Love it or hate it, but you can't ignore it. Digital marketing is a space some people might be reluctant to venture into and others might want to indulge in completely. Behold! It's an ocean and understanding the elements will only help you plan what is most needed for your business in the current and future scenario.
56.1 % of the world’s population has access to the internet as of April 2019. The number is only expected to grow, making digital marketing not just an option but a necessity to implement if you want your marketing efforts to yield results. But there are so many forms of digital marketing and how do you know which one’s right for you? That’s correct, there are different types of digital marketing tools available in the market to help you engage with your target audience better. Let’s help you understand each one of those so you can decide which one would be best for your business.
Search Engine Optimisation(SEO)
Beyond the fifth page of Google are the forbidden lands; you can hide anything there and no one will ever find it, for 95% of people only look at the first page of the search results. So, where does this lead you?
SEO makes your content visible by increasing your ranking on the search results. The idea is to appear on the first three pages of the search engine, preferably the first to gain higher ranking and organic traffic to your site. Sadly, you cannot pay to get these results. However, you can highly-optimise your content through SEO to be on top. If you share authentic content online and would like more traffic, then SEO is for you. Here are the top SEO hacks to help you improve your site rankings.
Search Engine Marketing(SEM)
All that appears on the first page of Google is not organic.
SEM is a paid form of digital marketing and helps you rank higher than organic search results. There is only a slight variation in the organic and paid ads and many times people who click on these are unaware that these are ads and not organic search results. The top 4 results get 95.3% of clicks. If your content is relevant and is on the first page of Google, it will attract the right audience, and one way to do it is by spending some money.
That’s where SEM comes in. And the best part is, SEM is a pay per click ad where you pay only for the clicks you get. Win-win?
Social Media Marketing(SMM)
Between April 2018 and April 2019, the number of Social media users grew by 202 million. And there comes our 3rd clue - take full advantage of social media marketing! It can help you create a personality online and reach your audience, along with creating a solid brand name. Both B2B and B2C business can use social media as an organic tool to grow their following. Since businesses are run by individuals who are almost always active on social media, publishing engaging content can result in loyal followers and future customers. That explains why 97% of marketers are using social media to connect with their audience.
There are two ways you can promote on social media - organic and paid. With organic, you simply post on social media without paying for boosting and promoting the content and the impressions that an organic post gets comes from the followers. Paid social media marketing consists of content that is boosted by spending some money, like an ad. You’ll notice a sponsored tag when a paid post comes to your feed. That’s an example of paid social media marketing. The great thing about this tool is that you can filter the kind of audience who sees your paid posts.
Content Marketing
70% of customers believe that organisations that provide good content are interested in building good relationships with them. And one of the ways to do that is via content marketing - by creating, distributing, and maintaining the content that goes in all your marketing activities.
It’s a long term strategy which involves creating unique content that is useful to the target audience. It is essentially storytelling and people like a good story. The success of your content marketing efforts totally depends upon how you tell their story from the perspective of engagement with the users. Not sure how to get started with it? Read more here.
Affiliate Marketing
If you are not into doing things yourself, then make full use of affiliate marketing and let someone else do it for you, and pay them only for the conversations they get. Affiliate marketing is also finding people who interact with a similar target audience as yours, making them promote your products to their audience. You only have to pay them only if your product is purchased through the promotion using the unique link that the affiliate shared. The risk associated with this is less as you only pay when you make a sale. And your brand can reach the audience that you might have missed while creating your personas.
81% of the brands and 84% of publishers use affiliate marketing and this number is said to grow further.
Influencer Marketing
Social media has created many ways to market and influencer marketing is one of them. As one of the newest additions to marketing, it is growing quite fast. Nearly 63% of businesses that use influencer marketing said that they intended to increase their marketing budget over the next year.
With influencer marketing, you can make $6.50 in return for every $1 spent, and can be used for both B2C and B2B businesses. It’s about finding the right kind of influencer for your market, cutting through the competition, and reaching directly to your audience. People get immune to advertisements over a period of time and influencer marketing is one of the promising newer alternatives to reach them.
Email Marketing
73% of people said they would like to get promotional content through mail instead of social media. Sending informative, unique, and quality emails to your subscribers and updating them with your company's offerings and relevant content is another sure shot way to convert them into customers. Email marketing reaches a wider audience as people check their emails every day. It gives the highest ROI compared to other forms of marketing, for every $1 spent the returns are $38. Pretty great, right?
So, consider email marketing if you want to connect with your audience in a more concrete manner.
Viral Marketing
Never underestimate the power of viral fame. Let’s simplify this for you. Have you heard of the ice bucket challenge? The ALS ice bucket challenge was initiated for people to donate $100 to their favourite charity or pour ice water over their head. After some time, ALS modified the challenge and made it such that people had to pour ice-cold water over their head and also donate. Celebrates like Bill Gates, George W. Bush, Oprah Winfrey, Tom Cruise, Mark Zuckerberg, Rihanna, Tim Cook, and Cristiano Ronaldo, and more were a happy part of this challenge and ALS managed to raise more than $115 million in just eight weeks.
Getting viral also means that memes are made around it and people talk about it even more. So, if you end up becoming a meme, maybe it is a good thing.
Quick Refresher
There is no dearth of alternatives when it comes to what kind of digital marketing will work best for your business. Now that you have understood the basics of all the available options in the digital market today, it’s time to understand your business requirements and the reason to choose a particular type while considering your budget.
If the medium you choose doesn’t seem to help your business, give it time and change it to a better alternative if you still don’t see results. You can also choose more than one form of digital marketing and filter it over time depending on the results you are getting with your current efforts.
If you are still not sure which form of digital marketing is best for you, take our free consultation with one of our digital marketing experts. Hit anywhere on the image below to get in touch with us.
