For most of us, when we hear digital marketing we think of SEO (Search Engine Optimization), content, and social media. While they are essential parts of digital marketing, there are actually more ways to market your products and services digitally and sometimes the techniques are too obscure and unconventional for novice digital marketers to try or even know in the first place.
In this article, we talk about the different types of digital marketing to learn which will work the best for your business and for you to expand your knowledge about marketing approaches altogether.
Brief history of digital marketing
The term “digital marketing” was first coined in 1990 during the launch of the first search engine Archie but even before this, people are already starting to earmark digital marketing as the next revolution in advertising through continuous development of computer and network systems in the 80s. After Archie comes several search engines such as Hotbot and Alexa that lead to even larger prominence of the Internet and its digital elements. By 1995, 16 million people are using the Internet, making it a perfect place for digital marketing campaigns.
At the turn of the new millennium, the smaller search engines became defunct and was replaced by what is considered to be prime search engines of today: Yahoo and Google. Now that the cyberspace is established to be a remarkable ground for many types of internet marketing, digital campaigns soon became filled with it. As of now, there are more than 4 billion Internet users in the world and digital marketing seems to be more competitive than ever.
Search Engine Optimization
Perhaps the most well-known field in digital marketing types, Search Engine Optimization or SEO is the process of building website traffic through organic and paid means. This can be through the use of keywords in content, link-building, languages, images, and more. This is of course tied to the algorithms of major search engine sites like Google and can be a very complex undertaking for the unexperienced.
Currently, Google receives 3.5 billion Internet searches every day and if it’s down, Internet traffic drops down to 40%. These statistics show how powerful Google is and how important for you to use and enhance your SEO to be noticed by billions of searchers.
Social Media Marketing
Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and other social networking giants have become hubs for digital marketers as people are constantly using them. And these are proved by staggering statistics. According to Pew Research Center in 2016, 79% of American Internet users flock to Facebook, Instagram has 32% while Twitter has 24%.
Modes of marketing strategies vary here but they are usually designed to target the emotions of the users. There ads and consistent posts of videos, images, and written content that sometimes turn viral.
Content Marketing
The next time you read a blog from a reputable business, know that you are looking at one of the most common forms of content marketing. Usually, content marketing are pieces of written content and no, they are not just grounded on blogs. Content marketing can also be found in the captions you use in social media, the descriptions you put in your Youtube videos, and the Tweets that you sent out. This is also tied to SEO as it is content where keywords are inserted and where link-building is utilized.
Affiliate Marketing
From its name, affiliate marketing is one of the notable types of internet marketing where you work with an associate through advertising their products or services in your niche.
If your affiliate earns leads and eventual sales through your campaign then you get commission and also your own traffic. Did you know that affiliate marketers in America spend almost $5B for advertisements?
Pay-Per-Click Advertising
Different types of digital marketing moguls use Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising to help build traffic by simply clicking on the ads that they put out. One click equals payment to the publisher. This is a legitimate form of digital marketers and was used by 7 million advertisers in 2017.
Search Engine Marketing
The distinction between SEO and SEM or Search Engine Marketing is that SEO is usually all organic while SEM is you paying for your traffic. Google AdWords is the prominent platform for SEM and their services offer ads of your business, products and service listings, video content, and more.
Email Marketing
Email marketing still remains a robust form of digitally advertising your business. As long as you provide substantial, useful, and poignant emails to your subscribers then expect to get leads and traffic for your site. According to the website Imagination, email is the third best source of information for B2B (business-to-business) while Statistia expects that there will be 2.9 billion email users by 2019.
Radio and TV Marketing
You might deduce them as old school channels for digital marketing (yes, there are digital radio and TVs) but radio and TV marketing is still largely considered as one of the optimum choice for advertising your brand. If anything, TV and radio advertisements are very low-key. They show brands and is subtly ingraining it in your mind without you quickly noticing.
Some of the most memorable campaigns are also found in radio and TV but while radio has its fair share of great advertising prospects, it is TV that really stands out. The Super Bowl and TV shows like The Big Bang Theory are tuned in by millions of people and most of them can see your ad. American Marketing Association published a data that shows $387 million dollars were spent for the advertisements in the 2017 Super Bowl and a 30-second advertisement costs a whopping $5 million dollars.
Mobile Marketing
Everyone has their phones so it is wise to capitalize on mobile marketing. After all, it is showing potentials as one of the future hallmarks of digital marketing types. According to BrightEdge, 57% of online traffic in America comes from mobile devices. Kapost also found at that 67% of people check their mobile devices even without notifications.
With phones, you can fit all of the digital marketing strategies in a device that is compact and can be easily carried anywhere. Reaching your audience has never been more quick and convenient!
If you would notice, all of these types of online marketing are actually working together and can be employed all at once for a stronger standing of your business. Still, we need to ask! Which is the best avenue of digital marketing for you? And what are the new discoveries you’ve made about the other digital marketing types. Let us know here at Redkite Digital Marketing!