You have come to the right place to learn all about digital marketing, especially its many types and benefits. Marketing has existed for thousands of years to promote products and services worldwide.
But nothing so far has been as widespread as digital marketing, with over five billion people using mobile phones. From traditional radio and TV to social media, digital marketing has grown tremendously. You must leverage its many types to have several benefits to avoid being left out in the crowd.
So, check out digital marketing, its many offline and online types, and its many benefits for growing your business to new levels.
What is digital marketing?
Though only in the early 1990s was the term 'digital marketing' coined, it started almost a century ago with the invention of the radio. After radio started broadcasting live operas to sell tickets quickly, digital marketing started with a bang. And with the internet hitting the roof during the 1990s and social media in the last two decades, digital marketing is the buzzword for marketers worldwide. But what, in essence, is digital marketing?
Digital marketing is advertising delivered to an audience through traditional or offline digital devices like the radio and TV. And the most popular among them today is online marketing through the many digital channels. Some digital channels include email, PPC, or pay-per-click, SEM, SEO, and others. With statistics confirming over 5.3 billion people using mobile, around 5 billion internet users, and 4.62 billion people active on social media, digital marketing is becoming the best form of advertising worldwide.
10 types of digital marketing
There are two forms of digital marketing, offline and online, to reach the audience easily and quickly. Though more online digital marketing options are becoming popular daily, traditional offline marketing still has a few options. Hence, you need to know a few offline and online digital marketing types to choose the best for expanding your business exponentially. The following are the three offline and six online digital marketing types.
- Radio marketing is still thriving, as statistics confirm billions of dollars in revenue generated to reach people everywhere, from homes and shops to cabs and others, and grab their attention to buy products or services.
- TV marketing, apart from reaching billions of homes worldwide, also reaches people through the many OTT services on phones, making it still one of the best offline digital marketing strategies for many businesses to benefit on a large scale.
- Phone or mobile marketing with texting is one of the best ways to reach people fast with a high success rate and is here to stay for a long time despite the huge success of online marketing options.
- SEO or search engine optimization is a long-term online digital marketing strategy to orient the website to rank on the first page of SERP or search engine ranking pages to increase online presence and traffic to reach the target audience easily and quickly
- PPC or pay-per-click is an online digital marketing option for the marketers to pay each time an ad gets clicked on the search engine results page and social media platforms to increase sales and revenue
- SMM or social media marketing is best for startups and small businesses to grow fast by leveraging social media apps like Facebook, Instagram, and others to build a brand & community, drive traffic to the site, and boost sales.
- Content marketing is creating and sharing content like blogs, videos, and e-books to grab the target audience's attention on search engines, social media platforms, and others to promote products and services to increase sales and profit.
- Influencer marketing is fast becoming one of the best digital marketing options as it boosts sales using influencers and links to sites to sell products and services.
- Through a long process, affiliate marketing involves individuals and affiliates promoting products and services to boost sales by paying only small commissions.
- Email is still the best digital marketing strategy, even though it is the oldest online option. It still gives an ROI, or return on investment, of forty dollars for every dollar spent on it by marketers, along with increasing brand loyalty and sales.
10 top benefits of best digital marketing
Statistics confirm that digital marketing will grow rapidly and reach 786.2 billion dollars by 2026. With the rise of people using phones and searching for information about products and services online, demand for digital marketing is rising rapidly. Google confirms that over 88 % of people searching for a local business online will visit the related store in the next few days. A few of the benefits of digital marketing will help develop your business to unexpected levels.
- Provides access to vital data of customers, including what they want to analyze the data and get valuable insights to customize marketing strategies to boost sales
- Helps reach a wider audience in many demographic locations worldwide through search engines, social media platforms, and others
- Cost-effective than many traditional advertising methods like print advertising and can reach people wherever they are rather than the other way round.
- Engages the target audience with the right content that they want to see, read or hear that is interesting and eye-catching to grab their attention
- Enables continuous tracking and monitoring of the marketing campaigns to improve them for better results
- Offers measurable results using many online tools to optimize the marketing campaigns to give the best ROI
- Provides a competitive edge to outsmart rivals in the niche industry than being left out in the crowd
- Can go global by reaching a wide range of audiences by creating viral content to break boundaries
- Personalize the marketing campaigns using analytics to provide offers, surveys, and others to reach an audience.
- Enables offering a wide range of content from videos to blogs to reach the target audience easily and quickly.
The above facts, types, and benefits of digital marketing will help you to choose the best among them to skyrocket sales.