What is digital marketing and how does it work in business?

 

 

Click here to buy quality digital marketing services.

 

 

Key takeaways

 

 

1. Digital marketing refers to promoting businesses, products, and services through digital channels like the Internet and mobile devices.
2. Digital marketing combines different strategies to connect businesses and advertisers to potential customers.
3. Digital marketing is data-driven, where relevant data is collected and analyzed for accurate targeting and messaging.
4. In this article, we tell you about the different models of digital marketing and how they can suit your business.
5. Read on for information on how to implement a successful digital marketing strategy.

 

 

Types of digital marketing 

 

As pointed out earlier, digital marketing is an umbrella term with various components.

An advertiser or business can use one or a combination of the following models to market their business online and in the digital space:

 

1. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
2. Web-based Marketing
3. Performance-based Marketing – Pay Per Click (PPC) campaigns
4. Social Media Marketing
5. SMS Marketing
6. Email Marketing
7. Influencer Marketing
8. Native Advertising
9. Content Marketing
10. Video Marketing
11. Apps-based Marketing
12. Paid online advertising, also called Search Engine Marketing (SEM)

 

 

Also read: What is CPM in advertising and how does it work?

 

 

How do I start digital marketing?

 

1. Digital marketing is a vast area to explore for your business.
2. It can be challenging to figure out where to start and finish and most importantly get the best results for your business.
3. We have simplified it for you by identifying what you need to do to get started.

 

Follow these simple steps to kick-start your digital marketing campaign:

 

1. Set up a website containing comprehensive details about the products and services you offer.
2. You should also consider having a blog on your website that you can use to provide insightful information to readers and potential customers.
3. Design a well-functioning website with an emphasis on user experience.
4. Good user experience can be achieved by having clear pictures, captions, call-to-action statements, and descriptions on your website.
5. The general layout should be kept simple and the website functions like buying, ordering, etc. should be easy to navigate.
6. Create social media accounts for your business and link them to your website.
7. Have an active email address and build a mailing list that you may use to reach out to customers.
8. You can also run paid online ads on platforms such as the Google Display Network.
9. A well-designed landing page should be on standby to receive the traffic/users coming from the ads you are running.
10. The landing page should be easy to navigate, with a value-based call to action, and mobile-friendly. This helps to get as many users on board as possible.

 

Once you implement the above steps, you are well into your digital marketing journey.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Digital marketing models

 

1. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

 

What is SEO in digital marketing?

 

 

1. SEO refers to a collection of practices aimed at making a website rank on the first page of Google Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs).
2. SEO is done continuously over a given period to boost the online visibility of your business through your website domain.
3. It is a digital marketing strategy that pushes your website closer to users who search online for products/words/phrases related to your business.

 

 

How to do SEO in digital marketing and boost your search ranking

 

In SEO, you are expected to fully implement the following two approaches to level up your Google Search Ranking;

1. On-page SEO
2. Off-page SEO

 

 

On-page SEO for Web search ranking

 

On-page SEO refers to optimization practices conducted on your website pages such as blogposts and service pages.

On-page SEO practices include:

 

1. Create lengthy, informative blogs about your product or service. Informative articles, audio, or videos are valuable in building a solid audience.
2. Be sure to provide links to your website, products, and services in the blog posts. This is referred to as internal linking and greatly helps your SEO.
3. Keyword research. This is the process of identifying and analyzing words searched by users on search engines like Google.
4. Keyword research gives important data that guides you in structuring your content to include information that is most wanted by your audience.
5. Main/prominent Keywords should be positioned on the page and blog post titles.
6. Keywords should also appear in subheads and within the body text by order of prominence.
7. Your blog should follow a thorough Search Intent Analysis to guide your content to the needs of your readers and potential customers.
8. It involves a thorough examination of the first page of the Google Search Engine Results Page (SERP) to establish what people want by searching for specific words.
9. Search intent could be transactional, informational, or navigational.
10. For instance, when people search for a specific Toyota car, what specifically do they want? It could be information about features, prices to buy, or local dealerships.
11. Search Intent is easily identified by looking at the articles/materials displayed as the search results.
12. Identify Latent Semantic Keywords and incorporate them in relevant content and articles on your web pages.
13. Latent Semantic Keywords are words that are closely related/with similar meanings to the keywords people search for.

 

 

 

 

Click here to buy quality digital marketing and SEO services.

 

 

On-page SEO for Web search ranking

 

Off-page SEO refers to any action to promote your website search ranking without publishing content on that website.

Off-page SEO is conducted offline away from the website it includes:

1. Submitting a Google Site map. Google reads your site map to index your pages properly.
2. Conducting an SEO outreach campaign to get high-quality backlinks.
3. Also known as link-building outreach, getting quality backlinks helps grow your website’s domain authority, domain rating, and page authority.
4. This in turn boosts your Google search ranking and overall visibility of your website online.
5. Having active social media accounts to engage and direct more users to your website.
6. Content marketing
7. Video Marketing

 

 

2. Web-based marketing

 

1. Web-based marketing refers to promoting your products and services through websites.
2. Web-based marketing is a combination of digital marketing strategies that include;
   1. 1. Affiliate marketing
      2. Pay-per-click (PPC)
      3. Social media marketing
      4. SEO
      5. SEM (Search Engine Marketing)
3. The most important thing in web-based marketing is having a website that can be used as a marketing platform for your product or service.

 

 

3. Social media marketing

 

1. Social Media Marketing refers to organically promoting your product/website/service on social media networks such as;
   1. 1. Facebook
      2. WhatsApp
      3. Tiktok
      4. Twitter
      5. Instagram
2. Social media is an effective digital marketing tool because it drives high engagement about products, services, or topics.
3. Social media marketing could be ideal because it allows a business owner to chat directly with customers and other interested people about their product/service.
4. Social media is present in almost all places around the world, making it important to have business social media accounts.
5. Some social networks such as Facebook and Instagram also have integrated functions that allow users to make direct purchases.

 

 

 

 

 

How to drive engagement in social media marketing

 

Follow these tips to get the most engagement on social media marketing:

 

1. Study your audience and identify their favorite social media networks
2. Create quality and engaging content.
3. Design a regular posting plan for social media.
4. Actively respond to comments, questions, tags, and other forms of feedback.
5. Figure out the best times to post. When your audience is mostly active online.

 

 

4. SMS marketing (Mobile marketing)

 

1. SMS marketing is a product/service promotion method done through cell phones for mobile users.
2. SMS marketing involves sending text messages to mobile subscribers to create awareness and maintain a connection with customers.
3. Mobile marketing is very effective because most people often have phones in their hands.
4. SMS marketing also delivers messages right on time, making it a regular strategy for many businesses.

 

 

5. Email marketing

 

1. Email marketing involves the use of strategically written emails to reach out to both potential and actual customers.
2. Well-composed emails are sent at carefully chosen times to get maximum impact.
3. The following are the most common templates used in Email campaigns:

• • 1. Pitch emails
    2. Welcome emails
    3. Subscription newsletters
    4. Event promotion emails
    5. Follow-up emails

 

 

 

Also read: What is link insertion and why is it important for SEO?

 

 

Email marketing best practices

 

How do I promote my website with email marketing?

 

1. First, you should group your audience so that every target group gets a customized email message.
2. Compose captivating subject lines that attract people to read your emails.
3. Your emails should be well-crafted and appealing to the eye.
4. Include valuable content that addresses the problems/needs of your audience.
5. Include call-to-action messages in your emails to get people to click and view your website, products, or services.

 

 

 

 

 

6. Content marketing

 

1. Content market is a digital marketing strategy that focuses on sharing valuable content with the audience.
2. In content marketing, the objective is to educate and empower readers instead of openly pushing a product.
3. Product promotions are usually in between the rich, problem-solving, and thought-provoking content.
4. Businesses use content marketing to attract interested persons with the hope of converting them into loyal clients.

 

 

How content marketing works

 

1. First, you should create catchy, compelling material to draw in interested online users.
2. These materials are referred to as lead magnets and they could be webinars, or free pdf downloads.
3. Create a series of informational pieces such as blog posts, short videos, books, newsletters, webinars, and whitepapers.
4. Have a landing page where traffic from your lead magnets is processed. The landing page should contain a call to action. For example “Click here to subscribe to our weekly newsletter.”
5. Create a lead magnet, an attractive proposition to capture your audience’s attention. It could be a free webinar or pdf download.
6. Regularly send one educative material after another to your subscribers.
7. Pitch your product or service within this cycle as part of your content.
8. The pitch should not come out very openly, rather it should blend seamlessly with your content.
9. Content marketing positions your business as the go-to place for solutions and trustworthy information.

 

 

Click here to buy quality digital marketing services.

 

 

Affiliate marketing

 

1. Affiliate marketing is a digital marketing strategy where businesses hire other companies to bring traffic to their business.
2. Affiliates are usually publishers with websites and social media pages.
3. These are used to direct users that can be converted to customers through special links.
4. The affiliates in return get a commission for the traffic they generate.

 

 

8. Performance-based marketing

 

1. 1. Performance-based marketing is a digital marketing strategy that is tied to set objectives.
   2. An advertiser pays only after certain targets/results are met.
   3. These results could be a certain number of clicks, subscriptions, sales, registrations, etc.

 

 

 

 

 

Types of performance-based marketing campaigns

 

1. CPC refers to Cost per click. In CPC you only pay when someone clicks on your ad.
2. CPA (Cost per action) is a form of performance-based marketing where an advertiser only pays after certain objectives, targets/results are met.
3. These results could be a certain number of clicks, subscriptions, sales, deposits, registrations, etc.
4. Revenue share is a marketing model where brands and their affiliate marketing agencies share profits at agreed percentages.

 

 

 

9. Native Advertising

 

1. Native advertising is a form of paid advertising that uses ads that resemble and blend with a website’s regular content.
2. It takes the form of sponsored articles written by the site author or normal Facebook posts.
3. The aim of native advertising is to make the ads not seem obvious to users or readers.
4. This is because readers tend to dislike too much ads and promotional content.
5. Native ads are located right inside the informative or entertaining content that readers like, but they do not appear so openly.

 

Click here to buy quality digital marketing services.

 

 

 

 

B2C and B2B marketing strategies

 

1. Digital marketing is a collection of many methods that could benefit your business.
2. To come up with the appropriate digital marketing strategies, it is important to establish whether you require a B2B or B2C communication approach.
3. Business-to-business marketing (B2B) refers to a type of marketing where a business targets other businesses.
4. Business-to-consumer (B2C) on the other hand refers to a business targeting individual consumers with its products or services.

 

 

Also read: What is web banner advertising and how does it work? – all you need to know

 

 

 

Applying B2B and B2C marketing approaches

 

1. While B2B marketing mostly focuses on logic and financial benefit, B2C marketing targets individual customers who are usually influenced by emotion.
2. In B2C marketing the aim is to make a great impression and compulsive emotion to get a customer to buy.
3. In B2B marketing, the approach is a long-sustained campaign to educate and change the opinion of an entire business. The result could be long-term purchase agreements, longer relationships, and longer sales cycles.
4. As such, content marketing blended with email marketing is an excellent strategy in a B2B approach.
5. For the more personalized and emotion-based B2C marketing approach, influencer marketing, native advertising, social media marketing, and video marketing could be excellent choices.