People are logged onto the internet more than ever. With potential customers’ attention increasingly online, businesses have had to follow suit. While that might seem obvious, it’s something that many companies are slow to take on. This aversion to online marketing can be easily explained.
Many companies don’t know how to market to people online. Others, while aware of what digital marketing is, mightn’t understand how to capitalize on it fully. Though it can seem like a complicated area, it can be much simpler once you know what you’re doing.
What Is Digital Marketing?
Digital marketing, sometimes called online marketing, is the process of using certain platforms to advertise to customers. There are various ways that this can be done, such as using social media and email. If it’s done primarily or entirely online, then it’s digital marketing.
There are multiple advantages to this, including:
- Lower Cost: When done well, a digital marketing strategy will be quite affordable, especially when converting leads into new customers.
- Measurable Results: You can’t measure the impact of traditional marketing strategies. With social media and other forms, however, you can analyze and track exactly what works.
- Better Conversion Rates: For many companies, the largest barrier to sales can be geography. Many potential customers might be too far away. With online advertising, though, you can reach and connect with them.
- Customer Loyalty: With social media and other marketing strategies, you can keep in touch with customers. That will build loyalty, which subsequently generates more leads.
Because of those benefits, the majority of companies have taken advantage of online advertising. They also continue to do so, as it’s allowed them to convert leads into customers, which they’ve subsequently turned into repeat business.
That won’t be easy, however. Instead, you’ll need to put time and research into developing a digital marketing strategy. Part of that is determining which types of online marketing you should use. There are several of them that you can consider.
Types Of Digital Marketing
Search Engine Optimization
Search engine optimization (SEO) can be one of the more complicated digital marketing strategies to use. That’s because there can be multiple steps involved, alongside many easy mistakes to make. As a result, many businesses opt to hire an SEO company for it.
SEO is optimizing your website for search engines. Doing so helps them rank better for certain search terms related to your products. Many of your competitors will have this strategy, making it practically essential.
Some areas that you could look at yourself include the title tags, meta descriptions, and your image’s alt tags. While results may take several weeks to be seen, they can be much larger than you’d think.
Content Marketing
Search engine optimization is a specific part of your strategy and falls under what’s known as content marketing. This refers to the creation of any content designed to draw in potential customers and generate leads. There are multiple other components involved in this, however.
The largest of these include videos and images, both of which may be created in-house. Typically, these will be used as assets for other marketing strategies. They can also be used by themselves, however. Content marketing is best used in conjunction with other strategies, such as social media and email advertising.
Visual content such as images and videos are essential to improve your content marketing and overall SEO strategy. Studies show that 85% of businesses use video as a tool to boost SEO, this is why even low-budget startups choose to collaborate with explainer video production companies, as they can use the high-quality content not only to raise brand awareness and create hype and engagement around their services and products but also meet standards set by search engines and achieve top rankings over time.
Social Media Marketing
Social media marketing is one of the most well-known advertising strategies. After all, almost everybody is on at least one social media platform. The largest of these are Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. YouTube and LinkedIn are relatively popular too.
Advertising on these platforms doesn’t mean just posting on them. You’ll have to research where your potential customers are and create a strategy that attracts them to your profile. You’ll then need to encourage engagement and sales. Using this with your content marketing strategy can be quite effective.
In order to make your social media marketing a success, be sure to pick a marketing agency that specializes in your business needs specifically. For example, if you offer crypto services, then a crypto marketing agency is going to be a lot more effective than a generic one.
Pay Per Click Marketing
Pay-per-click marketing is one of the more effective marketing strategies you can use. It’s also one of the more affordable, as you’re only paying for a pre-defined action, i.e. clicking your link. The fact that you can set a strict budget also helps keep costs low.
As the name suggests, PPC is when you post an ad on a platform and only pay for each click on your link. You should always keep track of your PPC campaigns. By doing so, you can adjust when you need to.
If you choose pay per click marketing as a solution for your business, you should consider all the ways in which you can make your adverts look as professional as possible. An eye-catching and relatable advert will have a higher chance of attracting your ideal customer and bringing in more revenue for your business. You might want to try an online advertisement maker as this will allow your ads to stand out online. Think about the brand colors you use as well as catchy copy that speaks directly to your reader. Before you plow a tonne of money into pay per click advertising make sure you have split tested a few different ads to see which one will bring you the best return on your investment.
While you might think that this is a way to essentially buy views, you’ll still need to put the effort in. The page that you add links to, for instance, will need to be optimized for sales. There’s little point in paying for people to visit a page that doesn’t help your company.
Affiliate Marketing
Similar to pay-per-click advertising, you can keep costs low with affiliate marketing, as you only pay when you make a sale. People online, either influencers or professional marketers, will be given a link to promote your products.
Should any sales be made through that link, then the influencer is given a percentage of the sale. As such, you wouldn’t lose any money if you don’t make a sale. The ‘affiliate links’ that are used for this will typically be placed on third-party platforms and websites.
As influencers will have a financial incentive to promote the link – and your products – then you could see it as relatively free advertising.
Native Advertising
Native advertising is a relatively recent concept and involves making an ad look like the surrounding content. Typically, this content will be informative and engaging, which potential customers tend to like. As a result, they’re more likely to buy from any ads that have been blended into the content.
The concept was created because many consumers had grown tired of online ads. These were often seen as intrusive and annoying. As a result, potential customers are less likely to buy from them. Native advertising lets you get around this, as your ad won’t look like an ad.
Since you’re providing value to your potential customer with the surrounding content, then you’ll also boost overall leads. After all, if people realize why they need a specific product, they’re more likely to buy it.
Marketing Automation
Marketing automation is one of the newer forms of digital advertising. This involves using various tools that collect and analyze customer information while also designing marketing campaigns. These tools can then be used to track your performance and post at key times for your audience.
Depending on the tools you use, you should also expect a certain amount of personalization with your marketing strategies. Email marketing is a great example of this, as you can pre-fill certain parts of an email.
That saves you a significant amount of time without detracting from the quality of your campaign. The fact that you can create and implement these strategies better and easier makes it a vital aspect of any digital marketing campaign.
Email Marketing
Email marketing is one of the easiest digital marketing strategies to understand and implement. In its basics, it’s sending emails to potential customers that promote your products or services.
You’ll need people to opt-in for this, although the initial effort will return an acceptable investment in the future. There are multiple ways you can take advantage of this. Using images, text, and possibly videos will help promote your company while building a relationship with your customers.
In Conclusion
The concept of digital marketing can confuse many business owners. Broken down, however, it can make much more sense than many people realize. Once you’ve taken the time to understand online marketing and its various types, you can use it to benefit your company.
