What are the types of digital marketing? Read on to learn the basics of 9 kinds of digital marketing.
The above question is crucial since digital marketing is a broad term, and trying to describe it may end up becoming an epistle.
The above question is also essential because these past few months, there has been a shift in the way people interact with brands.
This shift has led to the acceleration of digital transformation in many organisations. So what are the types of digital marketing?
Types of Digital Marketing
Below, I summarise the basics of 9 of the most common types of digital marketing that you can use for your marketing campaigns.
1. Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
It covers both PPC and SEO work. The combination of PPC and SEO brings in targeted traffic through both paid (PPC) and unpaid (SEO) means.
Both PPC and SEO also rely on finding the relevant keywords to attract customers to your business.
These keywords must be ones that your customers will probably use in Google, Bing and platforms like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter as search queries for your product or service.
2. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
SEO is the optimising of your online content and various aspects of your website like page load speed. We can divide SEO into two parts, namely on-page SEO and off-page SEO.
Businesses do SEO as part of their digital strategy so that Google shows its content as a top result for searches of a particular keyword.
It is what makes your website to be easily discoverable by Google when people search for queries relevant to the contents you have on your website.
When properly implemented, your website can rank high in Google’s organic search results, thus gaining more targeted traffic to your website by people actively searching for your product or service.
You need to invest in creating valuable content. Because if your content ranks high in the organic search engine result pages (SERPs), it will become a link building magnet that will probably gain more clicks and traffic without you subscribing to Search engine ads.
3. Pay-per-click (PPC) Advertising
This form of advertising is popular with search engines. Probably the most famous example of this is Google Ads, (formerly known as Google AdWords). The second most famous example is Facebook ads.
According to this article, in 2016, the net digital ad revenues of Google AdWords was nearly $30 billion, and they were on track to grow to $45 billion in 2019.
It’s called PPC because whatever platform you are advertising on will charge your advertising account whenever someone clicks on one of your adverts. It has nothing to do with you getting paid to click someone else’s adverts.
PPC advertising campaigns can be a short-term solution to attracting targeted traffic, and many businesses use it to promote products or seasonal deals and to boost revenue.
With this form of advertising, you buy your spot or ranking on the first page of the search engine. But with SEO, you must earn your rank in the SERPs.
4. Social Media Marketing (SMM)
It is the use of platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Tweeter, LinkedIn and YouTube to drive traffic to your website or increase app installs.
We use it to drive considerations among potential customers who have the mind to buy your products or services and to convince users to consider patronising your brand.
It is a great and fast way to get exposure and connect with your target audience. It is not about being self-promotional.
Instead, it is about creating or joining in conversations going on the various channels around your content, brand or industry. It is about being informative, educative, and entertaining.
You need to use it as a tool to interact with everyone following you on the various platforms and provide value to these communities.
It is about creating and sharing non-promotional pieces of content like blog posts, website pages, and e-books. There are many benefits your business can gain from using it.
Though it cost less than traditional outbound marketing tactics, it can generate more leads.
A reason for this is that great content helps your business improve its SEO. The more ‘indexable’ pages of content that you have on your site, the greater your opportunities to reach and engage leads on Google.
Content marketing helps businesses experience higher conversion rates than other marketing tactics.
As we mentioned previously, there are many types of content that you can create to attract, engage, and convert your site visitors. Like there are many types of digital marketing.
6. Email Marketing
As the name implies, this involves sending emails to persons who have given you their permission to send them emails.
Sending unsolicited advertising and promotional emails to people without their permission is spam. Spam is illegal. So please don’t do it.
Email marketing is great for reaching your customers and interacting with them post-purchase through your newsletter.
7. Influencer / Affiliate Marketing
These types of digital marketing have become popular in recent years through sites like Instagram and YouTube, where companies will enlist a well-known influencer, to promote their products or services on their social pages or affiliate websites.
Influencer and affiliate marketing rely on those with a level of influence or ‘power’ to sway their fans or followers in patronising your brand.
These influencers usually celebrities, industry experts, or people with large followings on social.
They help you create some buzz around your brand or business through their tweets, blog posts, video content, podcasts or other forms of content to showcase your brand and hopefully bring in more sales for your business.
With influencer marketing, the most important thing is finding the right influencer for your business. Using the wrong influencers can do more harm than good to your brand.
8. Viral Marketing
It is one of the most challenging types of digital marketing. Some brands use memes and video skits that become popular online as a type of digital marketing.
These memes and video content will indirectly promote your product or service online, hoping people will also share it online. It is an excellent option for b2c businesses.
If you create a piece of content that goes viral, your ROI on that piece content will also increase. That viral content will generate an increase in brand awareness.
9. Mobile Advertising
Businesses all over the world are shifting more of their advertising budget into mobile because consumers spend more time on their mobile phones and mobile devices more than any other digital devices.
Therefore, you see an increase in mobile social ads, mobile search adverts or even mobile TV and radio ads. It is interesting to note that we can turn all other types of digital marketing mentioned above into mobile ads.
Which Type of Digital Marketing Is Best?
As a business owner, you are no doubt interested in strategies that are cost-effective and offer a good return on investment.
But the answer to this question depends on the type of content and your strategy. While each of the three digital media has its role, using all three together will make your strategy that much more effective.
What Are the Three Types of Digital Media?
We cannot talk about the types of digital marketing without addressing these three types of digital media.
There are three types; Paid, Earned and Owned media otherwise known by the acronym PEO.
According to this article, there is an overlap between the three different types of media. It is important to note this since achieving this overlap requires the integration of campaigns, resources and infrastructure throughout your multichannel marketing strategy.
It is the media you buy. With paid media, you get total control over messaging, reach and frequency, as much as your budget allows.
Paid or bought media are media where there is an investment to pay for visitors, reach or conversions through search, display ad networks or affiliate marketing.
Offline traditional media like print and TV advertising and direct mail remain important accounting for a large share of paid media spend.
Examples include:
a) Paid Social Media
Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn, Twitter, Snapchat, and Pinterest are now pay-to-play!
These platforms now offer paid options. So you have to pay to create ads or boost existing posts for your followers to see.
Several factors also affect the viewership of your ads or boosted posts. These include the interests of your target customers, their behaviour, demographics, location, etc.
b) Search Engine Ads
These include the Pay-Per-Click (PPC) adverts mentioned earlier and Pay Per Impression (PPI) ads. These types of ads appear on search engine results pages (SERPs). They look almost like a native ad at the top, with subtle indications that it is an ad.
They may also appear on websites, blogs, and even on a mobile app. You can see them at the top, left, or right panel–or even at intervals within the content itself.
c) Banner Ads
Banner adverts are also known as display advertising or web ads. They are usually image-based ads.
Sometimes, publishers embed them into their website in the form of an image or GIF.
d) Native Advertising
Native advertising is those visual or text ads that match the look and feel of the website they appear. These types of ads may appear as:
e) Out-of-Home (OOH) Advertising and Digital Out-of-Home (DOOH) Advertising.
They display these adverts outdoors and in public spaces. They target people walking, commuting, shopping, etc. to see.
They include traditional advertising via billboards, posters, bus shelters, benches, cinemas, etc.
2. Earned Media
Earned media is essentially “online word of mouth”, in the form of mentions, shares, reposts, reviews, recommendations, or “viral” content picked up by third-party sites.
It is the publicity you generate through your public relations activities invested in targeting influencers to increase awareness about your brand.
Earned media is what others say about your brand, whether online or offline. Here, you have no control over what people are saying about your brand, but you can influence the outcomes if you’re smart.
Among the three types of digital media, this is one in which there is no direct investment in its acquisition, but it is still an investment.
Examples include:
a) Media Publicity
Many startups don’t have big marketing budgets. So attracting the attention of your potential customers, you need to get some media publicity.
A good and affordable way to get this publicity is to send out a press release.
Depending on your budget, you may also consider event sponsorships. How can you tell if your press release or event sponsorship is significant enough to earn publicity?
You can tell only when it grabs the attention of the press or your target customers.
b) Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
As mentioned above, with SEO instead of spending money on a paid ad space, you earn your place in the SERPs. You do this by creating unique targeted content that ranks in organic results.
We do well to note that the combination of SEO and PPC make for an outstanding marketing strategy.
c) Review Sites
These days online reviews and testimonials as a great way to build credibility. The feedback you receive from your customers, whether positive or negative, creates awareness.
d) Social Media
Platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and the rest is where you find most people discussing brands or sharing content. It works well when used together with paid and owned media.
e) Word-of-mouth Marketing
It is another earned media channel that needs no further introduction. So if you offer an outstanding product or service, people will talk about it. The same applies if your brand is crap!
3. Owned Media
It is the content you create. You control the messaging, but you have no control over whether anyone reads/views it.
Examples include:
a) Your Website
Your website is your business’ introduction to the digital world. Compared to other owned media, your website, you have total control over your website for the long term.
b) Content Marketing
As already mentioned above, content marketing is one of the best ways to give direct value to your target audience and establish your brand position in the market.
c) Social Media
Though you don’t own Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram and other platforms, we consider your social accounts and pages on these platforms owned media by you. You create, control, and are responsible for all content that you post to your account.
d) Email Marketing
It is one of the most versatile forms of owned media. Even if your company pays for an email marketing service provider or service like Constant Contact, you still own your mailing list and the content of your emails. Therefore, we consider email marketing an owned media channel.
e) Word-of-mouth Marketing
As the name implies, this involves creating awareness of your product or service by telling people about it.
But these days, we can consider social media to be the “new” word-of-mouth marketing. By posting updates on your profiles and pages, you’re thus sharing your owned media.
According to this article, earned and owned media are morphing because of social media and audiences’ increasing willingness to trust their judgment about the validity of content rather than depend on the proxy of trust afforded by a media brand, such as The New York Times. And the changes in earned and owned are transforming paid media.
The above is a detailed summary of the digital marketing types, which is the best, and types of digital media.
At this current time, you know well aware that digital technology is crucial and suitable for any business. And with this article, by now, you must have a good understanding of what goes into a proper digital marketing strategy and marketing campaign.
When you work with a professional digital marketing agency like Mauco Enterprises, we will help you develop a digital marketing strategy that grabs the attention of your target audience. We can help you craft digital marketing campaigns that grow your business online. Contact us today to get started.
Leave a Reply