A Short Introduction To Digital Marketing
What Is Digital Marketing?
Digital Marketing is the practice of broadcasting a marketing message via digital channels. While these channels include traditional channels such as radio and TV, digital marketing is often considered as the practice of advertising via search engines, email, social media, websites and various apps. The reason for that is simple: a lot of people prefer these channels when it comes to targeted, ROI focused advertising.
This article is based on the articles and opinions listed at implicitsuccess.com
Social Media Marketing
Social Media Marketing, abbreviated as SMM, is when social channels are used as a medium to advertise goods, services and brands across varied platforms such as: Facebook, pikdo Instagram
Social Media Marketing
, Twitter, etc.Email Marketing
Email marketing is one of the oldest forms of digital marketing and it is still one of the most profitable mediums, even today. It does take some time and resources to build a focused email list that is interested in the type of products or services your business offers. However, email marketing can be personalized to a high degree and, generally, can have a higher ROI than other mediums with a lot less overhead. Simply put, you do not have to pay another platform advertising fees, and your expenses will usually be for email design, software and email list maintenance tasks.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
It is the practice of optimizing a brand’s presence in a search engine’s index. SEO has the potential to increase your website’s and other properties’ (such as Google My Business) rankings on search engines such as Google. Most SEO companies focus on ranking businesses on Google as it has the biggest share of users by far. Search Engine Optimization may take a while to implement and bring results. It is also a constantly fluctuating discipline, mainly because of:
- constant algorithm updates performed by Google and other search engines
- strictly guarded algorithms and ranking factors
- a constant attempt to manipulate those ranking factors by various SEO companies
There are 2 major ranking factors that, when applied naturally, usually survive these algorithm updates:
- quality content that meets the searcher’s intent
- quality links from other websites which act as a recommendation for the page that they are linking to
In most cases, SEO relies on a well designed and structured website or digital property.
Note: One of the reasons why SEM (Search Engine Marketing) performs so well is that the searcher is actively searching for your products and services, meaning that he or she has already decided that those services or products are needed.
Paid Advertising
It is done by paying various channels, such as Social Media, Websites and Search Engines to display your ad inventory. The type of ads is varied, from text ads, product ads and banner ads to video ads and in-app advertising. Paid advertising success can be measured using a large number of KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) which vary from channel to channel. The advantage of doing Paid Advertising online is that ROI can be measured accurately and most online advertising campaigns can be optimized to further improve the ROI.
Search Engine Pay Per Click Advertising
Abbreviated as PPC, Pay Per Click Advertising is the practice of paying search engines to show ads. Together with SEO, it is part of SEM (Search Engine Marketing). The search engines perform better targeted and higher performing ads with lower costs, which can mean the difference between a campaign that burns funds with little results and a high performing PPC campaign.
Affiliate Marketing
It is the practice of advertising other companies’ products and services on your marketing channels (website, social, email, etc) in exchange for a commission from all the resulting sales. While a lot of companies and marketers are performing affiliate marketing ethically and successfully, there can be a bias towards recommending products with a higher commission versus the better products. Prominent disclosure of an affiliate relationship can be one of the indicators that a marketer engages in an ethical promotion of the recommended products and services.
Marketing Automation
It is when marketers use various types of software to automate marketing tasks. When marketing automation is applied in an organic, granular fashion, it can have great results as a time saver and for increasing ROI. However, it can be easily misused, can look like an uncaring, robotic approach to dealing with people and can even trigger penalties when it comes to SEO and social media.
This is just a quick, short introduction to digital marketing and it is not meant to be a comprehensive analysis of the topic. Digital marketing has expanded exponentially over the past 2 decades and has evolved into a lot of different disciplines. It can be hard and even impossible for DYI marketers to master all these disciplines and it is recommended to start with a single platform before moving on to others.
