You might be hearing the term ‘Digital Marketing’ on a daily basis. But do you know why digital marketing has become so important for businesses? In this blog, we will see the basics of digital marketing, including the benefits of digital marketing, and the types of digital marketing.

Digital marketing is a form of marketing in which we use digital devices to market our products/services. Digital marketing can be done in an online and offline format. Television ads, radio ads, and marketing calls fall into the offline digital marketing approach. Usage of social media marketing, search engine marketing, email marketing, and other marketing options via the internet comes in online digital marketing.

In our previous blogs, we saw some marketing lessons from Nike and went deep into how you can develop your perfect online business plan. Further, we are going to explore why is digital marketing important for businesses and what are the major types of digital marketing.

Table of Contents:

• Content marketing

• Social media marketing

• Search engine marketing

• Email marketing

• 5 Major types of digital marketing

• Search engine optimization

Why is Digital Marketing Important?

89% of Americans come online at least once daily and 31% are online regularly. So as a marketer, it’s important to take advantage of this opportunity. Digital marketing is an opportunity that allows you to utilize this increasing online behavior. Hence, building an online presence and promoting your business digitally becomes essential.

Let me ask you a question. Suppose you see an attractive offer on a billboard or magazine vs you see the same offer in an ad appearing on your mobile phone. In which case you will go for the offer? The second one, right? Because it is very convenient to just make a few clicks on your mobile phone and grab the deal. In the other case, you would have had to call the company and follow a long procedure to avail of the offer. 

Digital marketing has made the purchasing journey very easy and convenient for customers. Thanks to digital marketing, almost every product/service is just a few clicks away from our reach. It has resulted in exponential business growth for business owners who adapted digital marketing to their marketing strategies.

5 Major Types of Digital Marketing

Majorly there are 5 types of digital marketing, which are as follows;

1. Search engine optimization

Search engine optimization, or SEO, is a process of optimizing web content so that it ranks higher on search engines. Millions of content pieces are getting posted online and most of them just disappear as if they never existed. 

Millions of Businesses and individuals are posting content regularly but only a few of them can deliver their content to their audience. SEO has a big role to play in it. Some important factors to consider while optimizing a web page for search engines are;

• Quality of content

• Level of user engagement

• Mobile-friendliness of content

• Number and quality of inbound links and outbound links

  
  

For instance, you make a website about tech gadgets and start posting content about it. You might post the best quality content but still find there is no one to read the content. But if you focus on search engine optimization along with posting the content, chances are you will see visitors coming to your site soon.

2. Content Marketing 

Publishing content that fulfills users’ queries and brings them in touch with the business is known as content marketing. Content is the backbone of any business that is utilizing digital marketing strategies. Content is often the first point of interaction of the customer with the business. Businesses publish content that is compelling, relevant to the searcher, frequently updated, and full of value to bring their potential customers into the funnel. 

For instance, Hubspot is a renowned CRM software selling company. It basically sells softwares that are helpful in managing different departments in an IT company. It uses content marketing to bring in the relevant audience and finally offers them its products.

3. Social Media Marketing

Social media marketing is a form of marketing that involves promoting your products/services on certain social media platforms where your target audience resides. Social media marketing can be divided into two types; organic social media marketing and paid social media marketing.

Organic social media marketing involves creating and publishing content pieces that solve the pain points of your target audience and make their lives easier. Paid social media marketing is a marketing tactic in which we put ads of our offering in front of our customers through various social media platforms. 

For instance, Amazon has an official Instagram account on which it posts user-generated and work culture-related content, this is an example of organic social media marketing. Amazon also runs ads on different social media platforms to spread brand awareness and bring new customers, this is known as paid social media marketing.

4. Search Engine Marketing

Search Engine Marketing comprises publishing ads of a product/service on search engines so that whenever someone searches a query relevant to our product, our offer pops up. In other words, posting ads for your product on Google or Bing is an example of search engine marketing.

Search engine marketing is a form of online marketing that aims to increase the visibility and traffic of a website or a product in the search engine results pages (SERPs). By using keywords, bids, and ad formats, advertisers can create and optimize their ads to reach their target audience. Search engine marketing can help businesses generate leads, sales, and brand awareness.

So what is the difference between Search Engine Optimization and Search Engine Marketing?

5. Email Marketing

Email marketing involves educating and nurturing your potential clients by sending them a sequence of emails frequently, and finally pitching them your main product/offer. While many people believe that email marketing is dead nowadays, yet there are marketers who are making a lot of profits through their email lists. 

The process of email marketing involves bringing high-quality leads from other digital marketing ways and then sending them personalized emails, intended to address their interests, wants, or needs and entice them to continue to your website.

Conclusion 

Digital marketing is a rapidly evolving field of marketing. Businesses that are utilizing digital marketing are growing exponentially. Today every second person has access to a smartphone and the internet which is the reason for the increasing online purchasing behaviors of customers. If you are a business owner or a digital marketer, understanding digital marketing strategies and best tactics isn’t an option for you but is mandatory. Search engine optimization, content marketing, social media marketing, search engine marketing, and email marketing are major types of digital marketing that companies utilize to bring maximum return on investment on their marketing budgets.

So these were the basics of digital marketing that every digital marketing enthusiast must know. To keep yourself updated with everything happening in the digital world and learn new concepts in the digital marketing realm, you can subscribe to Master Bazar's Blog. Master Bazar is the industry leader in providing digital marketing services and helping small businesses grow in the highly competitive digital world. Feel free to contact us for any kind of query regarding digital marketing services.