Marketing is the process of discovering your customer’s needs or concerns, attracting them with answers through the use of your product or service, and finally resulting in the formation of a business relationship.
There are only two types of marketing to choose from: traditional marketing and digital marketing. Traditional marketing is something that most people are acquainted with because it was popular and effective in the past. However, traditional marketing isn’t used nearly as much today because it no longer works as it once did.
Traditional Marketing Versus Digital Marketing
Marketing channels used in traditional marketing include print, broadcast, billboards, direct mailings, phone calls, word of mouth, in-person meetings, networking events, door-to-door solicitation, and radio broadcasting to communicate with potential customers.
Most companies relied on one or two channels for their main forms of advertising but utilised as many as possible. This type of marketing dates back to the Industrial Revolution, which took place during the latter part of the 18th century.
Digital marketing is simply using digital media, such as the Internet and electronic gadgets, to promote products and services. Several channels are available, including social media, mobile searches, websites, email, and search engines such as Google or Yahoo. These marketing channels add value to all consumers while also establishing and maintaining a relationship with them.
Digital marketing has been present since the beginning of the 1990s era. HotWired, an online magazine that is no longer in business, bought numerous banner advertisements. Then in 1993, the world’s first clickable banner was made available to the public! Shortly after that, Google and Yahoo were launched, and the Internet and marketing as we know it was forever changed.
Why Businesses Need Digital Marketing to Survive
While certain traditional marketing aspects, such as print content, remain intact, it lacks the capacity required to reach customers. By comparison, digital marketing enables consumers to make instant purchases. The fact that digital marketing is conducted electronically and online is a huge advantage. As a result, marketers can now reach customers more easily, whether through social media, PPC, search engines, video, or email.
Digital marketing provides organisations with a major lifeline. Globalisation has shrunk the worldwide barrier between consumers and businesses. It enables businesses to raise brand recognition with a strong social media presence, digital advertising strategy, and SEO. Consumers enjoy being informed, which is why they gravitate toward high-quality digital material such as ebooks and blog entries.
Businesses may survive without digital marketing for a time, but being out of sight and out of mind eventually results in becoming obsolete. Consumers are addicted to their electronics; phones are often glued into their hands. Whether they’re browsing social media, reading articles, watching videos, or conducting product searches, today’s consumers live in the digital world. When businesses fail to invest in developing their digital character, they are shooting themselves in the foot.
Looking at the Different Types of Digital Marketing
Whether we realise it or not, digital marketing is all around us. From the ads we see on Facebook to the pops-ups that we constantly try to block within our search engines. As a business, it’s high time for you to start taking advantage of the various types of digital marketing to ensure you are being seen and heard by consumers worldwide.
SEO
The backbone of digital marketing is search engine optimisation or SEO. It helps your website achieve a high ranking on Google’s first page. When you conduct a Google search, the results you receive are referred to as SEO.
However, one thing to always keep in mind is that most people won’t search for any information beyond the first page of results. The three most important parts of SEO are technical SEO, off-page SEO, and on-page SEO. All three should be used in combination with each other to drive the most traffic to your website.
Content Marketing
Content marketing aims to provide value to consumers via appealing, innovative, and instructive material. Content marketing contributes to the rise of brand recognition, traffic, and conversions.
Consumers are drawn to the Internet for a variety of reasons. A big reason is to learn about a certain subject, product, or service through a quick Internet search. Your material should be relevant to their search query. The idea is to track the customer’s purchasing experience and develop material that appeals to them.
Social Media Marketing
To put it bluntly, there is no way to have a successful digital marketing campaign without the use of social media. Here at Lime Digital, we understand just how important an active social media campaign is. After all, just about the entire world uses social media in one way or another every day.
With how much action takes place on social media channels every day, it’s vital for businesses to use it to their advantage. The best channels to use include TikTok, Snapchat, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, Pinterest, and LinkedIn. The best way to utilise social media is to use it for your various content pieces.
Pay-Per-Click or PPC
PPC is an acronym for pay-per-click, an online marketing technique in which advertisers are charged a flat fee any time one of their advertisements is clicked. It’s a method of purchasing visitors to your website rather than having to “earn” them naturally.
Search engine advertising is probably the most prevalent kind of pay-per-click advertising. It enables marketers to compete for ad placement in the sponsored links section of a search engine when someone searches for any term related to what their company is offering.
Email Marketing
Email marketing is perhaps the strongest marketing channel that may be used to promote your company’s products or services. It is like a combination of direct marketing and digital marketing, and it is used to advertise your company’s products or services. Email marketing is probably the most effective and popular marketing tool available for promoting your business or product, whether you want to build your brand or sell your products.
By incorporating it into your marketing automation efforts, it may assist you in making your consumers aware of your most recent products or offers. Using various forms of marketing emails may also play an important role in your marketing strategy by assisting with lead generation, brand exposure, relationship development, and keeping consumers engaged between transactions.
Video Marketing
The best news is that the definition of video marketing is not difficult to understand. The concept is actually quite straightforward: using video to advertise or market your company, product, or service. To be effective, marketing campaigns must add video into the mix. Testimonials from customers, films from live events, instructional videos, explainer videos, corporate training videos, viral (entertainment) videos, the list of types of videos you can use is endless.
Video marketing is becoming increasingly popular among businesses, but it is also becoming increasingly popular with customers who want to receive marketing messages in the form of videos. According to research from HubSpot, more than half of customers prefer video content from a company over other forms of content.
Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is a basic compensation structure in which an affiliate gets a commission for promoting the products of others, whether it’s an individual or a company. The affiliate searches around and finds a product they like, promotes it, and receives a percentage of the proceeds from each transaction. Affiliate links are used to monitor sales from one website to another.
Affiliate marketing works by delegating responsibility for product marketing and production to other parties, so it is able to use the skills of a diverse group of individuals to create a more successful marketing plan while compensating contributors. Three distinct parties must be involved for this to work: consumer, seller, and advertiser.
Native Advertising
Native advertising is the practice of displaying paid advertisements that are visually, physically, and functionally consistent with the media medium in which they appear.
Native advertisements are frequently seen in social media feeds or as recommended content on websites. Unlike display or banner advertising, native ads do not appear to be advertisements. They appear to be a natural extension of the editorial flow of the page. The key to native advertising is that it is unobtrusive – it exposes the reader to advertising information without standing out.
Online PR
Digital public relations or online PR is a type of Internet marketing technique that organisations utilise to boost their online presence. Digital public relations firms establish relationships with journalists, bloggers, and influencers and distribute online news releases to generate high-quality backlinks, social media mentions, and boost search engine optimisation.
Online PR works right alongside content marketing. It involves the practice of acquiring high-quality backlinks from other websites and publications online, obtaining online publicity, acquiring honest (and preferably favourable) consumer reviews, and responding to media inquiries with remarks.
Sponsored Content
Sponsored content is top-quality content that is created and distributed by a publisher on behalf of a sponsor. It’s a form of native advertising designed to blend in with the rest of the information on a website. Sponsored content is an advertisement that appears to be a natural match for a platform rather than an intrusive commercial.
