Blog Summary

Digital marketing is all about promoting and selling products and services online. It can also be used for public relations and advertising campaigns. Some common strategies for digital marketing are email marketing, social media marketing, content marketing, pay-per-click advertising, search engine optimization (SEO), affiliate marketing, and influencer marketing.

Introduction

Building a successful business means setting yourself apart from the competition. This is especially challenging when attempting to build your customer base online. It means more than just creating a website. The right combination of digital marketing strategies is crucial to having your products and services found online. Every business, from startup to established, needs digital marketing in this competitive business environment to gain customers and increase profits. Once you familiarize yourself with various marketing strategies, potential pathways to business growth become evident. Below are seven strategies to consider.

1. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

SEO is a set of strategies designed to increase your business’s visibility in search engines. Google is by far the most popular, and hence, the focus, of search engines. Most people are likely to click on websites in the first two pages of results of their searches. This means if your site is not optimized for the first few pages, it is essentially unfindable by the majority of your target market.

SEO strategies include a variety of aspects, including technical improvements and backlinks. Quality content and a good user experience also improve search visibility.

Why it matters: Relevant organic traffic, qualified leads, and long-term business growth are a few advantages of SEO.

2. Social Media Marketing

Social media marketing (SMM) uses platforms like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and LinkedIn to promote products or services. It allows for interaction between an audience and a business.

A whole industry has grown from SMM, so the strategy continues to evolve. Traditionally, ads are paid per click.

3. Content Marketing

Content marketing is the creation of informative and helpful content to engage and educate a potential audience. Blogs, articles, videos, infographics, and e-books are just a few of the many mediums this can be accomplished through.

Content marketing is useful because it informs potential customers about a product or service without the business having to push a sale.

This marketing strategy helps to build and maintain credibility and further supports SEO efforts. Most importantly, it assists customers in understanding the core value of the product or service.

4. Pay Per Click (PPC) Advertising

With pay per click (PPC) advertising, businesses are able to advertise their product or service through sponsored links on search engines and other digital platforms.

For example, with Google Ads, businesses can create ads to show to users who are searching for their products or services.

PPC marketing is beneficial to a business because it is relatively easy to set up and there are no limits to the amount of traffic a business can get. However, to be successful, a business has to continuously monitor conversion rates and make sure the campaigns are worthwhile.

5. Email Marketing

Email marketing is a way to send digital messages to a group of people via email. The messages can contain product offers, news and updates, and reminders.

Messages can also be personalized to offer reminders about an abandoned online shopping cart.

Email marketing has many benefits to a business because it costs very little to nothing to set up. Email marketing has very high open rates and conversion rates. However, for the best results, businesses must send messages often.

6. Affiliate Marketing

Another marketing strategy is to enlist a partner to promote a product or service for a commission.

The partner can use their website, blog, or social media to post a review, comparison, or article about the product or service.

They can promote the product or service to a specific audience that may have an interest in the offering. This is a low-cost marketing strategy because there is no charge to the merchant unless a sale is made.

7. Influencer Marketing

This type of marketing focuses on working with individual content creators to promote a brand or a product based on their audience and market influence.

These creators are partners in various forms of content marketing based on an influencer marketing agreement. Oftentimes, the best partnerships are based on relevance of the audience and the alignment of the brand rather than the number of followers.

Why it matters: A successful influencer marketing campaign helps build awareness of the brand and/or product and potentially allows customers the opportunity to evaluate the product.

Conclusion

Knowing the different types of digital marketing can benefit a business, as each type allows customers to be reached in multiple ways. Several of the strategies discussed provide potential means to expand a business and succeed in a competitive marketplace, for example: paid search marketing, content and social media marketing, email marketing, affiliate and influencer marketing, and last but not least, SEO.

FAQs

1. What are the 7 main types of digital marketing?

The seven types of digital marketing are: search engine optimization (SEO), social media, content, pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, email, affiliate and influencer marketing.

2. Which of the seven types of digital marketing are best for small businesses?

SEO, content marketing, and social media marketing are typically the best starting places.

3. Is digital marketing expensive?

Not necessarily. Free to low-cost options include: SEO, content marketing, and social media marketing.

4. How long does it take for digital marketing efforts to produce results?

Paid advertising efforts might start showing traffic soon enough, whereas SEO and content marketing efforts will need at least a few months to produce significant results.

5. Is it possible for a business to engage in more than one type of digital marketing?

It is possible. The use of SEO, content marketing, social media marketing, email marketing, and paid advertising allows a business to have a wider range of digital marketing efforts.