4 Types of Digital Marketing that
Businesses Need
-
- Website Design/Creation
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
- Paid Search
- Social Media Marketing
Digital marketing is the ‘new’ shopping malls of the future. Thousands of retailers and businesses are online seeking customers at any given time of the day. So, how is your business supposed to stand out from the crowd? Through effective digital marketing! Let’s dive into what types of digital marketing will grow your online presence thus sales.
What is digital marketing?
Digital marketing is promoting your business’s products and services via online marketing channels and strategies. Let’s discuss the four most prominent elements of any digital marketing approach.
1. Website Design and Creation
Anyone can quickly create a website in very little time or effort. However, developing a great website that encapsulates the essence of your brand or your mission, that is much harder to do. Your website is the digital face you present to the world. It is the center of any company’s online presence. Without this piece of the puzzle, creating that online presence for your business can be incredibly difficult.
2. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
SEO is a powerful tool that can boost a website’s natural, organic traffic from a search engine. This marketing tool focuses attention on Google (or other search engines) in an attempt to “guess” the magic formula that dictates how a search engine chooses to display search results.
In reality, it is much more complicated than just “guessing.”
SEO focuses on using keywords and making connections between highly reputable websites to catch Google’s “attention”. Most of this happens on the back-end of your website.
When your website is optimized then Google validates the content and considers your webpages most likely to have the highest value. Your business website is then ranked higher organically on search results. The process is both extremely formulaic and mysterious at the same time. The higher up on the list, the more clicks and attention your business will get online.
3. Paid Search
In addition to SEO, which depends on organic traffic, specific search results are also “promoted” via paid advertisements that appear at the top of your search listing. These paid advertising results can have varying levels of effectiveness.
What is the benefit of this approach? Paying Google will place your message at the top of the search listing and seen more. This gives you some control over when your message shows up, where on the page it is located, and who sees your message.
There is, unfortunately, one considerable downside: human nature. How often do you pay attention to the results on your search screen that are marked “Ad”?
According to one study from 2019, as many as 80% of searchers completely ignore the paid Google AdWords. That doesn’t mean paid search is a complete waste of time or money, and there is a reason that advertising accounts for 97% of Google’s annual revenue. When consumers are “ready to buy”, those paid advertisements more frequently result in a final sale. Finally, when you consider that SEO tactics can take months to produce the desired results, paid search remains a valuable, quick digital marketing tool.
4. Social Media Marketing
Social media marketing is marketing your business’s products and services via social media sites like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Amazon, etc. These efforts bring your message to where potential consumers are “gathering” virtually.
The main objectives? Increase sales, increase website traffic and build long-term brand recognition. Simply put, it’s more than just paying Facebook money for advertisements (that may or may not be effective). Paid advertising on “social” IS a guaranteed way to ensure people see your brand. These ads can directly increase online sales.
Social media marketing isn’t limited to just paid advertisements either. Have you ever started an Instagram account or built a Facebook page for your business trying to interact with your regular customers? Well congratulations, you are using the FREE version of social media advertising. A marketing agency uses social media to create a consistent, intentional image across the specific platforms that are best suited for your business. That level of consistency is difficult to achieve on your own.
As you can see, no one digital marketing element can do all the work alone. To take advantage of these tools, a 21st-century business owner needs a targeted marketing approach. These marketing solutions are more effective when combined along with traditional marketing methods. The digital age has not eliminated the need for tools like consumer research or competitive analysis. The interconnectedness of all of the marketing solutions we use today has made it more critical than ever that your business works with a trained marketing team.