Digital marketing is the keyword when it comes to growing a business online. Everyone is taking in the phenomenon due to the interest shown by experts in the field. Many universities have started offering courses in the field in the last few years. Many people are using the medium to find new career paths, while companies use it to enhance their presence online.
Today we will talk about various aspects of digital marketing and explore SEO which is the primary determinant in the success of a digital marketing campaign.
A Look into Digital Marketing?
Briefly, digital marketing is the marketing efforts we make online on the web. There are various assets used for digital marketing, just like in conventional forms of marketing. Pay-per-click advertising, blogging, social media campaigning, email marketing are all examples of digital marketing. These assets help businesses introduce themselves to newer audiences and retain or attract people back to sell their products or service.
Now let’s take a look at widely used strategies utilized by businesses in their digital marketing campaigns to accomplish their goals:
Assets in Digital Marketing
The definition of an asset for digital marketing is generally broad. By that, we mean that you could include any tool in this category that is used online for marketing-related purposes. Some people may not even comprehend the number of digital marketing assets they can use to their benefit. Let us give you a few quick examples:
- Website of your business/company
- Assets related to your brand, such as logos, icons, etc.
- Videos such as product demos, advertisements, etc.
- Images such as product images, infographics, etc.
- Social media pages
- Content in writing such as blogs, product descriptions, eBooks, etc.
- Reviews
This list is just the beginning. Savvy marketers are always working towards finding new ways to approach their audience online. More and more digital assets are added to this list as we see further developments in digital marketing.
Strategies in Digital Marketing
The concept of digital marketing is constantly evolving as we speak. However, here is a list of widely used digital marketing strategies used by businesses worldwide:
Pay-Per-Click Advertising
As the name implies, pay-per-click is when the business must pay for each click they receive on their website or page. The digital marketing asset used to drive those clicks could be anything. Examples of PPC advertising include Facebook Ads, Google AdWords, Quora Ads, and so on.
Paid Search Advertising
Paid search advertising refers to when businesses pay Search engines such as Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc., to put Ads on their SERPs, which is short for Search Engine Results Pages. This is one of the most effective ways to attract people looking to buy a product or service similar to what you are offering.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Another way to announce online presence without taking help from SERPs is to use Search Engine Optimization (SEO). However, the process of trying to get a high page rank takes effort and time as you are organically trying to widen your reach with top-quality pages, blogs, or other digital marketing assets (Stick around for an in-depth explanation of SEO).
Paid Social Media Advertising
Social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram, Pinterest, and LinkedIn allow businesses to put advertisements on their website. Such social media advertising can be an excellent option for unlocking large audiences unaware of your business’ offering. The power of social media advertising can be seen from the fact that Facebook has 1.28 Billion total users.
Social Media Marketing
Similar to Search Engine Optimization, Social Media Marketing makes use of social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter to market a product or business. This process is free and organic, but it takes significantly more effort and time to show results. Social Media Marketing can be expensive initially but can deliver cheaper results in the long run.
Social media marketing is the equivalent of SEO when it comes to promoting your product on these websites. It is much cheaper than advertising on these platforms but requires a lot more effort and time to have your page ranked highly among the plethora of pages trying to compete with you. In the long run, it is a better option.
Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO)
CRO or conversion rate optimization is a process used to provide customers with a better online experience. Businesses invest in CRO to derive more chats, leads, calls, and sales out of the website traffic they are receiving.
Content Marketing
Another broad marketing term is content marketing. It addresses digital marketing actions that use content such as blogs, articles, eBooks, videos, infographics, and so on to drive traffic leading to more leads, clicks, sales, and most importantly, higher brand awareness.
Native Advertising
Native advertising is when you advertise other content pieces at the end of a page or blog that is somewhat like what the reader is interested in. native advertising is also a part of the content as it uses these links to get more clicks. Spotting this digital marketing method can be challenging as these links are often mixed with non-paid content references to gain reader trust.
Email Marketing
Email is one of the oldest forms of digital/online marketing, which is still popular among big and small companies. Businesses and individuals use email marketing to send highlighted content or special deals to their current or potential customers. It is also used to promote events.
Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is using the online presence of a person or business to advertise your offering. You pay the person or business, and in return, they promote your product on their website.
How Do Companies Make Digital Marketing A Success?
Digital marketing is a great tool for both big and small businesses. If you are aware of the audience that you want to target, digital marketing has enough presence worldwide to make your campaign a success. Still, some businesses benefit more from digital marketing than others. Let’s look at the different strategies that B2C and B2B companies utilize:
B2C Companies
B2C companies generally sell products that are much lower in price than those sold by B2B businesses. Some of the products sold by B2B businesses can exceed thousands of dollars in prices sitting comfortably beyond six figures. In contrast, some B2C companies have an entire portfolio of products that sell for just a few dollars. Therefore, the majority of B2C companies do not need complex marketing programs or sales teams. They need to target the correct audience with the correct messaging, and success will come.
The mission of B2C companies is to bring people into their marketing funnel. For instance, if you manage to bring a guy who loves sunglasses onto a website that sells sunglasses with a good deal popping in front of him, there is a high likelihood that he ends up buying something. If not like the person you are selling needs to trust your brand to a great extent and know all about your business before they close the deal.
Though, B2C companies that use higher-funnel marketing channels such as social media advertising or marketing find much better results. This is because these channels have better chances of putting your products in front of people who might not be aware of your company.
You can always complement social media advertising and marketing with other paid search and SEO forms for the best results. However, as a starting point, social media is the best option for B2C companies.
B2B Companies
Contrary to B2C companies, paid search such as SERP advertising works well for B2B companies. A large part of B2B companies targets businesses that are niche which makes it hard to reach them with social media. Imagine trying to sell heavy drilling machinery used in oil fields to another business online. Your best bet is to be the first result when trying to sell to such a business. This might mean that you must pay more for putting your product out there. Still, when you are trying to sell a product listed for six figures, a paid product search is something worth investing in.
Also, the sales cycle of B2B companies takes much longer, and you are much more involved with the customer than a sale made by a B2C company.
The right combination of digital marketing tactics changes from different industries and business types. But pitting B2C against B2B gives us an idea of which strategies are more effective in creating brand awareness and the possibility of sale when it comes to specific businesses. There is a high chance you won’t find the perfect digital marketing strategy instantly. Still, after some experimenting, you might be able to find the most profitable way to bring attention to your company’s offering.
What Is Search Engine Optimization?
SEO refers to search engine optimization. Simply put, it is a set of techniques that businesses use to improve their online visibility so that when customers search for products like their offering, there is a higher chance of them finding your webpage. Higher search result ranking is the goal of a successful SEO. It allows businesses to increase the quantity and quality of traffic, meaning that they attract more people and the people they attract are genuinely interested in buying the product or service.
How Does SEO Function?
Search engines, namely Google, Yahoo, etc., use crawlers that go from one website to the other, gathering information regarding different facets and then compiling that information into an index. Then sophisticated algorithms perform their analysis on the data gathered by the crawling bots. These algorithms consider lots of factors or signals that help rank the websites. Finally, an order is developed in which the pages appear in response to a search query by a potential customer.
You can assume the factors that determine a site’s ranking as a guide to superior user experience. Different factors have their categories and weights that determine how important they are to SEO. For instance, keyword research and quality of content are the main factors of content optimization. Other essential factors are: how friendly is the mobile version of a website and how easily crawlers can assess a website. These factors are called architecture improvement factors.
The algorithms designed by these search engine companies are meant to locate pages with authoritative and relevant content, which provides users a productive search experience. To help rank your pages better, keep these factors in mind while working on organizing your website and the content you include on it.
As opposed to paid search, you cannot pay your way out to a higher search ranking.
What’s the Role of SEO in Digital Marketing?
SEO is a crucial component of digital marketing since millions of searches take place every day. A good chunk of these searches is geared towards finding out more regarding products and services businesses are offering.
The primary source of digital traffic for a business is the search and clicks they receive online every day, which also plays a part in other marketing functions. Having a higher ranking and better visibility puts you ahead of your competition and eventually leads to a better bottom line.
Over the past few years, search results have improved, giving users better answers to the queries they have to keep them on the results page for a longer time rather than moving to other websites. This is a direct result of a better SEO. Other features such as knowledge panels and rich results have also enhanced visibility giving users more information regarding your business in the results immediately.
How Do I Run A Successful SEO?
To run a successful SEO on your website, you need knowledge of SEO factors and their concept.
For example, keyword research and implementation are SEO factors that have changed since people used to do what’s called “Keyword Stuffing” in their texts to rank higher. However, with time algorithms were updated, picking up on this type of exploitation. Now, the context is taken into consideration when ranking according to keyword usage. The algorithm ranks down content that has unnecessary usage of keywords.
Apart from this, you also need to be aware of on-page and off-page SEO elements and “toxins” that negatively impact your rankings. The best way to learn these things is to take some SEO classes or help SEO experts improve your ranking.
