What Is Digital Marketing? Types and Examples

Many of the same ideas apply to digital marketing as they do to conventional marketing, and it is frequently seen as an extra method for businesses to contact customers and analyze their behavior. Companies frequently blend conventional and digital marketing methods. But digital marketing has its own set of obstacles. When the internet became widely used in the 1990s, digital marketing began to gain popularity.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Websites, mobile devices, and social media platforms are examples of digital marketing channels.

There are several techniques available to digital marketers for measuring the performance of their efforts.

One of the most difficult difficulties that digital marketers confront is how to stand out in a world filled with digital adverts and other distractions.

How Digital Marketing Works

Marketing refers to a variety of tactics and media that businesses may employ to promote their products and services to potential customers and grow their market share. To be successful, you must have both advertising and sales skills. Professional marketers do these responsibilities either internally at particular organizations or outside at marketing agencies that service a variety of customers.

Companies used to rely only on print, television, and radio advertising for marketing. Although such choices remain, the internet provided firms with another avenue to contact customers, resulting in the emergence of digital marketing.

New technology and trends led businesses to reassess their marketing strategy and expenditures. Email became a prominent marketing technique in the early stages of digital marketing. The attention then switched to search engines such as Netscape, which enabled firms to tag and keyword goods in order to get visibility. The rise of social networks such as Facebook enabled businesses to track user data and target their messaging to highly narrow audiences.

Smartphones and other portable gadgets have made it simpler for businesses to offer their products and services to customers wherever they may be. According to a Pew Research Center report published in 2022, 76% of American people used mobile phones to make internet purchases.

Types of Digital Marketing Channels

Digital marketing channels have evolved since the 1990s, and they will continue to do so. Here are the eight most popular channels in use today.

Website Marketing

Companies frequently utilize their own website as the hub of their digital marketing efforts. The most effective websites communicate the brand’s products and services in an understandable and memorable way. Today’s websites must be speedy, mobile-friendly, and simple to use.

Pay-Per-Click Advertising

Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising allows advertisers to access audiences on news and other websites, as well as digital platforms, by running sponsored adverts. Marketers may create PPC campaigns on

Google, Bing, LinkedIn, X (previously Twitter), Pinterest, and Facebook to display advertising to users who search for phrases related to their products or services.

These advertisements can target individuals based on demographics (age or gender), interests, or location. Google Ads and Facebook Ads are the most prominent pay-per-click advertising services.

Content Marketing

The purpose of content marketing is to reach out to potential consumers by providing them with interesting textual, graphic, or video information. That content is frequently published on a website and then promoted using social media, email marketing, search engine optimization, and pay-per-click campaigns. Content marketing strives to be more subtle than advertising, with the product or service being advertised either overtly or not.

Email Marketing

Email marketing is one of the most effective digital marketing channels, despite the fact that many customers associate it with spam and dismiss such messages accordingly. Many digital marketers use a variety of digital marketing tools to grow their email lists. Then, utilizing email marketing, they try to turn these leads into customers.

Social Media Marketing

The major aims of a social media marketing strategy are to increase brand recognition and trust. As you learn more about social media marketing, you’ll see it can be utilized for lead generation, direct marketing, and sales. Social media marketing covers both sponsored posts and tweets.

Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is one of the oldest marketing strategies, and the internet era has given it new life.. In affiliate marketing, corporations and individual “influencers” promote another company’s products and receive a fee for each sale or new lead added to their list. Many well-known companies, including Amazon, have affiliate programs that pay out millions of dollars to affiliates who promote their products.

Video Marketing

Many internet users utilize sites like YouTube to make purchasing decisions, learn how to do something, read a review, or simply relax. To begin a video marketing campaign, marketers can use one of several video marketing platforms, like Facebook Videos, Instagram, or TikTok. Companies get the most success with video when it is integrated into SEO, content marketing, and larger social media marketing initiatives.

Text Messaging

Text messages (formerly known as SMS, or short messaging service) are frequently used by businesses to alert customers about new items and promotions. Nonprofits and political candidates utilize texting to promote themselves and request funds. Many marketing initiatives now allow consumers to purchase or donate with a simple text message.

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) in Digital Marketing

Both digital and traditional marketers employ key performance indicators (KPIs). KPIs allow businesses to track the long-term success of their marketing endeavors and compare it to the efforts of their competitors.

The following are some of the most typical KPIs that marketers may use to assess their performance:

Click-through rate: This KPI is widely used to assess the efficacy of internet advertising by calculating the number of individuals who clicked on a certain ad as a percentage of all those who may have seen it.

Conversion rate: The conversion rate extends beyond the click-through rate to compare the percentage of individuals who completed a desired action, such as completing a purchase, to the entire audience reached by a certain ad or campaign.

Social media traffic: This metric measures how many people engage with a company’s social media presence. It encompasses likes, following, views, shares, and/or other measurable activities.

Website traffic: This statistic measures the number of individuals who visit a company’s website over a specific time period. Among other things, it may assist businesses determine how effective their marketing efforts are in getting customers to their website.

Digital Marketing Challenges

The digital age presents unique obstacles for marketers. For example, digital channels are fast expanding, and marketers must keep up with them and find out how to use them efficiently. Marketers may also struggle to assess and make effective use of the massive amounts of data available through these channels.

Perhaps most importantly, customers are being bombarded with digital commercials and other distractions, making it increasingly difficult to catch their attention.

The Bottom Line

The manner in which consumers consume media in the twenty-first century have prompted marketers to place a greater, and often sole, focus on digital channels for their campaigns. While digital marketing employs many of the same strategies as conventional marketing via print, television, and radio, it also offers a distinct set of tools that marketers must learn in order to thrive.

Trade on the Go. Anywhere, Anytime

One of the world’s leading cryptocurrency exchanges is ready for you. While trading safely, you will benefit from reasonable rates and devoted customer assistance. You’ll also get access to Binance features that make it easier than ever to examine your trade history, control auto-investments, check price charts, and conduct fee-free transactions. Create a free account and join millions of traders and investors in the worldwide cryptocurrency market.

FAQ

What is the definition of a digital marketing agency?

A digital marketing agency is a company that specializes in marketing to consumers or businesses using digital platforms. This involves developing and deploying campaigns for customers using social media, pay-per-click advertising, videos, and bespoke websites, among other channels.

What is SEO in Digital Marketing?

Search engine optimization (SEO) refers to a set of tactics that businesses employ to boost traffic to their website and improve its ranking in search results. The higher a site shows on the search results page, the more likely people are to notice it and maybe click to visit it.

What is Internet Marketing?

Technically, internet marketing is marketing that occurs entirely on the internet. As such, it is a subset of digital marketing, capable of reaching its target audience via a variety of digital media, including the internet.

How Do You Become a Digital Marketer?

Digital marketers require great writing and social media abilities, as well as a solid knowledge of data analytics. Most digital marketing careers demand at least a bachelor’s degree. You may also wish to take digital marketing classes or attend a digital “boot camp.” Additionally, doing an internship while in school might be beneficial.2 A master’s degree in digital marketing may be advantageous, but it is not required.

What Skills Are Required in Digital Marketing?

A marketer must have strong communication skills in order to effectively explain the story of a company or product to potential buyers. Data analytic’s skills are also useful for determining how effectively a marketing effort is doing and where it may be improved. Finally, social media skills are essential.

What is the definition of implicit bias in digital marketing?

Implicit prejudice, also known as unconscious bias, is defined as signals that inadvertently communicate unfavorable stereotypes or pejorative attitudes toward specific populations. In recent years, it has received considerable attention in the realms of advertising and marketing. In digital marketing, it might express itself in something as easy as selecting stock pictures for a marketing campaign. Companies, for example, may unintentionally utilize photos of exclusively heterosexual White people while ignoring Black, Indigenous, and other persons of color, as well as those with varied body shapes and abilities. While digital marketers frequently utilize apparently impartial algorithms to assist shape their ads, such algorithms are designed by humans, who may carry their own unconscious prejudices with them.