People know about digital marketing but many do not understand that it is an umbrella term. Knowing the different disciplines of digital marketing can help you better plan your marketing strategy based on these tools.
What Exactly is Digital Marketing?
Before going into the detailed bits of digital marketing, it is important to know the basics. As the name suggests, it involves marketing a brand using digital channels.
In this digital age, people primarily go online for their consumption of various content and media. While traditional marketing still exists, there is no doubt that the landscape has shifted to digital.
Hootsuite and We Are Social pegged the world population at the beginning of 2021 at 7.83 billion, with 4.46 billion of that number using the internet. 5.2 billion, or 66.6% of the world’s population use mobile phones. 4.20 billion people, meanwhile, are on social media.
In the Philippines, of the 110.3 million population, 89 million were found to use social media. That’s a huge chunk of usership on social media alone.
With these staggering numbers both internationally and locally, brands can no longer ignore that digital is the way to go. It makes sense for brands to advertise or increase brand awareness on a platform where their audiences are.
What are the Areas of Digital Marketing?
What type of campaign is most suited for your brand? Explore these areas of digital marketing to find out:
1. Social Media Marketing
One of the most popular areas for digital marketers is social media. Almost everyone has a social media account whether it’s on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Reddit, etc. There are a lot of people there readily consuming content for hours on end.
These social media networks already have paid advertising options that are geared towards helping brands maximize their reach. Of course, there are still ways to organically grow brand awareness and reach. Most brands try to do this by attempting to go viral with their posts and contests.
2. Search Engine Optimization
Most brands tend to have websites that are geared towards converting visitors into leads and customers. In order to do that, you would have to get incoming traffic first. One of the best ways to get inbound traffic is through search engine optimization.
SEO specialists help make a website more visible to search engines and to searchers as well. It involves a lot of research, planning, and patience. SEO campaigns can take a few months before showing good results. It’s really an investment since consistent rankings need consistent SEO efforts all-year round. It tends to be more affordable in the long run too compared to paid advertisements.
3. Search Engine Marketing
SEM is different compared with SEO. SEM specialists tend to do more research about possible keywords to target for bidding on Google Adwords. They can also serve as specialists for the Google Display Network ads that are found on most websites.
Sometimes, SEO specialists can also handle SEM campaigns. They are different disciplines but are similar in some aspects.
4. Email Marketing
Email marketing is nothing new. People have been sending out invites and solicitations through email decades ago. The difference now is that there are a lot of tools available for automating the email marketing process.
Some tools even allow you to see whether an email has been seen by your prospective leads. Others can schedule your emails and send them out to your mailing list so you won’t have to write them individually. It saves time and effort.
5. Retargeting and Remarketing
Advertisers are getting smarter every day. There is now an option to target online users who seem to be interested in your brand.
As their name suggests, retargeting and remarketing are used to push ads to visitors that are marked as leads. This is done by collecting their data using cookies on websites or even on social media. For instance, you would want to push a bicycle ad on a user who recently viewed your blog about biking equipment. There is a higher chance of converting them into a customer since they already have an intent to learn more about the product.
6. Content Marketing
Content is a must for all of the digital marketing areas. However, the discipline for creating content is also another different area in itself. A solid content marketing strategy is needed if you want to persuade and convert visitors into customers or subscribers.
There are a lot of types of content that can be posted online. Some of them include:
- Blog posts
- News articles and/or press releases
- Images
- Video
- Music
- Apps
- Games
7. Digital Public Relations
Digital PR, or ‘ePR’ as we like to call it around here, is the art of building your brand’s presence and credibility online through integrated campaigns. It pretty much has the same goal of generating positive publicity like traditional public relations but through different channels (like online publications, blogs, social media assets, webinars and podcasts, and more) and with a different set of tools. An example of these tools can be SEO. Digital PR can work together with your SEO campaigns and benefit it in many ways.
Digital PR also allows brand audiences to participate in your brand by giving feedback, by creating their own content with your brand product or service, and more. It allows you to create an ever-present ‘footprint’ in the digital space. Suffice to say, brands that want to stay current shouldn’t go without it.
Ready for ePR?
It should be worth noting that these areas should be studied if you want to really grasp the basics of digital marketing.
If you’ve never heard of digital PR before, or are unsure where to start, we can help you decide on the best service for you
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