In recent years, digital marketing has exploded onto the marketing scene, and its effects have been anything but small. Traditional marketers and old-school companies have struggled to keep up with the ever-changing world of internet marketing while customers, leads, and clients have become more adept in this new landscape. But companies can’t afford to ignore changes in the way people look to buy, and that is why they have stepped into the modern way of marketing.
What is Digital Marketing?
Digital marketing is the practice of promoting products or services with the help of digital devices and technology.
In simple words, digital marketing is any form of marketing that occurs online with the help of mobile, laptop, internet, etc. In addition to digital signage and technology that may not be connected to the internet. It can range from anything as complex as automated email marketing initiatives all the way down to the content choices on your website’s blog.
Now, you know what is digital marketing, let’s proceed and know the types of digital marketing.
Types of Digital Marketing
If you have a computer or a smartphone, as many of us do, you’ve experienced digital marketing. It could be an email in your inbox, a search result when using Google, an ad on Facebook, a text message sent to your phone, or a post by an influencer on Instagram. As you can see, internet marketing is an expansive field with many areas of specialization. The core forms of digital marketing, however, are:
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Put, SEO consists of carefully structuring and optimizing your website’s pages to achieve the best position possible on search engine result pages (SERPs) when internet users perform a search on an engine like Google that’s related to your business.
- Paid Social and Paid Search Advertising
Ads that appear on social media are paid social ads, and all that seems on SERPs when you enter a query are paid search ads. Advertisers create these paid ads and compete with others for positions on their chosen social platform or the SERP for their selected search engine.
- Email Marketing
Any marketing that occurs through email is known as email marketing, and it’s not just for newsletters and coupons. All marketing-related interaction over email fits into this category.
- Content Marketing
Every effort to market through online content is considered content marketing (and often employs SEO, paid search, and paid social advertising). For example, all these content types (and more) are grouped under the content marketing category:
- Blog posts
- Infographics
- Videos
- eBooks
- White papers
- Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is a type of digital marketing in which companies reach out to third-party websites to advertise their products and services. These are also known as referrals. The target audience of the affiliate website becomes important in this aspect of digital marketing. Some of the ways that affiliates are incentivized are based on:
- Registrations
- Email sign-ups
- Sales and
- Subscriptions
- Mobile Marketing
Mobile Marketing is a type of digital marketing focused on reaching the target audience via mobile devices. We all are excessive users of mobile devices and there is a good chance of tapping their attention by following simple marketing strategies. Push notifications, emailers, social media posts, MMS, SMS, and newsletters are a part of Mobile Marketing.
- Social Media Marketing
Social Media Marketing is a practice that increases brand awareness and helps brands achieve their marketing objectives. A wide range of content buckets is available for social media marketing like videos, memes, static posts, trending posts, testimonials, stories, reels, etc. If you perform SMM properly, there is a high chance that your conversion rates will increase, you will be able to build good top-funnel traffic, and your paid marketing cost will go down.
Other types of digital marketing include marketing automation, design, apps, and SMS, web analytics, and growth hacking.
Why is Digital Marketing Important?
- It reaches a broad spectrum of internet users who spend their time and money online.
- It pins small businesses in top-ranking positions over brick-and-mortar firms with a meager advertising budget.
- It provides businesses with laser-focused control to ensure target audiences read their messages.
- It allows personal-level marketing to provide comfort and security for customers to subscribe to the messages and purchase.
- It enables tracking ads and communicating with the target audience.
- It provides scaling and adaptability for growing businesses to get instant results and optimize accordingly, reducing lost revenues and wasted ad spend.
- It influences the purchase decisions of internet users who look for services, products, or anything they desire online.
- It allows businesses to market to people by various means that show individual respect.
Does Digital Marketing Work For All Businesses?
Absolutely! It can work for any business and is not constrained to the niche or size. The prime motto of digital marketing is to understand the necessities and requirements of consumers and provide high-quality, relevant content for them. The following discusses how digital marketing works for two primary business branches.
B2B Digital Marketing
The marketing agenda followed by most B2B businesses focuses on the logic and features of the product. There is little to no emotion involved in influencing the purchase decisions of these businesses. In simple terms, B2B Digital marketing doesn’t rely on product promotion and focuses on how a business uses it.
B2C Digital Marketing
This is the profitable stream to venture into digital marketing as it focuses more on product benefits. Since purchase decisions are influenced by emotions rather than just buying the product, B2C businesses use a variety of forums to generate brand awareness and promote business to grow sales. This is because consumers no longer just want to know the brand’s benefits. Instead, they want the brand to describe how the product will benefit them.
How to do Digital Marketing?
To become a full-fledged digital marketer, you must be well-versed in marketing, business, communications, and digital technologies. Besides, you must also:
- Define Your Goals
Specify your drive conversions like leads, sales, and the revenue of a specific amount of ROI.
- Identify Your Target Audience
This helps you to acquire a workable digital marketing strategy to advertise better.
- Establish a Budget for Each Digital Channel
After determining your digital marketing strategy, segregate a clear budget to get seamless organic customer traffic and profitable returns.
- Strike a Balance Between Paid and Free Digital Strategies
This helps you to generate an effective digital marketing strategy to find new prospective buyers for a small investment. In addition, with rich Content, SEO, and social media foundation, it provides long-term, sustainable success.
- Create Engaging Content
After curating a budget with prospective customers, you can promote enticing Content on various channels to ensure customers purchase the product, boost brand attention and enhance lead generation.
- Optimize Your Digital Assets for Mobile
Mobile marketing is the key to the success of any digital marketing campaign. Optimizing web pages into user-friendly apps expands the horizons of reaching the target customer to engage and shop the products your brand offers.
- Conduct Keyword Research
Keywords are the core aspect of delivering your campaign content to the target audience. Therefore, conducting keyword research or social media keyword research is critical for optimizing your website and Content for SEO and ensuring people can find your business through search engines and social media channels.
- Iterate Based on the Analytics You Measure
This strategy helps to preserve an effective campaign for the long term. Use analytics to monitor your web pages and update them frequently for stable customer traffic.
- I’m Ready to Try Digital Marketing. Now What?
Before launching your career in digital marketing, it’s best to take up numerous digital marketing courses to have in-depth knowledge in the field and effectively build a strategy to inspire your target audience online.
Free Online Courses for Social Media Marketing
- Social Media Certification
Offered by Hubspot Academy
Hubspot Academy’s social media certification course ranks number one on our list of the best free online courses for social media marketing. It takes just under five hours to complete and includes nine lessons, 40 videos, and 34 quizzes. It is designed to help businesses attract new customers by building an effective social media strategy.
The curriculum is comprehensive and packed with valuable information that will work for beginners and experienced marketers alike. Students will learn about content marketing, building one-on-one relationships, and the basics of digital marketing. The course also teaches professionals how to measure their social media return on investment so they can see what is working and what is not.
In addition to being completely free, the online social media certification through HubSpot is worth master’s degree credits at Northeastern University’s social media concentration program. This can be done both at their Boston campus and online. Hubspot also has an online community and local user groups for members to meet up with their peers to exchange information. These features make it not only an ideal educational experience but also a terrific networking opportunity.
While the course does not offer certification, you will receive a badge upon completion that can be uploaded and shared to your website, LinkedIn profile, resume, or CV. HubSpot’s top-notch free courses are industry-recognized and can help you build on your current skills to become an expert in your field.
- Social Media Marketing Course
Offered by eMarketing Institute
Founded in Copenhagen in 2014, eMarketing Institute is on a mission to allow anyone to get their beginner’s certifications in the field of digital marketing, regardless of income level. Their courses are 100 percent free, and unlike many others on the list, they do not require you to pay to get your official certification. You will, however, need to pass the exam.
With this free online social media marketing course, you get over 165 pages of in-depth material that is easy to follow at your own pace. There are 25 chapters covering social media topics like:
- Marketing for mobile
- Blogging
- Target Audiences
- Content sharing
- Creating a strategy
- Promotion
- Return on investment
- Analytics
- SEO
That is just a shortlist of the types of content covered in the program. Upon completion, you will be allowed to take the final exam. There are 50 multiple-choice questions, and you need to get at least half of them right to pass. Once you pass, you can download your completion certificate to include in your LinkedIn Profile, CV, and anywhere else you want to share it.
- Social Media Marketing Specialization
Offered by Northwestern University through Coursera
This thorough social media marketing specialization course is offered by one of the top universities in the country through Coursera. By engaging in the training for four hours a week, the course can be completed in about five months. The syllabus is comprehensive. Students who are looking for the most inclusive free curriculum on social media marketing will find this to be one of the top choices.
Certificates for the specialization can be obtained at the paid level of Coursera. The paid course has graded assignments, and a capstone project, and allows students the ability to share certifications on their websites, Linked in profiles, or cover letters. However, each module of the course can be audited for free. Auditing the course allows you to read and view all of the content, but you won’t be graded or receive any certifications. Students who would like the certification but cannot afford the fee have the option to apply for financial aid.
The all-inclusive program is designed to teach users social media analytics, influencing, marketing strategy, and metrics. All-in-all, students should walk away from this course with a complete understanding of how social media marketing works and the ability to begin creating their own strategies.
- Strategic Social Media Marketing
Offered by Boston University through edX
This advanced six-week course is taught by Barbara Bicket, Senior Associate Dean and Associate Professor of Marketing at Boston University. During the program, students will learn about:
- Developing social media marketing strategies
- Delivering engaging content across a variety of platforms
- Analyzing the effectiveness of their efforts
- Utilizing social media to monitor consumer behavior
- Social media management
The syllabus is exhaustive and created for advanced-level learners. For individuals who want to learn practical and strategic methods of utilizing social media to grow their brands or the brands of their employers or clients, the program is all-inclusive.
Students can opt for the paid version, which gives them an instructor-signed shareable certificate with the Boston University logo, but this is not a requirement. The online social media marketing course can be taken in its entirety in the audit version for free.
- Social Media Advertising
Offered by the University of Colorado Boulder through Coursera
The Social Media Advertising course offered by the University of Colorado is course three in a four-part series titled Digital Advertising Strategy Specialization. Like all Coursera programs, it can be completed in audit mode for free or in the paid version where students receive a shareable certification.
The 14-hour free online course in social media marketing teaches an understanding of the basic social media advertising types, which ones are most likely to succeed, how to implement targeting parameters to reach specific demographics, and how to execute social media advertising campaigns. It covers Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram and includes plenty of case studies so students can understand the practical applications of the course.
