What Is Digital Marketing?

At a high level, digital marketing refers to advertising delivered
through digital channels such as search engines, websites, social media, email,
and mobile apps. While this term covers a wide range of marketing activities,
all of which are not universally agreed upon, we’ll focus on the most common
types below

Paid Search

Paid search, or pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, typically refers to the
“sponsored result” on the top or side of a search engine results page (SERP).
You only pay when your ad is clicked. You can tailor your PPC ads to appear
when specific search terms are entered, creating ads that are targeted to a
particular audience.

PPC ads are flexible, visible,
and most importantly, effective for many different types of organizations. They
are also contextual advertisements—ads that appear when a person is searching
for a particular keyword or term.

Search Engine Optimization

Simply put, search
engine optimization (SEO) is the process of optimizing the content,
technical set-up, and reach of your website so that your pages appear at the
top of a search engine result for a specific set of keyword terms. Ultimately,
the goal is to attract visitors to your website when they search for products,
services, or information related to your business.

SEO can almost be viewed as a set of best
practices for good digital marketing. It enforces the need for a
well-constructed and easy-to-use website, valuable and engaging content, and
the credibility for other websites and individuals to recommend you by linking
to your site or mentioning it in social media posts.

Content Marketing

Have you heard the expression,
“Content is king?” If not, you have now. Great content is the fuel that drives
your digital marketing activities:

It is a key pillar of modern SEO

It helps you get noticed on
social media

It gives you something of value
to offer customers in emails and paid search ads

Creating clever content that is
not promotional in nature, but instead educates and inspires, is tough but well
worth the effort. Offering content that is relevant to your audience helps them
see you as a valuable source of information. On top of that, resourceful
content makes it less likely that they will tune you out.

Social Media Marketing

People aren’t just watching cat
videos and posting selfies on social media these days. Many rely on social networks to
discover, research, and educate themselves about a brand before engaging with
that organization. For marketers, it’s not enough to just post on your Facebook
and Twitter accounts. You must also weave social elements into every aspect of
your marketing and create more peer-to-peer sharing opportunities. The more
your audience wants to engage with your content, the more likely it is that
they will want to share it. This ultimately leads to them becoming a customer.
And as an added bonus, they will hopefully influence their friends to become customers,
too.

Email Marketing

Email has been around for more than two
decades, and it’s not going anywhere anytime soon. It’s still the quickest and
most direct way to reach customers with critical information. The reason is
simple: Consumers are very attached to their emails. Just ask yourself how many
times you have checked your email in the past hour…See what we mean?

But great marketers know that not just any
email will do. Successful email campaigns must be engaging, relevant,
informative, and entertaining. To succeed, your marketing emails should satisfy
these five core attributes:

• Trustworthy
• Relevant
• Conversational
• Be
  coordinated across channels
• Strategic 

Mobile Marketing

As mobile devices become an increasingly
integral part of our lives, it’s vital that marketers understand how to
effectively communicate on this unique and extremely personal channel. Mobile
devices are kept in our pockets, sit next to our beds, and are checked
constantly throughout the day. This makes marketing on mobile incredibly
important but also very nuanced.

From SMS and MMS to in-app marketing, there
are many ways to market on mobile devices, so finding the right method for your
particular business is key. Beyond the mechanisms to deliver your message, you
also need to think about coordination of your marketing across digital channels
and make sure mobile is a part of that mix.

Marketing Automation

Marketing automation is an
integral platform that ties all of your digital marketing together. Without it,
your campaigns will look like an unfinished puzzle with a crucial missing
piece. Marketing automation software streamlines and automates marketing tasks
and workflows. Most importantly, it measures the results and ROI of your
digital campaigns, helping you to grow revenue faster.

When used effectively, marketing
automation will help you gain much-needed insight into which programs are
working and which aren’t. It will give you the metrics needed to speak
confidently about digital marketing’s impact on the bottom line.