Different Types of Digital Marketing You Need to Be Doing

When it comes to writing a digital marketing strategy for your business, it’s important to consider the different types of digital marketing activity you can engage in. In today’s multi- and omni-channel world, where customers expect to interact with their favourite brands and businesses on a variety of platforms, having your fingers in many pies really does pay off.

While there may be some tactics that work better than others with your specific audience, you should never limit yourself to just one channel, technique or method. It’s actually a little-known fact that multi-channel customers spend more than single-channel customers, and this is all down to the brand experience they get. 

To ensure you’ve covered all bases, here are the most important types of digital activity you should include in your strategy:

SEO

One of the most important types of digital marketing any business can do is optimise its website. While search engine marketing can be very technical, it doesn’t have to be rocket science. There are actually some very easy and basic changes you can make to your site to make it more search-engine friendly. These include changes such as:

•         Adding relevant keywords to landing pages and blogs (without keyword stuffing!)
•         Increasing word count to ensure pages are optimised 
•         Having user-friendly navigation and site structure (search engines love this) 
•         Using on-page optimisation (such as H1/H2/H3 headers and custom URL slugs) 

Content is also a hugely important part of website optimisation. By making sure your site has lots of useful, relevant, high quality and keyword-rich content, you can make it easier for your target audience to find you online.

Content marketing 

Your content marketing strategy will require a lot of thought because there are many different forms of content to consider. This includes written content formats such as blogs and articles, news stories, guides, downloadable ebooks, whitepapers, research reports, and many more. 

It also includes other types of content, such as infographics, videos and social media content. Whatever type of content you choose to use to connect with your audience, it’s always useful to have a content calendar and content plan in place. This will provide structure for your content creation and delivery, and can help you map out your resource requirements.

Paid ads

Organic traffic is great, but it can be hard to get when you’re first starting out. While content is the long-term game, pay-per-click marketing is the quick win. Ideally, these two strategies need to work together. Paid ads may get people to your site in the first place, but amazing content could be what makes them stick around and return time and time again. 

Pay-per-click is ideal if you want to level the playing field with bigger competitors, increase conversion, or improve brand awareness.

Social media marketing 

Social media is one of the most relevant types of digital marketing you can do, because it helps you connect with digital natives on their chosen channels. There’s also some recent research by Sprout Social suggesting that as many as one in three people are using social media sites as a way to seek out new products, services or brands. 

So if you’re not on social, you could be missing out on new customers and prospecting opportunities. Digitally savvy shoppers also use social media to stay in touch with their favourite brands, contact customer service (instead of calling or emailing), consume brand or product-related content, and read user reviews. 

This is relevant in the world of B2B too – with 75% of buyers and 84% of C-suite executives using social platforms to conduct research and ultimately inform their buying decisions.

Email marketing

It’s been around a long time but even to this day, email is still one of the most effective types of digital marketing you can add to your strategy. It offers a high return on investment and isn’t hard to do. 

While social media is incredibly powerful for boosting brand awareness, when you compare the two different types of marketing, email is 40x more likely to level up customer acquisition than Twitter or Facebook campaigns. So a well-crafted email is definitely worth the time and effort.

Some great tips to make your emails work harder are to include personalisation, and focus not just on promotions and products, but attractive content too. The more you can engage readers and hook them in, the more likely they are to take notice. It’s also important to use A/B testing to find out what works and what doesn’t. And if you’re looking to scale easily and improve efficiency, automation is a must.

Video marketing 

In 2020, there were over 3 billion internet users consuming video content, thanks to the pandemic driving more and more people online for shopping, research and entertainment. This makes video marketing one of the most important techniques to adopt in a post-pandemic world. 

There are lots of ways you can use video to your advantage – and it’s not just about sharing information on products and services. In 2022, here are the reasons people are still turning to videos instead of other types of content (according to HubSpot): 

• 32% watch videos to relax and unwind
• 26% want to laugh or be entertained 
• 13% are looking to explore an interest or passion
• 11% want to learn something new
• 7% are searching for a form of escapism 

Video can be used to emotionally engage with your audience, and can be used to quickly capture the attention of customers who are suffering from content fatigue. This is because moving imagery is easy to consume and is ideal for someone who is time-poor and in need of information fast. 

Another great thing about video marketing is the ability to use the content anywhere. You can embed videos onto your homepage, in blogs and articles, or have them uploaded onto various social platforms such as YouTube or Facebook.

Getting your Digital Marketing right

Do you need help with your digital marketing campaigns? At Identify Digital, we are passionate about supporting businesses in the midst of digital transformation and can help with everything from paid ads and content to entire digital marketing strategies. To chat ideas, get in touch with our friendly team.