6 Types of Digital Marketing in 2023: Which one to choose?
Digital marketing is a very diverse skill and there are so many types of digital marketing. Here are the most important 6 types of digital marketing in 2023. Were you aware of the fact that there are literally many types of digital marketing, each serving a different purpose? In the fast-paced world today, Digital Marketing is a phenomenon that has become omnipresent in our lives. The traditional forms of marketing are slowly becoming less important. It is paving the way for digital marketing as the predominant form of marketing owing to the huge benefits acquired from it.
Today let us concentrate on the 6 types of digital marketing to decide which one can be ideal for you, your brand, and your business. The main element of digital marketing that separates it from traditional marketing, makes it a more desired option is its intrinsic element to communicate engage and interact with the target customer.
Therefore, by utilizing the different forms of digital marketing, we can very well decide as to which digital marketing strategy to execute for the optimum results.
The definition of digital marketing as described by leading marketing experts can be summed up as follows
Digital Marketing is the use of the internet, mobile devices, social media, search engines, and other channels to reach consumers. It is that component of marketing that utilizes the internet and online-based digital technologies to promote products and services.
We have several Digital Marketing courses today that provide in-depth knowledge of digital models and their complexities. They help you to carry out practical projects in live training. That helps you to become well acquainted with the different attributes of a digital module.
The 6 Types of Digital Marketing modules to consider
Search Engine Optimization
Search Engine Optimization encompasses all the techniques, tactics, and strategies by which one aims to increase the ranking of their sites on search engines through organic means. That means, it is essentially a method of driving traffic to your website without any monetary incentives.
Search Engine Optimization is mostly based on your knowledge of website Optimisation as well as great content dissemination. SERP ranks those websites high which fulfills the criteria of meeting the demands of online users as issued by Google, Bing, and other Search Engine guidelines.
Search Engine Optimization if done properly can establish your business as a brand leader in your specific market, drive quality visitors/leads, and create conversions in plenty.
It also incredibly increases your brand position in the online domain. Search Engine Optimization practices consist of creating relevant, useful, and great content that assists your online users.
But it does not end at that. You have to market your writing routinely with conviction to derive results. You can achieve that through Content Optimization.
That entails sharing your content through several digital channels, social media, or other forms like discussion podiums, etc along with incorporating the best industry practices.
Content Optimization brings us to a very important part of Search Engine Optimisation which is the keyword usage aspect. Relevant keywords can help you achieve the greatest results from Search Engine Optimization techniques.
Read our detailed article on Google Digital Marketing Courses
There are a few significant Search Engine Optimization strategies that have to be implemented mandatorily to be able to get the best results.
- Thorough keyword research and incorporating them on the web article
- Creating high-grade content that can come to the aid of online users
- Disseminating content to different digital media channels especially social media platforms
- Taking care to create easily readable content. Making sure that heading, metadata, subheadings are done optimally.
- Making sure that your title tag is optimized for Search Engine rankings
- Providing internal links to the other pages of your blog or website
- Proper analysis of website through tools available to you
- Matching the search intent of your online user before creating the article.
- Incorporating on-page and off-page SEO along with white hat SEO.
- Monitoring the results of your ranking on search engines closely, and understanding the challenges.
- Creating content that aligns with your brand’s mission and vision statements.
- Using short and easily understood but descriptive URL. Your URL shouldn’t be very long. At the same time, it should communicate the key subject of your topic successfully.
Other courses from IIM SKILLS
- Technical Writing Course
- SEO Course
- GST Course
- CAT Coaching
- Digital Marketing Course
- Content Writing Course
Search Engine Optimization, when done efficiently, starts showing results roughly after three months of publishing the content. Online users and consumers rely much more on organic content than on paid results.
It is a global phenomenon and there is a good reason for it. When Search engines rank you solely on the quality of your content without any monetary incentives, it builds goodwill. Therefore, Search Engine Optimisation plays a very vital role in getting your website brand recognition as well as increasing traffic.
Some of the key factors when you are writing for SEO is to be able to identify your target audiences and create content that answers their queries even when these are not explicitly mentioned by your consumer.
The whole point of creating search engine-optimized articles is to meet the content objectives of your website. It should emphasize not only establishing your thought leadership in that particular niche but also providing value to consumers.
For your content to rank well on search engines you have to keep in mind a few things about Google. Google crawls and indexes your site, scans it for the quality of content before placing your article on SERP.
Let’s take a look at the key considerations for Google to rank your article higher on the search pages.
- The first and foremost thing that Google considers is how you incorporate your keywords in your published article. The relevance of your page is not calculated by the number of times a keyword appears. It depends rather on the efficiency of your keyword in getting the message across to your target consumers.
- A very important part in this regard is keyword stuffing. Some websites may think that mindless incorporating keyword throughout the web page will get better rankings on search pages like Google Bing Yahoo. The reality is far removed from it. Therefore, you should only incorporate the keyword as much as you need. The ideal percentage can be .5% to 2% in your web copy. Anything more than that can come under spamming.
- SEO experts invariably emphasize the method of link building for your website. There are internal links and then there are backlinks. Both are equally important for the overall performance of your Search Engine Optimization results. Internal linking refers to linking other pages of your website to the blog article for driving more traffic. Backlinks help to provide you with a brand reputation in your specific topic.
- In this regard, guest blogging please a major role for you to get backlinks to your webpage. When you interact and collaborate with other websites related to your business you provide them with proof of how well informed you are about your specific line of business. It helps you to build your brand equity and people link your website and blog articles on their web pages for users to get maximum knowledge.
- When Google notices that your content is getting a lot of backlinks, it automatically considers you to be a reliable source of information for that particular topic. As a result, your ranking is higher.
Create very good articles on your specific content. There is so much to explore, so many new angles to comprehend that you can never run out of ideas.
When search engines notice that you have a variety of articles on the topic it helps you to establish authority on that subject. Also, make sure that you do not link pages that do not exist. This can take a heavy toll on your search engine rankings.
Search Engine Optimization is still regarded as one of the most important modules of the digital marketing process. It completely relies on the efficacy of the content for performing well. SEO is one practice that you should always incorporate in digital planning to get much better results then if you don’t do it.
Pay per click is a digital marketing model of promoting products and services through advertising and placing ads on any ad platform. The advertiser has to be pay host of that particular digital channel every time the ad is clicked through.
Google is a very popular advertising platform where marketers place ads of their business, brand, product, or service for users who are searching for them on the search engines. The tool Google ads help in this process. You can also place ads with popular websites do that every time a user clicks on your ad they are redirected to your website.
Keywords and users’ search intent matters the most in PPC followed by the quality of your ad, the bidding that completes this marketing, and the advertising model.
How to calculate PPC
PPC = Advertising cost/ Number of times the ad is clicked.
PPC can give agree to boost your marketing initiatives provided you have the budget to shell out money when required. It helps in instantaneous visibility of your website, unlike Search Engine Optimisation which takes time to get to the first page of a search engine.
Some of the best practices for Google PPC are as follows
- Rigorous research on the most relevant keywords
- Identifying your core target audience
- Keeping your focus group limited because Google Ads provides you the feature to be able to divide your ad campaign into different ad groups
- Appealing call to action (CTA)
- Great landing page
- Updating your campaign and quality of website regularly
- Performing split testing
Content Marketing
Content marketing is an inevitable part of any successful digital marketing strategy. It is part of the inbound marketing technique where businesses provide and disseminate useful information to inform customers.
This helps to get you noticed. You provide customers with insights and information on your product or service. Content marketing has proved to be an essential part of the marketing process and involves delivering high-grade content that provides value to your online users and website visitors.
It is a simple process that reaps great results. When you address a prospective consumer’s queries or questions they are bound to trust you as a reliable source of information. That is the greatest benefit of content marketing.
The different components of content marketing are market research, Data Analytics, engaging content, images, videos that enhance the quality of your content.
Some of the key advantages of content marketing are
It brings great traffic to your website
The main purpose of content marketing is to engage your readers and bring value to them. Once you concentrate on creating content that is unique, original, appealing, and interesting you will automatically get great traffic to your website.
Every online user wants information and good quality writing. These are exactly the two things that are going to draw in your consumer to your website. Visitors and recurring visitors to your website can become qualified leads whom you can nurture further for conversions.
It drives conversions very successfully
It has been proved that content marketing drives conversions extremely well. Consistent content dissemination requires your time, dedication, and determination to create value for your customers. Follow these traits, and you are sure to become successful in driving conversions from qualified leads.
Helps build and fortify trust
Since content marketing provides crucial information on products and services brands and their business, it helps to build trust and strengthen the connection with the target consumers.
Builds Brand Equity
Content marketing is an effective way of creating brand equity and making a positive presence in the online domain. Consistency in posting blog articles, distributing it on several social media channels, tailoring it to the needs of the social media channels helps you to gain an edge over your competition.
Provides pertinent information to the concerned parties (target customers)
Content Marketing is the inbound technique whereby consumers want to visit your site for the pertinent information that you provide. The important element in all of this is that you provide authentic truthful information without any ambiguity. That helps develop the faith that your brand can be trusted.
Foster and Retain Existing Customers through quality content
Content marketing can not only drive qualified leads to turn into conversions but can also foster existing customers by providing incentives in the form of organic content.
As a result, brand awareness becomes even more pronounced. Your customer observes and notices the utility of your content and turn brand advocates for your business.
Develops Brand authority
Content marketing requires careful planning and incisive research on the topic and niche you’ve decided to create your content around. Content marketing, when implemented seriously, can increase your brand authority to a very great extent. It helps to establish your thought leadership in your specific market.
Facilitates the sales funnel
Content marketing is very effective in facilitating the sales funnel that starts with awareness, nurturing, and finally conversion of leads to consumers. Therefore, with a customer-centric approach, you can increase your chances of expediting the process of sales very efficiently. Content Marketing helps your customers make quick purchasing decisions.
Improved SEO and Visibility
Content marketing helps to increase your rankings on search engine results pages. The more knowledgeable your content, the better your chances of ranking high in search engines like Google Yahoo, etc.
If you can fulfill the demands of the online users’ query and intent Google will consider your article to be a great value and your rankings will go higher. A featured snippet is another part of the indexing method by which a part of your content copy that provides the user with information is displayed on the first page of the search engine.
This along with features like keyword optimization website page speed, compliance with Google algorithm guidelines can help you rank higher on search engines and increase your visibility and exposure
Content does not lose relevance
Content helps you to generate traffic years after you publish your content on a blog or website. You should carefully formulate a content strategy that will work even long after you share the content on the web domain. Choose your topics judiciously and be exhaustive in providing information.
Things to consider for a good Content Marketing Plan
Focus Group
While communicating the vision of your business, the mission to serve your consumers you should keep in mind your focus group. Create your content aligning their needs with choices and preferences.
Creating a buyer persona can be a great step in determining the content of articles. You can channel your creativity in formulating content that is going to answer their queries and provide information that will specifically address the issues.
Voice of your content
The tone, voice, and characteristics of your content will be beneficial for the positioning of your product successfully. When you are promoting a home electronic appliance you are catering to the needs of families, people who deal with home appliances. Your tone should be friendly, informative and one that instills trust.
When you’re promoting health products for kids you should have a balance of being playful, interesting, as well as informative so that the product appeals to your target consumers. In this way, you align your product tone and voice according to the product and service you create your content on.
The core message of your content
Always start with communicating the core message of your content in the beginning. This helps to draw consumers like no other strategy.
When you start with the most vital points to your target consumers, they are more likely to go through your content and educate themselves to better understand the efficiency of your brand.
Digital Platforms to use
Content marketing requires you to distribute your content on different digital platforms that include social media channels. However, you have to make a judicious decision as to which social media platforms to target.
Tailoring your content according to the relevant social media channel is of paramount importance. There can be interactive platforms like Quora, Yahoo Answers, Reddit, and then there are several social media channels like Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, etc.
Your analytics and reports results, as well as your key customers, their age group education gender, etc, determine which digital channels to opt for.
Content Elements
You can use text images, gifs, infographics, whiteboards, and/or the combination of all to create your content. Having variations in your content format can help you break the monotony and create more impactful content.
That aspect will keep your interest going as well as the intrigue of your consumer intact. Various combinations have more influence on your consumers than just one format of distributing content.
Syndication and Publishing
Your content marketing plan should have a well thought out publishing and syndication strategy. You should be able to plan when and where to syndicate your content. Also when to publish your content on your website and blog is a key consideration.
Publish blogs Consistently
According to various studies, brands that publish more than three times a week enjoy better conversions and traffic than those who publish less amount of content.
However, even if you cannot attain the figure of 3- 4 blogs per week at least try to blog once per week. the more you blog the more topics you cover.
Also, make sure that your content is somewhere around 2500 to 4000 words on average. According to expert content marketers, long-form content has greater chances of ranking on search engines.
Explore contents formats like E-books, Landing pages
Blogs, vlogs templates, surveys, slides, resources, case studies, white papers, webinars, podcasts, FAQs are some great forms of content that can yield exceptional results when implemented correctly.
Content on your landing page is a very important factor in determining the purpose of your product or service. It also helps you to establish a positive perception of your business in the minds of your consumers.
Explore niches to break the monotony and create more value for customers
Explore the different topics in your specific niche. You can find a lot of content ideas in the niche to base your content on.
For example, if you’ve chosen digital marketing as a niche, the modules, submodules, businesses that employ digital marketing as a strategy, digital marketing agencies, Digital Marketing institutes all come under the niche – Digital Marketing.
Therefore, exploring a niche provides you with a lot of potential to create content around the several elements that make up that specific topic.
Brainstorm to align the process of content dissemination
Finally, when you plan a content marketing strategy for your business, you have to take into account the factors like budgeting, scheduling your content, and posting them on social media.
Also, digital platforms, contextual comprehension of your target consumers’ needs, and how to deliver your content. These are some of the elements that you have to keep an eye on continuously when you are implementing a content marketing strategy.
Content marketing is an inevitable part of any successful digital marketing strategy. It is part of the inbound marketing technique where businesses provide and disseminate useful information to inform customers.
It is a simple process that reaps great results. When you address a prospective consumer’s queries or questions they are bound to trust you as a reliable source of information. That is the greatest benefit of content marketing.
The different components of content marketing are market research, Data Analytics, engaging content, images, videos that enhance the quality of your content.
Social Media Marketing
If a business brand product service can leverage the benefits of social media optimally then that coming nothing more productive than social media channels for a business to prosper.
Social media is a ubiquitous part of our life. Even if you are one of those individuals who do not like to interact and engage on social media, remember it is more of a necessity than a luxury for individuals, businesses, and brands to promulgate their product and to build awareness around their enterprise.
For a content creator or a marketer, it is imperative that you have a social media presence to promote the uniqueness of your business and content.
You do not necessarily have to engage in unimportant inconsequential elements of the social media system. Rather, you can use the benefits of these channels to drive traffic to your website and achieve your marketing goals and objectives to the maximum.
There are more than 3.5 billion+ people on different social media platforms. This figure goes on to show how indispensable social media is for anybody who wants to create a successful career today.
Add to it, the benefits of accessing social media on mobile devices and you have a great potential medium to promote any business initiative and endeavor successfully.
Some of the social media channels Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, WhatsApp, YouTube, WeChat, Tumblr, etc. YouTube doubles up as a social media channel along with being a video marketing platform. It provides great scope for engagement with your visitors.
For any business initiative, social media marketing, and optimization becomes one of the most vital parts of digital strategy and planning.
Now, how does social media marketing help your business in the online webspace
Reach and Visibility
Social media ensures that you find a vast percentage of your target consumers on these platforms. As a result, your exposure, reach as well as visibility increases to a great extent when using social media platforms to build brand equity.
Ease of use
Maneuvering social media channels like Facebook Instagram Twitter which are considered the most popular is not a very difficult job. The user interfaces in all these platforms are fairly easy to understand.
The best part of social media platforms is that you find everything inbuilt like Facebook advertising, Instagram activity chart, and application, Twitter advertising cards, etc. This helps to implement the digital strategy and planning more smoothly.
Brand Recognition
Social media helps in getting your brand recognition like no other digital channel. Shares, likes, comments, word of mouth, are some ways by which your message can go viral on social media platforms.
When a particular element goes viral on social channels it is shared liked and subscribed to very swiftly. As a result, more and more people get to know you through social media channels.
This empowers you to make efforts to create more focused content keeping in mind your target customers and existing consumers.
Promotion of products, and services
A corollary of the third point, Social media makes it easier to promote your product and service much more fluidly than any other digital medium.
People spend an enormous amount of time surfing social media channels. The fast popularity of these channels makes them ideal places to promote your product and service. Post your content keeping in mind the time your users are most active on these platforms.
Information dissemination
Any relevant information that can solve your customer’s issues and problems can be disseminated very skillfully through social media channels.
When you promote your product or service and when your consumers buy from your business there ought to be situations when they need to clear their queries.
A lot of times they would need more information on a product or service other than what has been provided. Social media with its unique features of direct messaging maintain can help you to address these grievances and disseminate important information for your consumers.
Interactive and Engaging
Social media channels are interactive, communicative, platforms that help you to engage with your consumers and address them directly.
For Example, when your brand has a positive social media presence your consumers can directly contact you on the channels and ask when any confusion arises regarding a product.
It also helps in quick solving of issues thereby erasing any chance of negative feedback from consumers. When your consumers need assistance, they would want you to address the problems as soon as possible. Social media helps to achieve that perfectly.
Some of the best practices for Social Media Optimisation and Marketing are as follows
Know everything you can about your company and product
Before embarking on your journey of promoting your products on social media channel you have to possess a complete understanding of your business mission, goals, and objectives.
You should be able to respond to any query related to your business. Naturally, that requires you to be completely conversant with the different elements that make up your business.
Understand your consumers’ demands
Your consumer is the key to success. You have to understand your audiences on social media, their choices, likes, dislikes, preferences and needs to be able to focus your content on them.
Several digital tools help you to gauge different information on your consumers. Apply those digital tools to good use and gather as much information as you can relevant to your business.
Create Content suitable for that particular social media channel
Every social media channel comes with its unique set of characteristics and traits. These traits cannot be duplicated. In the same way, do not duplicate one content to the other social media channel.
Every digital platform especially social digital platforms come with their unique demands as well. Make sure you understand the digital platform well before disseminating content for your target customers on that platform.
Set your goals and objectives
The goals and objectives of any business differ from time to time. It also depends on your requirements at a particular point in time. Sometimes your objective might just be to create brand awareness about your product.
At other times you might want to turn your leads into conversions. Then again, your objective might just be to retain the existing customers. Create a social media marketing plan considering your core objectives.
Take, for example, you want brand awareness. Then you would be looking to increase the number of followers, the number of shares, and brand mentions you get.
If your objective is to solely improve on the existing customers you will provide focussed information such as reviews, testimonials, targeted content that is of relevance to existing customers. Information on your brand equity and online brand reputation can be a great factor for retaining your consumers.
Again if your objective is to drive leads to conversions, it would be by providing them with incentives that can help like discounts, offers, clicks, signups, subscriptions, etc.
Pay attention to Analytics
Your analytics speak of your brand’s success. Always pay attention to analytics to understand who are your webpage visitors, who visit your social media channels, what are the networks and social media channels that your consumers connect with you on and how you fare against your competitors.
Make sure you know your competition
Though you shouldn’t be overly concerned about your competitors, having knowledge about them and how they promote their products and services can open up opportunities for new ideas for you to implement.
It also automatically helps you to identify the weaknesses in your strategy. As a result, you can take the necessary steps to rectify them. It will help you to brainstorm and create content that will drive more qualified leads.
Social listening
Your brand mentions, perception about your brand are elements of social listening. Plenty of digital tools like Brand24, Buzzsumo, Hootsuit, Sprout Social, Brand Watch are some popular social listening tools that help you to have an idea of the perception of your brand among your customers, existing and potential.
Social listening also involves taking into account the negative feedback and comments and addressing them as promptly as possible.
Collaborate with influencers and complementary businesses
Research your complimentary businesses and influencers who work in your niche market. Collaborate with them to expand your consumer base.
It requires careful planning and budgeting to know where you stand financially. It is only then that you can take a step towards greater coverage in terms of target groups.
Be particular about the positioning and voice of your product
The voice and positioning of your product matters because audiences connect to the tone and the message behind your brand. You should give due importance to the positioning of your product because your business will get maximum returns with optimal positioning.
Age factor, gender, education, the income of your audience are primary factors that determine how you should position your product on social media channels. Make sure that you understand how to create that right impact with the voice of your brand.
Build good customer care on social media
You can connect with your customers hassle-free on social media channels. Therefore keep provisions for good customer care on social channels. It will help to attend to their queries and questions as quickly as possible after they post them on social media.
Email Marketing
Email marketing is another very effective way of promoting your products and services to target consumers as well as existing customers. Through personalized emails, businesses can not only generate leads but also turn them into conversions, and brand advocates for their product. There are several free and paid email marketing tools at your disposal to get your job done as smoothly as possible.
Email marketing ensures that the leads sign up or subscribe for information on the products and services. Since most of our customers today have smartphones, a combination of email marketing and mobile marketing can be extremely useful for any business.
Email marketing should be done in such a way that it is mobile responsive and customers can easily maneuver the emails on their mobile devices. Additionally, you can implement Mobile marketing in the form of responsive email notifications, push notifications, SMS marketing, and others.
For successful email marketing, you have to be well versed in email marketing tools and their various features and functions.
This type of marketing also requires you to have a very compelling call to action. One that ensures that your customers take the desired action.
However, it should be noted that customers should not be inundated with emails that can qualify as spam. That can be a major reason for customers’ eventual lack of interest.
Overwhelming the consumer with continuous emails is not a good idea. But, you should always follow up with your customers based on their web activity concerning your product and service.
Affiliate Marketing
Let’s not forget one of the most popular marketing techniques today whereby a business gets an entire range of audiences to target in their marketing endeavors.
This type of marketing is called affiliate marketing where a business employs the use of affiliates for promulgation of the business.
Affiliate marketing is a huge business today where affiliates promote products of different nature be it fashion, technology, household items, home decor, organic products, food products, beauty products, and everything that is of use to consumers.
Every company today has an affiliate marketing strategy whether it is a big organization or a small enterprise. It also helps in getting great returns on investment compared to the cost of acquisition.
Conclusion
So here you have six types of digital marketing that most business organizations irrespective of their capital can plan and implement successfully for the greatest success in the web arena.
These are some of the main modules of the digital ecosystem that helps in maximum profits and returns. The most pragmatic way would be to combine all of these digital marketing elements. And, then to form a coherent strategy that incorporates all the strong points.
That would create a 360-degree plan for the digital marketing strategy. Do not get intimidated by the challenges that arise. Rather address them, evolve, and keep yourself informed about the new Strategies and best practices that dominate the online world today.
