about making a purchase.
  • Most B2B decisions necessitate the involvement of more than one person. The most effective promotional materials for swaying these kinds of choices are ones that are easily disseminated and downloaded. Retail consumer

It goes without saying that every rule has its exceptions. Content from a business-to-consumer firm selling an expensive good like a car or computer might be more serious and informative. Therefore, whether you're selling to other businesses or to consumers, your digital marketing efforts should always be directed at your core audience.

Look at who you already have as customers to help guide your online advertising efforts. By doing so, you increase the likelihood that your advertising will reach its target audience.

 

Types of digital marketing

When you consider all the different ways people can connect with one another online, it becomes clear that digital marketing is a vast and varied field. Let's take a look at some of the most important categories of digital marketing strategies.

Effective Optimization for Search Engines

Technically speaking, SEO is not a type of marketing but rather a method of marketing. The art and science of optimizing a website so that search engines will prioritize it over others is what The Balance calls SEO.

What really matters in SEO is the "art and science" behind it. To get the best possible position on a search engine results page, SEO experts must carefully consider a wide range of factors (SERP).

To optimize a website for search engines in the present day, it is necessary to take into account the following factors:

  • How involved users are with the content
  • Mobile-friendliness
  • Amount and quality of links pointing to your site

Technical SEO, or the optimization of your site's back-end, is just as important as the aforementioned factors. Concerns such as slow page loads and broken links are included in this category. If you work on your site's technical SEO, you can make it easier for search engines to crawl your content.

Optimization for search engines is both a science and an art due to the need for strategic consideration of these factors.

The end game is to make it onto the first page of Google's search results. This makes it so that people looking for your brand can easily find the products or services you offer. Digital marketers often zero in on Google because it is the dominant search engine worldwide.

There is no reliable metric or set of rules in SEO for achieving high search engine rankings. Given the frequent algorithm updates made by Google and competing search engines, it is impossible to make reliable forecasts. Instead, focus on measuring and learning from your page's analytics so you can adjust your approach accordingly.

 

Content marketing

You can't have a well-optimized page if you ignore the quality of the content you're presenting in the first place. SEO is therefore crucial to content marketing, the dissemination of useful and relevant content to an intended audience.

The purpose of content marketing, like that of any other marketing strategy, is to increase the percentage of visitors who become paying customers. But it does so in a way that is distinct from more traditional forms of commercial promotion. Offering free, valuable content such as:

  • Blog posts
  • E-books
  • Newsletters
  • Video or audio transcripts
  • Whitepapers
  • Infographics

Statistics show that content marketing is important:

  • Eighty-four percent of consumers say they expect brands to provide them with engaging and informative content.
  • Sixty-two percent of businesses with more than 5,000 employees publish new content every day.
  • An overwhelming majority of marketers (92%) say that content is highly valued at their organization.

Despite its efficacy, content marketing presents some unique challenges. For their content to be successful in inbound marketing, writers need to not only attract readers who will then interact with the brand through reading, sharing, and comments, but also rank well in search engine results. Content that is both timely and useful has the potential to forge lasting bonds with stakeholders at every stage of the pipeline process.

Finding out who you're writing for will help you produce content that is both interesting and informative for that group specifically. Is there a specific audience that you want to reach with your content promotion efforts? Understanding your target demographic is essential before deciding what content to produce for them. Content marketing can make use of a wide variety of media, such as videos, blogs, printable worksheets, and more.

Always keep content marketing best practices in mind no matter what kind of content you're making. Creating content that meets these criteria entails paying attention to details like grammar and spelling as well as making sure the piece is straightforward, easy to read, and informative. Readers should be directed to the next step in the sales process, whether that's a signup page or a free consultation with a sales representative.

 

Social media marketing

The purpose of social media advertising is to spread the word about your company and generate buzz online. Promoting your business through social media allows you to spread awareness of your company's name, goods, services, and even values and ethos. Focusing on social media marketing can pay off because billions of people use these sites every day.

The most popular social media marketing channels include Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, with LinkedIn and YouTube coming in a close second and third. Your goals and the people you're trying to reach will dictate which social media platforms are most effective for advertising your business. It's a good idea to target your audience on LinkedIn if you're trying to find new leads for your FinTech startup, for instance, because so many professionals in the sector frequent the site. However, if you have a business-to-consumer (B2C) brand aimed at a younger demographic, you may find more success by advertising on Instagram.

The popularity of social media marketing can be attributed to the fact that it encourages engagement on the part of the target audience. Among B2C digital marketers, it has a 96% approval rating and is quickly gaining traction in the B2B sector as well. According to research by the Content Marketing Institute, a majority of B2B content marketers (61%) have increased their social media presence in 2015.

Built into social media marketing are metrics that measure user interaction, which are gold for gauging campaign success. Number of shares, comments, or total clicks to your website are all possible metrics, but it's up to you to determine which ones are most important.

Your social media marketing strategy may not even aim to generate direct sales. When promoting themselves on social media, many companies prefer to spark conversations with their target demographics than directly solicit sales. This is especially prevalent among brands aimed at a mature demographic or selling services or goods that are not suitable for on-the-spot purchases. Everything hinges on the company's social media marketing objectives.

Developing a successful social media marketing strategy requires adhering to established standards. Best practices for promoting your business on social media include the following:

  • Make posts that people actually want to read Respond to feedback and inquiries with grace
  • Plan out your social media updates in advance.
  • Put up your content at the appropriate time
  • Boost your advertising campaigns by staffing them with social media managers.
  • Learn who you're talking to and where they hang out on social media.

Look at how MailChimp stacks up against other free social media management tools to see how we can improve your social media strategy.

Pay-per-click marketing

When using pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, you only have to pay when one of your online ads actually gets clicked. Simply put, you don't have to set aside a fixed amount of money each month to invest in targeted advertising across different platforms on the web; rather, you'll only have to fork over money for the ads that get clicked on. Managing when and where your ad appears to potential customers is more difficult.

As the most popular search engine, it makes sense that many businesses would use Google Ads for search engine marketing, or PPC. When there is empty real estate on a SERP (search engine results page), the engine will conduct what amounts to a live auction to fill it. Each available ad is given a ranking by an algorithm that takes into account several factors.

  • Ad quality
  • Keyword relevance
  • Landing page quality
  • Bid amount

When a user enters a search term into a search engine, paid placement ads are prioritized based on the aforementioned criteria.

A PPC campaign's goals can be broken down into one or more specific steps that users are expected to take after engaging with an ad. Conversions are the term for these events, which can be either transactional or non-transactional in nature. A conversion can be anything from signing up for your newsletter to calling your home office to making a purchase.

With digital marketing, you can monitor the success of your campaign by tracking the number of conversions that match your predetermined goals.

 

Affiliate marketing

The term "affiliate marketing" refers to a type of online advertising in which one party benefits financially from promoting the products or services of another. The procedure is the same whether you are the promoter or the company working with the promoter.

An arrangement based on the distribution of earnings is what makes this system function. When you successfully persuade a customer to buy the product you're promoting, you receive a commission. A commission is paid by the store to the affiliate who brought in the sale.

One strategy employed by some affiliate marketers is to provide reviews of a single company's products on a blog or other independent website. Others have ties to a wide network of suppliers with whom they work regularly.

One must make initial contact with the desired party in order to join as an affiliate or find an existing one. In addition to using digital channels designed to connect affiliates with retailers, you can launch or join a program that focuses on a single retailer.

There are many things you can do as a retailer to make your affiliate program more attractive to potential promoters. You must supply your affiliates with the resources they require to achieve their goals. That consists of marketing resources, such as templates and incentives for great results.

 

Native advertising

Digital marketing is sneaking into native advertising. The point is to make the advertisement seem less like an advertisement by making it blend in with the content around it.

Modern consumer skepticism of advertisements inspired the development of native advertising. If consumers learn that an advertisement's creator also foots the bill for its distribution, they may reasonably assume that the ad is biased and choose to ignore it.

A native ad sidesteps this prejudice by providing value in the form of information or entertainment before promoting anything.

Always make sure your native advertisements are properly labeled. Consider the use of "promoted" or "sponsored." Readers may spend considerable time interacting with the content before realizing it is advertising if the telltale signs are hidden.

Customers are more likely to trust your content and your brand if they know what to expect. Ads that look like they belong on the page are called "native ads," and they're meant to be less intrusive than banner ads without being misleading.

 

Influencer marketing

A form of affiliate marketing, "influencer marketing" entails partnering with someone who already has a sizable fan base, such as a celebrity, expert in your field, or content creator, in exchange for increased visibility for both parties. Many times, these influential people will promote your goods and services to their followers across multiple social media platforms.

Influencer marketing is an effective strategy for both business-to-business and business-to-consumer companies. However, because they are effectively representing your brand, it is crucial to collaborate only with trustworthy influencers. The credibility of your brand can be damaged if the wrong kind of influencer talks about it.

 

Marketing automation

Digital marketing campaigns are made more effective and more relevant through the use of marketing automation software. Instead of spending time and energy on tedious tasks, you can concentrate on developing a sound strategy for your digital marketing campaigns.

The level of interaction between you and your target audience can be greatly enhanced by using marketing automation, which may initially seem like an unnecessary expense.

The numbers suggest:

 

  • Nearly all Americans (89%) find the option to personalize their purchases to be at least somewhat appealing.
  • With regards to the brands they interact with, 81% of consumers want to feel more understood.
  • However, while 77% of businesses acknowledge the importance of real-time personalization, 60% report having difficulty implementing it.
  • Businesses can keep up with customers' growing demand for customization thanks to marketing automation. Allows companies to: Collect and analyze data about consumers Construct more specific advertising campaigns
  • Publish content and contact subscribers via email at prime times to increase exposure and sales of your products and services in the digital sphere.

Engagement (or lack thereof) with a message is used by many marketing automation tools to determine when and how to contact a prospect again. With this degree of real-time personalization, you can effectively develop a unique marketing strategy for each customer with little to no extra effort.

Mailchimp's marketing automation features enable you to connect with your target audience in a variety of ways, such as through automated responses to their actions, in-app notifications, and automated sending of emails on specific dates.

 

Email marketing

Email marketing's premise is straightforward: contact potential customers with a sales pitch and wait for a response. The actual doing of it is where the complexity lies. Your emails should only be sent if you know they will be read. To achieve this, you will need an opt-in list that:

  • customizes the message down to the last detail, from the subject line to the body
  • Makes it crystal clear what kinds of emails the subscriber can expect to receive.
  • Include an easy way to opt out of future mailings in your email signature.
  • includes both commercial and promotional email integration

You need your campaign to be seen as more than just a promotional tool by your target audience.

In and of itself, email marketing has been shown to be an effective strategy. Nearly nine out of ten professionals surveyed cited it as their top source of new business.

Email marketing is a great digital marketing strategy, but it can be improved by using marketing automation to better target specific customer groups and send messages at optimal times.

Here are some pointers for creating effective email marketing campaigns if you're thinking about implementing this strategy:

 

  • Market to the right people with the help of audience segmentation.
  • Make sure mobile users can easily read your emails.
  • Develop a plan for your campaign's timing.
  • Make use of split-testing

Mobile marketing

Mobile marketing, a form of digital marketing, involves communicating with consumers via their mobile devices (smartphones and tablets). This can be done in a number of ways, including through standard text messages and multimedia message service (MMS), mobile app alerts, and social media notifications.

It is essential that everything be made mobile-friendly. If you want to reach the majority of Americans, who now have smartphones (85% according to the Pew Research Center), your marketing efforts will benefit greatly from developing content for both desktop and mobile devices.

 

The advantages of online advertising

A large part of digital marketing's rise to prominence can be attributed to the sheer number of people it can reach. It also has a number of other benefits that can help your advertising efforts. These are just some of the many advantages of online advertising.

Extensive coverage of the globe

Assuming you haven't restricted access to your ad based on location, anyone in the world can view your online ad. This facilitates expanding your company's market penetration and fostering relationships with a wider audience across various online mediums.

Low overhead costs

Comparatively speaking, the cost of digital marketing is much lower and it reaches a much larger audience than more conventional forms of advertising. Traditional marketing methods such as newspaper ads, television spots, and other media can have high fixed costs. Additionally, you have less say over whether or not your intended audiences actually see your messages.

If you're using digital marketing, you only need one blog post to start attracting readers while your site is live. Using email marketing, you can easily create a campaign that sends out messages to specific groups of customers on a predetermined schedule.

Digital marketing allows for much greater customization and interaction with customers for the same amount of money spent on advertisements.

 

Quantifiable results

Your marketing strategy's efficacy can be gauged by calculating the number of new customers it brings in and the amount of money they spend. However, how can you achieve this with an analog marketing approach?

The tried-and-true approach involves inquiring of each customer, "How did you find us?"

Sadly, that isn't applicable in all fields. Unfortunately, few businesses are able to conduct in-depth interviews with their clientele, and survey results aren't always reliable.

The ability to track the success of a digital marketing campaign is a breeze. Conversions, such as email opens, website visits, and purchases, are automatically recorded by digital marketing software and platforms.

 

Easier personalization

Gathering customer information is easier with digital marketing than with traditional methods. The precision and specificity of digitally collected data is generally much higher.

Suppose you run a financial services company and you want to send out coupons to people who have shown interest in your offerings by browsing your website. Seeing as how personalization of the offer to the customer's preferences increases the likelihood of a positive response, you decide to prepare two campaigns. Both target millennial business owners who may be interested in your retirement plans and young families who may be interested in your life insurance policies.

Without some kind of automated tracking, how would you ever be able to collect all of that information? How many call logs would have to be examined? How many different profiles of consumers are there? As for whether or not the brochure was read, how do you know?

All of this data is easily accessible through digital marketing.

 

Stronger bonds with clients

Using digital marketing, you can have constant two-way conversations with your clientele. Most importantly, it facilitates communication between the two of you.

Prepare a social media plan. If your intended audience reads your latest post, that's fantastic; if they engage with it in some way, such as by commenting or sharing, that's even better! When more people talk about your product, it raises its profile and generates more interest.

Clients will appreciate the interactive features as well. As they become more invested in your brand's story, you'll see an increase in engagement. An increased attachment to the brand may result from the feeling of personal investment.

 

Quick and simple calculations

Customers can respond instantly to your ads and content when you use digital marketing. With conventional advertising, the quickest response you can expect is a phone call shortly after someone sees your ad. When else would someone be able to contact a business while washing the dishes, commuting on the highway, or entering data into a computer system?

They can immediately take the next step in the sales process after reading a blog post or clicking on a link provided by digital marketing. Though they may not buy from you right away, they will likely continue to follow your brand and provide you with additional opportunities for engagement.

 

An outline for developing a web-based advertising plan

For many startups and first-time digital marketers, learning the ropes can be a daunting task. You can, however, use the following guidelines as the basis for developing a successful digital marketing strategy that will boost your brand's visibility, readership, and revenue.

Set SMART goals

Every successful marketing campaign starts with a set of goals that are SMART — that is, they are specific; they can be measured; they are relevant; they are timely. Despite the fact that you probably have a long list of objectives, it's important to prioritize those that will actually help your strategy advance.

Know who you're talking to.

It is important to know who you're trying to reach before launching a marketing campaign. You can define your target audience by characteristics like age, gender, demographics, or spending habits, and it will be the group you aim to reach with your campaign. Knowing your audience well will help you choose the best digital marketing channels and tailor your content to them.

Create a budget

Having a plan for how much you want to spend on digital marketing helps you avoid throwing away money on strategies that might not work. Before settling on a spending plan, think about your SMART objectives and the digital platform you intend to use.

Consider the various online marketing avenues.

There are a wide variety of digital marketing avenues at your disposal, including but not limited to content marketing, pay-per-click advertising, and social media marketing. A lot of thought must go into deciding which digital marketing channels to employ based on your intended outcomes, target demographics, and available resources.

Adjust your marketing strategy.

After the campaign is complete, you should analyze the data to determine what went well and where adjustments need to be made. This data can be used to tweak future marketing initiatives. Digital tools and programs make it possible to acquire this information in a streamlined dashboard format. Mailchimp's consolidated reporting on digital marketing analytics makes it easy to monitor multiple campaigns at once.

When done correctly, digital marketing can spur economic expansion.

It's imperative that digital marketing be at the center of almost any modern business's advertising strategy. Never before has there been such a reliable method of keeping in touch with customers, and nothing else offers the level of customization that digital data can. The more you open yourself up to the possibilities of digital marketing, the more your business will flourish.

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