Best Strategies for Digital Marketing

Let’s find out what is Marketing. Marketing is the action of identifying your customer’s need/problem, enticing them with solutions through the means of your product or service, and then yielding a relationship. Now we will define Digital Marketing. Digital marketing is “the use of the Internet, mobile devices, social media, search engines, and other channels to reach consumers.” Digital Marketing is a mixture of Marketing that involves social media, Emails, content writing, ads, and SEO is called Digital Marketing. Digital Marketing has been around since the early 1990s. Hotwired, a defunct online magazine, purchased several banner ads, and in 1993 the first clickable banner went live! Shortly after that, Google and Yahoo came out, and the Internet and marketing were never the same. The beauty of digital marketing is that it’s so versatile

There is always a huge interest in digital marketing trends and innovation in marketing around the turn of each year. 2022 will be no different it’s particularly true since the pandemic has forced downward pressure on marketing budgets meaning that marketers are looking for new cost-effective techniques.

Importance of Digital Marketing: -

There are many reasons to move toward digital marketing. It is a more affordable way to reach a wider audience and directly engage with them. You can also gather valuable insights from digital marketing campaigns so you can make better decisions. Digital marketing is on the rise – surpassing spending on traditional marketing for the first time in 2019. This is because consumers are increasingly present on online channels. With this increased use of technology, digital marketing platforms have become essential to the digital marketing world. Tech advancements such as AI and machine learning, make marketers better equipped with the marketing technology they need to reach consumers on digital devices at just the right moment.

8 Types of Digital Marketing Strategies with Examples

8 common Strategies for digital marketing include social media, influencer marketing, content marketing, email, search engine optimization (SEO), pay-per-click (PPC), affiliate, and mobile. Let’s take a deeper look at each:

·        Social Media Marketing Platforms. ...

·        Influencer Marketing. ...

·        Email Marketing. ...

·        Content Marketing. ...

·        Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Marketing. ...

·        Pay-per-click (PPC) ...

·        Affiliate Marketing. ...

·        Mobile Marketing.

1. Social Media Marketing Platforms

Today’s consumers are highly reliant on social media platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Snapchat. This is why brands must be active across accounts. Consider these stats:

·        On average users have about 8 social media accounts.

·        An average of 2 hours and 22 minutes are spent on social media per person per day.

·        Out of the 5.11 billion people who have a phone, 3.26 billion access social media using it.

·        People spend about 1/7th of their waking time on social platforms.

Social media platforms allow marketers to reach their prospects in a myriad of ways. First, marketing teams can use these channels to distribute paid ads and sponsored content. Each platform has a way for marketing teams to create paid ad campaigns and segment users so these ads appear on the feeds of target audience members. While each platform is different, most have capabilities that allow marketing teams to place ads based on location, job title, interests, age, etc.

2. Influencer Marketing

Another effective way to harness digital channels to reach target audiences is through influencer marketing. Brands can partner with celebrities, sites, or others that are considered experts in their field, and that share similar values. Brands can then reach these influencers’ followers with branded content and offers. Many marketers have found success with influencer marketing, with 9 out of 10 noting that it was the same or better than other channels they use. Additionally, 1 out of 2 women based a purchase decision on a recommendation from an influencer. Here is an example of influencer marketing: GoPro partnered up with this Colorado-based influencer, Loki, whose followers include many outdoor enthusiasts. This put their product in front of their target audience, with a recommendation from a like-minded, trustworthy source.

3. Email Marketing

Email marketing campaigns allow organizations to stay connected with prospects and customers, sending them customized newsletters or offers based on past shopping history or brand engagements. If an individual has interacted with a few of your branded touchpoints – like an email offer for 10 percent off the items they have been considering, or free shipping - that may be what ultimately brings about a conversion.  Nearly 60% of consumers say that email plays a role in their purchase decisions. Furthermore, transactional emails are more likely to be opened by subscribers.

4. Content Marketing

Content marketing allows marketing teams to be proactive in answering their users’ questions. Marketing teams create content, videos, and other assets to answer questions or provide context to consumers throughout the three stages of the buyer’s journey:

·        The awareness stage: Buyer realizes they have a need

·        The consideration stage: The buyer determines a course of action to meet this need

·        The decision stage: Buyer decides on a product/service to purchase to meet the need

For example, a consumer might realize they need new shoes to wear to the gym. The marketing team for an activewear company may produce a piece about what features you need from a running shoe, as opposed to what you need if you focus on strength training. Looking at this content, the buyer determines they need a pair of running shoes that meets those criteria. Another piece of content might show the most popular running shoes and their price points. Once they are educated on these factors, they decide. The guidance offered by your brand throughout will likely result in them purchasing from you. Content marketing is often less expensive than other forms of marketing while producing nearly 3 times as many leads.

5. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Marketing

Search engine optimization often goes hand in hand with content marketing. When the customer from the above example is conducting research on which gym shoes to buy, they will probably click on one of the first three results that appear on Google. With this in mind, the athletic shoes’ marketing team wants to ensure their article appears in those top results. This is done by optimizing content for user experience and ensuring the technical elements are in place to enable search engine crawlers to easily find and index this content. Top search engine results are often dictated by SEO Top search engine results are often dictated by SEO.

6. Pay-per-click (PPC)

Pay-per-click is a form of paid advertising that allows marketing teams to essentially purchase traffic to their website. Marketers place ads on websites or search engines such as Google and Microsoft Bing and pay a fee each time the ad is clicked on. These ads often appear at the top of the search results page and are typically determined by bids on specific keywords, while banner ads on websites usually have set prices. PPC ads are often shown at the top of search engine results PPC ads are often shown at the top of search engine results

7. Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is similar to referral programs, it involves working with outside individuals or companies under the agreement that they promote your product in exchange for a commission from each sale that can be attributed to their efforts. This is a way to cut down on costs and outsource some of the heavy liftings of promotion, however, you’re putting your brand's reputation in someone else’s hands, so this type of marketing often requires more extensive monitoring and tracking.

8. Mobile Marketing

Mobile marketing initiatives can include many of the digital marketing strategies mentioned above, and typically will leverage a combination of text messages, social media, email, push notifications, and mobile applications. The importance of mobile marketing is rising, as it is expected that by 2024, the number of mobile shoppers will rise to approximately 187.5 million users. With the clear move to mobile, marketers need to think about how they can optimize their current marketing efforts for mobile to be able to deliver a seamless and user-friendly experience.

Conclusion

Digital marketing, also called online marketing, is the promotion of brands to connect with potential customers using the internet and other forms of digital communication. This includes not only email, social media, and web-based advertising, but also text and multimedia messages as a marketing channel. Digital Marketing is very important for specialists in digital marketing. Digital marketing is a perfect business opportunity for digital marketers. To be competitive in the digital market, you need to have a clear understanding of the advantages and disadvantages of digital marketing. This is a growing business field. Digital marketing is nothing more than taking advantage of new technologies to achieve marketing objectives. The digital marketing team and the marketing department are no different.