Types of Digital Marketing

Digital Marketing has revolutionised businesses across the world. Not only has it led to enormous growth in the Education sector, but has also contributed to the development of Healthcare, Finance, Banking, Defense, Aerospace industry, etc. With its growing popularity, immense career opportunities and lucrative salaries, pursuing a career in digital marketing have become advantageous. Moreover, being a vast field of study, there are different types of Digital Marketing in which you can gain expertise. So, here is a blog that will shed light on some of the types and their prospects. 

What Is Digital Marketing?

Before we delve deep into different types of Digital Marketing, let us first take a quick overview of the domain. Digital marketing incorporates all marketing methods and applications including digital media and platforms to promote products and services over the internet. Businesses largely depend on digital channels such as social media, search engines, emails, etc with an aim to optimise business growth and sales. Here are the general topics which form an essential component of Digital Marketing course syllabus: 

• Web Designing and Development
• Blogging
• Brand Management
• Social Media Marketing
• Content Curation and Management
• Marketing Strategy
• Editing and Copywriting
• Data Analytics
• E-Commerce/eCommerce Marketing
• Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
• Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
• Email Marketing
• Mobile Marketing
• Interactive Technology (such as ML, AI etc)
• Marketing Automation

Types of Digital Marketing

Now that you know the importance of digital marketing, let us take a quick look over the list below which collates different types of Digital Marketing: 

• Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
• Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
• Pay-per-click (PPC) Advertisement
• Social Media Marketing (SMM)
• Content Marketing
• Email Marketing
• Influencer / Affiliate Marketing
• Viral Marketing
• Radio Advertising
• Television Advertising
• Mobile Advertising
• Online PR
• Marketing Automation

Search Engine Marketing (SEM)

SEM is a paid digital marketing tool that helps to put paid advertisements on the search results page. These advertisements look similar to organic search results in Google search, however, the  “Ad” label appears as a prefix that distinguishes it from the organic search results. For this type of Digital Marketing, Google AdWords and Bing are the ideal tools. Some of the features of SEM are as follows: 

• SEM usually covers both PPC and SEO.
• Since it includes keyphrases/Keywords, it channelizes traffic to your website.
• It helps to increase your website ranking on search engines.

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

Besides the paid search, there is another option of ranking your page on top and this can be done through Search Engine Optimisation. SEO, which is one of the most popular types of Digital Marketing, functions by optimizing your website to “rank” more eminent in search engine return pages, thereby raising the organic (or free) traffic of your website through various channels. An efficient SEO strategy is made up of various synergistic techniques including, keyword research, backlink building, content creation, infographics, etc. Below mentioned are the three major types of SEO.

On-page SEO	This type of SEO concentrates on content that is present “on the page”. This content is formulated keeping various factors in mind including keyword research, competitor analysis, page speed, etc.
Off-page SEO	As the name describes, it deals with all the activities that take place “off the page”. This includes link building, social media presence, interlinking pages, video sharing, guest blogs, etc.
Technical SEO	This type of SEO deals with the backend of your website or webpage. The primary objective is to help you web page crawl easily by optimising attributes like Image compression coding, structured data, CSS, etc.

Pay-per-click (PPC)

Considered as the most prominent types of Digital Marketing and a powerful tool for paid advertisement campaigns, PPC is a technique of channelizing traffic to a host website by paying a publisher each time the ad is clicked. One of the most popular examples of PPC is Google Ads, where the ads are assigned to the top of the targeted keyword. Twitter ad campaigns and sponsored messages on Linkedin are some of the examples.

Email Marketing

E-mail or electronic mail is a faster way of communicating between people or groups of people and can be used as a marketing tool to promote businesses. Email is usually used to transfer content or advertisement links carrying promotional content and discounts used to steer traffic towards the business’s website. Some of the types of emails that mail marketing campaign include:

• Follow-up URLs embedded in emails.
• Customer welcome emails.
• Blog subscription newsletters.
• Holiday promotions to loyalty program members.
• Tips or similar series of emails for customer nurturing.

Social Media Marketing

Social networking sites (SNS) are very powerful tools for promoting business. Moreover, strategizing your campaign becomes easier due to the availability of target audiences. Social media marketing increases your brand identity and your presence thereby enhancing your brand experience, direct traffic, and leads for your business sales. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Reddit, etc are some of the popular platforms of Social media marketing.

Affiliate Marketing 

Affiliate marketing is a growing field of marketing that can be understood as a simple process which involves an individual actively promoting as well as selling a product or services of any other organisation for earning a profit. Out of all the types of digital marketing, in this one, the client is not a full time employee of the organisation it is associated with. Rather, they just rely on their commission by promoting/ selling their ultimate product or service. There are assigned websites through which companies can track their sales through affiliate marketing. In the channel of affiliate marketing, mainly there are three parties involved- 

1. Manufacturer or Product Creator
2. The Affiliate 
3. Consumer/ Customer 

Viral Marketing 

Viral marketing is a form of strategic marketing in which the interest is ignited through or the sales are promoted through circulating a message amongst the common audience through users. In viral marketing, the users are chosen to promote the product through their word-of-mouth. Owing to the intensity of reach, social media platforms now become the habitat of viral marketing. In viral campaigns, a simple video with a catchy phrase or content is created targeting the right audience. Then, it is shared on the internet to promote sales. Out of all the types of online marketing, it is observed that viral marketing is easy on the pocket. 

Radio Advertising

It is one of the most common as well as oldest ways of marketing that is still prevalent in today’s time. Radio advertising is concerned with promoting or selling a product or service by circulating a verbal advertisement on radio. In order to do so, the advertisers are required to pay commercial radio stations for their airtime and then, their broadcast their advertisement to their listening audience. To attract more business clients towards radio advertisements, there are various types of radio ads available such as radio live reeds, radio sponsorships, radio jingles, radio testimonials, etc.

Television Advertising 

Television is a huge platform when it comes to promoting a product or marketing a service. Advertisements are the channels through which organisations can reach out to their desired lot of customers. Television advertisements simply convey a message regarding marketing of a product or service. you can easily advertise your product or can demonstrate a service to a mass audience using the platform of television. As compared to other trending types of digital marketing, television has a way broader reach than any other type. Thus, a majority of the companies are still eager to put their television advertisements on trending channels. 

Mobile Advertising 

Any sort of advertisements that you come across on your mobile phone or tablet comes under mobile advertising. It can be done through visual ads, text messages, banners or messages that come with the embedded website. Apart from these common types of mobile advertisements, you may also find Ads that require you to download a particular application. 

Radio & TV Ads

When radio and television were initially established, they seized the globe by storm, but they are quickly giving way to other, more powerful media and communication platforms. To top it off, Internet and/or mobile radio and television are now available. It was previously difficult to determine how many radio listeners, TV viewers, and print ad readers responded to the message sent to them. However, with the arrival of digital radio and television, reaching the people you want to reach, when and where you want to reach them, has never been easier. Even while these advertising channels are fading into obscurity, this laser focus is a significant draw.

Electronic Billboards

LED signs or digital signage are other terms for digital/electronic billboards. Top-tier advertisers are increasingly turning to digital billboards because they are visually attractive, available 24 hours a day, visible from afar, and allow advertisers to create campaigns very instantly. Many claim that the allure of digital hoarding has faded in today’s world, where everyone’s nose is buried in their phone and no one notices them. Others argue that the more eye-catching, large, and glamorous your advertisement is, the higher the conversion rate for your company.

FAQs

Thus, we hope that this blog on types of digital marketing has provided you with sufficient knowledge related to online marketing. If you want to make your career in the emerging field of Digital Marketing but are confused about how to proceed, then let the experts at Leverage Edu lend you a helping hand. From providing guidance in writing an impressive SOP to completing the paperwork, the experts will provide assistance throughout the process!