The ever-evolving digital landscape has and will continue to change how we market our businesses online. Traditional forms of marketing and advertising have now been superseded by online marketing and the various types of digital marketing techniques that enable audience reach and targeted customer engagement like never before.
Summary : Digital marketing is the process of using digital channels such as websites, social media, and search engines to connect with and reach out to customers. There are various forms of digital marketing, including search engine optimization (SEO), search engine marketing (SEM), social media marketing (SMM), content marketing, influencer marketing, pay-per-click advertising (PPC), affiliate marketing, email marketing, and trend marketing etc. SEO involves optimizing a website’s pages and blog posts to rank higher on search engine result pages, while SEM uses paid advertising on search engine result pages. SMM is about using social media platforms to both connect and engage with an audience, while content marketing involves creating useful and relevant content for a target audience. Influencer marketing looks to collaborate with people who have the ability to influence an audience by promoting a brand, and PPC advertising uses paid ads that cost a business based on how many times the ads get clicked. Affiliate marketing involves paying a sales commission for every sale that can be attributed back to a specific source, while email marketing is all about using email to promote products or services to an already identified use base.
Whether you’re learning the digital marketing basics for beginners or in the process of mastering the art of digital marketing, constantly learning, researching and staying in the know about trendy marketing ideas for online engagement and the latest trends in digital marketing and advertising is of paramount importance in order to stay ahead of the competition.
When exploring the different forms of digital marketing strategies such as SEO, social media marketing, content marketing, influencer marketing, PPC advertising, email marketing, affiliate marketing and more, it is necessary to understand that all of these are essential components each serving a unique purpose in driving a brands digital presence and business growth.
While budget constraints may impede the use of every available method, digital marketers need to identify the right digital strategy for any given business and which options can deliver the best results for the available marketing spend, when implementing the best digital marketing methods for small businesses. Becoming a successful digital marketer is ultimately all about balancing organic and paid social media marketing efforts.
Overview of various digital marketing techniques
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
How to improve website ranking on Google, Bing and other search engines? This is the perennial question on every small business owner’s mind. As a search engine optimization guide for beginners, SEO should be simply understood as including words that an audience will type into search engines when looking to find solutions to certain questions that they may have. In order to gain high ranking visibility for any particular business niche’s Search Engine Results Pages (SERP’s), digital marketers need to look at creating effective SEO strategies for higher SERP rankings, such as extensive keyword research, on-page optimization, and link building strategies.
Creating valuable content for your audience goes hand in hand with your keyword strategy, as these keywords need to then be used within the created content such as a blog post or article. This process, which is known as optimizing blog posts for SEO and content marketing can help businesses continuously climb the rankings for any given business niche.
Social Media Marketing (SMM)
Creating a community and successfully building up an audience on social media can be a very rewarding digital marketing exercise that can drive brand awareness, generate leads, and foster lasting relationships with a target audience. Social media marketing tips for businesses in general like creating engaging posts and targeted advertising, to social media marketing tips for small businesses such as focusing specifically on building a niche loyal community, give businesses the opportunity to interact and engage with their audience at any given time using both organic or paid promotions and campaigns.
Paid social media promotions can include, paid social media ads, paid partnerships with other brands, influencer marketing etc. Utilizing creative trend marketing strategies for social media platforms and using influencers along with those current trends is a good example of using social media marketing for business growth.
Content Marketing
If researching and finding the right keywords used by your audience to seek solutions to their problems is the key to your digital marketing and SEO strategy success, valuable content creation is the door you need to unlock to attain that success. The buzzword is ‘engagement’ and the only way to achieve that is through the creation and dissemination of high quality content that is consistent and regular. Content can be in many forms such as an interesting video or social media post, informative blog content or newsletters, eye catching infographics or entertaining podcasts.
Building a content marketing strategy around target audience needs, should always strive to provide value, educate, and entertain that audience. Creating valuable content for target audience engagement can turn casual information seeking visitors into loyal followers and future potential customers. Similar to content marketing ideas for marketing agencies such as industry reports or case studies to showcase expertise, brands and businesses need to create content that positions them as thought leaders in their field or niche by building trust with their audience.
Influencer Marketing
Collaborating with individuals who have a large following on social media and using their influence to promote a brand or business online, requires influencer marketing planning and strategy that aligns with the digital marketing goals of the business such as brand awareness, engagement, lead generation, or sales. Taking into consideration the authenticity and relevance of the individual in terms of the content they produce and more importantly if they can resonate with the business’s target audience while complying with brand guidelines is the most important factor to take into consideration when researching to find influencers for a brand.
Working with micro influencers who have a small community of highly engaged followers, selecting influencers who have the ability to tell a story through their content and encourage their followers to create User Generated Content (UGC) are some other influencer marketing best practices and examples to take into consideration when strategizing on how to leverage influencer marketing for niche audiences. Influencers are also the best option for businesses who want to utilize current Social Media trends to promote their brand, as the use of influencers in these promotions will bring much higher brand exposure when exploring trend marketing tactics for online visibility.
Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising
PPC advertising gives businesses and brands the ability to display ads in front of highly targeted audiences by placing ads on search engines, social media platforms, and other websites. Understanding PPC advertising concepts and creating a pay per click advertising setup for google ads can open up opportunities for precise targeting and measurable results. The keyword research done during the SEO optimization phase of content marketing can be used here to place paid ads online whenever a target audience member performs a search using any one of the identified keywords.
The steps to create a successful PPC advertising campaign will include defining campaign goals, identifying target audience needs, keyword research, competitor analysis etc. The benefits of PPC advertising in digital campaigns unlike organic SEO will bring immediate results and opportunities to measure performance, so brands marketing with PPC can quickly gauge on what is working and take data driven decisions for better ROI.
Mastering paid advertising on search engines like Google requires an understanding of Google Analytics and the concept of conversion tracking, where leads and customers click on the ads, and then go on to perform a specific action on a website, mobile app or landing page. A huge advantage of PPC data is that it gives advertisers the opportunity to use identified audience information such as website visits to then re-target them with ads on social media. Understanding PPC advertising concepts will involve a deep dive into bidding strategies for PPC ads such as manual CPC, automated bidding, or target CPA, the selected strategy plays a significant role in the placement of ads on search engine results pages (SERPs) and other advertising platforms.
Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing has been for some time and still is a popular topic of how to make money online. Paying out sales commission for every sale that can be attributed back to the source that initiated the sale is how affiliate marketing works, and in many instances the attribution of the sale will be tracked through an individual link unique to each affiliate marketer.
Measuring the ROI of affiliate marketing programs will monitor the usual marketing metrics for performance measurement such as revenue generated, conversion rate, cost of acquisition, click through rate and customer lifetime value etc, however, affiliate marketing also brings indirect benefits, such as increased brand visibility and audience growth. Affiliate marketing programs for niche websites provide a lucrative opportunity to earn commissions by promoting other external businesses, products or services, through the embedding of unique affiliate links within your content.
Email Marketing
Email marketing helps brands communicate with an audience that is predominantly already in the sales funnel of the business, be it at the top, middle or bottom of the funnel. This requires a strategic messaging approach that is regulated in terms of email frequency, providing value and promoting product or service offerings that customers will actually consider for purchase. Building an email marketing list from scratch is a daunting task that will require various lead generation techniques such as social media campaigns coupled with website or landing page opt-in forms, hosting webinars and events, joining networking sessions and running contests and giveaways. Using email marketing templates and workflows that are partially automated will help streamline email communications for consistency.
A simple email marketing workflow explained will include a welcome email, an email about an exciting feature that is free, an email that offers a generous discount on additional features etc. If a business is working on maximizing email marketing for brand communication, then having a clear brand tone of voice that reflects the personality and values of the brand is extremely important as this will create an impression and brand recognition.
Audience segmenting, message personalization, visual consistency and compelling subject lines can all help with maximizing a brands email marketing effort. If using email marketing to nurture leads and boost sales, then the business must ensure that the individuals on the email list have opted into receiving communications from the business as well as an easy option to unsubscribe from future email messages. Automated and personalized emails, clears calls to action (CTA), integrating a customer relationship management (CRM) system and the implementation of a lead scoring method that ranks leads based on their probability of conversion are some of the other ways of using email marketing to nurture leads and boost sales.
Trend Marketing
From the different types of digital marketing strategies available to a business, using trend marketing tactics for online visibility is an exciting option that helps keep the brand fresh and relevant in the eyes of the target audience. Being the first to incorporate the latest trends in digital marketing and advertising creatively into your business or brand’s messaging, can leave a lasting impression on your audience.
If a brand is looking at how to leverage influencer marketing to promote its business online, then a good starting point that can deliver great brand exposure is to get influencers to create content around the latest social media trends and topics. Leveraging trending hashtags and participating in popular challenges as well as creating content that aligns with trending topics or current discussions on social media platforms gives businesses the opportunity to ride the trend and accumulate quick digital marketing growth.
Becoming a successful digital marketer: tips and strategies
Becoming a successful digital marketer requires a solid understanding of the core concepts such as SEO, Social Media, Content and Email marketing. Creating a personal brand, a website, social media presence and a blog with interesting content is a great way to learn the digital marketing basics for beginners. Networking with other digital marketers and participating in industry events, workshops and online forums as well as constantly learning and staying up to date on the latest digital marketing trends, tools, and techniques will help you acquire new skills and learn the profession.
Understanding PPC advertising concepts and how to gain brand exposure for a business online fast using paid media, is a great skill to have as a digital marketer. Acquiring SEO optimized blog writing skills, as well as graphic design and video production skills will pivot you as a content creator and push you ahead of the rest. Gaining knowledge on the aspect of real-time performance measurement in digital marketing as well as having the ability of measuring digital marketing success with analytics that can then be translated into data driven digital marketing growth, is the ultimate goal of being a successful digital marketer.
In conclusion, becoming a successful digital marketer takes dedication and strategic planning, our tips and strategies along with our detailed guide about the various types of digital marketing strategies for you to utilize, will help you on your journey. Remember, consistency, creativity, and data-driven decision making is the key to your success as a digital marketer.
