Digital Marketing has almost become a necessity for a business to be successful in this day and age. However, for a company who is either new and starting their marketing strategy or for a company who is trying to ramp up its digital marketing efforts, the task can be daunting because of how vast the digital marketing landscape is. In this post, I break down some of the key components to digital marketing.
What is Digital Marketing
My definition of Digital Marketing, which draws inspiration from Wikipedia, is the marketing of products or services using digital technologies that leverage the internet, mobile phones, display advertising, and any other digital medium. In practicality, there are many verticals that sit under the digital marketing umbrella such as: email marketing, content marketing, social media marketing (SMM), search engine optimization (SEO), search engine marketing (SEM), pay per click (PPC), and more.
There is value in leveraging these channels, but the question most companies need to ask before they take the plunge is, what is our true objective. Then they can decide how to best combined different components that fall under the digital marketing umbrella.
If you’re a nerd like me, you find the technology that enables digital marketing exciting, but at the end of the day, many of the solutions are just mediums to enable an outcome.
Summary Of Different Types of Digital Marketing
Content Marketing
Educational or informational content that is relevant to your audience opposed to traditional promotional content about your brand/product
Examples: Blogs or videos that provide information on a topic your target audience would find value in. Take this blog post for example, It is content marketing geared towards businesses who have an interest in digital marketing, but first need to understand the basics.
Pros:
Great way of establishing expertise and credibility with your audience
Helps with SEO (for example, look at all the times I’ve mentioned digital marketing in this post, something KWK Studio is an expert at)
Content can be modified and used across various mediums
Organic and Paid Social Media Marketing (SMM)
Using social media sites like Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn to distribute content to a targeted audience.
Organic Example: Making regular posts from your brands Facebook Page that your audience finds interesting and engages with. Note: organic reach from Facebook pages has decreased over the years. I’d highly recommend “boosting” content to get it in front of more people. Also consider creating communities via groups to drive more meaningful conversations.
Paid Example: Running targeted Facebook ads with the objective of getting a conversion, which could be a lead or sale
Pros:
You can engage with your audience on platforms they are using recreationally
Fantastic for retargeting users who might have previously interacted with your site
Generally a cost-effective way to distribute content to your users
Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
Marketing your business using paid advertisements that appear on search engine results pages (SERPs) such as Google and Bing.
Example: If a person Googles the term “rock climbing shoes”, several of the top results will be from stores who have paid for their results to be displayed first, with the hope of increasing the chance the person searching will click through to their website and make a purchase.
Pros:
Great way for prospective customers to find your products/services
Good way to remarket content to people who have already visited your site
Email Marketing or Electronic Direct Mail (EDM)
Developing a mailing list of customers, prospects, and/or supporters and directly communicating to them via different types of emails communications
Example: A company might send a monthly update email to all users in the form of a newsletter so that the individuals on the mailing list are aware of important information. Alternatively, a company might send out a promotional email that could save an individual money on a product they might be interested in.
Pros:
Keeps your brand top of mind with mailing list subscribers
Can be a very effective way to drive sales
There are plenty of other digital marketing verticals you can explore, but if you’re just getting started I would recommend you explore the options listed above. They do take time, effort, and capital, but if implemented correctly can produce great results.
As always, if you have any questions, feel free to reach out! Keep being great!
