Digital marketing is an all-encompassing term that consists of digital channels, such as content marketing, SEO, email marketing, social media marketing, mobile marketing and so on, to create strategies to reach and connect with prospects and customers. Sopkr Technology helps your business to grow into a brand.
An average user consumes content via the television, computer, tablet, smartphone, radio, and other traditional media. This constant exposure to various types of media has led to information overload, further complicating the buyer’s journey. Digital marketing has allowed brands to stay relevant by making themselves visible through different channels and touch points.
Apart from traditional marketing channels, such as television, newspapers, billboards, and so on, marketers use these digital channels to guide prospects through their purchase journey and keep in touch with their existing customers.
Types of Digital Marketing Channels
Before we get into other aspects of digital marketing, let’s quickly review the types of digital marketing channels:
1. Website
The website is often the home to your digital marketing efforts. Brands and organizations use websites to host content while using other mediums to distribute it. Most of your digital marketing activities will link back to your website, where an action is expected to take place, and the conversions are tracked. For example, the download of a file, booking of a product or a service, and so on.
2. Content Marketing
Content creation is the spine of your entire digital marketing strategy. Whether you’ve got a documented content marketing strategy or not, you’re creating content to inform, entertain, inspire, or persuade your buyers through other channels. Some of the most common formats of content include text (blog posts), videos, images, infographics, podcasts, slide decks, and ebooks.
3. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
SEO acts as a jetpack for your content marketing efforts. SEO consists of on-page and off-page activities to boost your website’s visibility in search engine result pages (SERPs) for your preferred keywords. Earlier, SEO was primarily text-based, but in recent years voice search has gained prominence as well, which is why your SEO activities need to have a conversational approach.
4. Digital Advertising
Digital advertising is an umbrella term for various online advertising strategies. The typical pricing/bidding strategies for digital advertising are cost-per-click (CPC) and cost-per-mile (CPM), i.e., per thousand impressions. Common formats of digital advertising are search engine marketing (SEM), display advertising, native advertising, social media advertising, and programmatic advertising.
5. Email Marketing
Email marketing is the process of maintaining a database of cold and warm contacts and sending them email alerts about your brand, products and services. It is an effective channel to communicate with your audience on an ongoing basis. Email marketing is useful to build your subscriber base, onboard new customers, retain existing ones, promote discounts and offers, and distribute content.
6. Social Media Marketing
Social media marketing ensure you are present on the platforms your users are spending the most time on. These include Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Snap chat, and Instagram, where you can distribute content through both – organic and paid channels. Social media has also played a vital role in propagating video marketing and the ephemeral content wave. It enables two-way communication and your fans and followers can interact with you on your content through likes, comments, direct messages, or by posting on your official pages.
7. Affiliate Marketing
The concept of affiliate marketing is similar to commission-based sales. Organizations provide custom links to their affiliates. Affiliates earn a specific cut/commission every time someone buys through their custom link. Influence marketing could be considered a modern and evolved spin-off of affiliate marketing.
8. Mobile Marketing
The number of smartphone users across the world is expected to grow to 3.5 billion in 2020. To bank on this opportunity, brands connect with their users on their smartphones through mobile apps, emails, mobile-friendly websites, and social media. By connecting with users on the go, brands have been able to optimize their marketing strategies and send timely messages.
Best tips for Digital Marketing in 2020
Successful organizations have adopted the omnichannel marketing approach to guide their prospects through the funnel. Omnichannel marketing is an evolved form of multichannel marketing that helps you provide a holistic shopping experience to your buyers. It’s about delivering the right message at the right time on the right marketing channel.
Being omnichannel means delivering a consistent experience throughout the buyer’s journey. This means your strategy should revolve around the customer rather than specific channels. To build an omnichannel strategy, create a consistent brand voice across different channels. A cohesive omnichannel marketing strategy should take into account all digital marketing channels and map their utility at each stage of the buyer’s journey and work on the messaging accordingly.
Example: Starbucks is known for leveraging digital media to improve customer experience . In this particular instance, the Starbucks app lets users find stores, order through the app, pay using the phone, track Stars and Rewards. Users also get reward points for ordering through the phone and with their collaboration with Spotify, users can also identify the songs playing in their stores.