Digital marketing is the form of marketing that requires the usage of an electronic device or the internet. According to a research, the number of people using the internet constantly has increased by 5% in just a period of three years. The way people shop has changed a lot compared to the old times and traditional offline marketing is not as effective as it used to be. Marketing is all about connecting with the audience and today, with digital marketing, we connect with the audience where they spend most of their time – the internet.
Here are a few types of digital marketing methods that are used to reach the audience-
Content marketing:
Content marketing is a type of digital marketing that completely focusses on a target audience by creating and distributing content for them. With the ultimate goal to drive profitable customer action, enterprises must aim the content at being relevant, valuable and constant. Moreover, instead of pitching products or services, the enterprise needs to provide relevant and useful content to potential customers in order to solve their issues. Content marketing increases the possibility of an increase in sales, potential and loyal customers and cost-saving methods. A few examples of content marketing include videos, podcasts, white papers, ebooks, blog posts and case studies.
Search Engine Optimization:
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is where certain changes are made to the website design and content in order to make it look more attractive to a search engine. It is the process of getting quality traffic by twerking and updating relevant keywords and phrases for the search engine to recognize it. The SEO process enables an enterprise to make sure that their website ranks high in the search engines by making the relevant changes.
Moreover, it is important that an enterprise drives relevant traffic to its website. For instance, if an enterprise manages to attract huge traffic searching for shoes towards its website that is selling bottles, the traffic will do no good. SEO techniques include researching relevant keywords and adding them into an enterprise’s website copy, optimizing website titles, loading speed, backlinks and description.
Search Engine Marketing:
Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is the form of digital marketing that uses paid methods to increase the visibility of an enterprise’s website in search engines. Earlier, SEM was used for both free and paid traffic but over time, it is now solely used by various organizations and businesses for paid marketing.
To simplify it further, SEM refers to the ads an enterprise puts out there on Google AdWords and Bing Ads. The combination of SEO and SEM increases the possibility of routing quality traffic to your website and further put yourself in front of potential customers that are actively searching for the services you offer.
Social Media Marketing:
Social Media Marketing (SMM) is the form of digital marketing that uses various social media platforms to attract traffic and attention. Nowadays people frequently use social media, this enables enterprises to target potential customers towards their products and services. Enterprises are not only able to increase their exposure but also build a meaningful relationship with their customers.
Business-to-Consumer (B2C) and Software as a Service (SaaS) enterprises benefit the most from SMM as it is mostly about listening to customers, engaging in a conversation and providing valuable content.
Pay-per-click:
Pay-per-click advertising is a form of digital marketing where enterprises pay a fee for every time a person clicks on their advertisement. It is the process of pulling paid traffic towards your website instead of getting them organically via SEO and other methods.
Affiliate marketing:
Affiliate marketing is a popular form of digital marketing where an individual partners up with an enterprise to receive a commission for diverting traffic towards their website. For example, an individual’s blog or website contains the link of an enterprise’s website and the individual receives a commission each time a user makes a purchase using that link.
Television advertising:
The list of the types of digital marketing will never be complete without television advertising, one of the most popular, powerful and effective medium for marketing. On average, people generally spend over five hours in front of the TV and most enterprises utilize that to market their products and services. However, enterprises need to come up with an engaging advertisement which not only takes a lot of time but also requires more funds.