At a high level, digital marketing refers to advertising delivered through digital channels such as search engines, websites, social media, email, and mobile apps. Using these online media channels, digital marketing is the method by which companies endorse goods, services, and brands. Consumers heavily rely on digital means to research products. For example, Think with Google marketing insights found that 48% of consumers start their inquiries on search engines, while 33% look to brand websites and 26% search within mobile applications.
While modern day digital marketing is an enormous system of channels to which marketers simply must onboard their brands, advertising online is much more complex than the channels alone. In order to achieve the true potential of digital marketing, marketers have to dig deep into today’s vast and intricate cross-channel world to discover strategies that make an impact through engagement marketing. Engagement marketing is the method of forming meaningful interactions with potential and returning customers based on the data you collect over time. By engaging customers in a digital landscape, you build brand awareness, set yourself as an industry thought leader, and place your business at the forefront when the customer is ready to buy.
By implementing an omnichannel digital marketing strategy, marketers can collect valuable insights into target audience behaviors while opening the door to new methods of customer engagement. Additionally, companies can expect to see an increase in retention. According to a report by Invesp, companies with strong omnichannel customer engagement strategies retain an average of 89% of their customers compared to companies with weak omnichannel programs that have a retention rate of just 33%.
As for the future of digital marketing, we can expect to see a continued increase in the variety of wearable devices available to consumers. Forbes also forecasts that social media will become increasingly conversational in the B2B space, video content will be refined for search engine optimization (SEO) purposes, and email marketing will become even more personalized.
some of the most effective strategies
1. Inbound Marketing
Inbound Marketing refers to the whole ecosystem of strategies, tools, and tactics that a marketer uses to convert a website visitor into a paying customer. It includes everything from content marketing, email marketing, lead nurturing, SEO, marketing automation, website optimization, website analytics, and more.
Inbound marketing is an overall approach to attracting, qualifying, nurturing, and delighting customers and prospects. It is not a “one-off” or something that is deployed quickly or temporarily; rather, it is focused on a long-term relationship with customers.
Why use inbound marketing?
2. Content Marketing
Content marketing falls under the umbrella of inbound marketing, and it is less about interrupting people with unsolicited promotions and more about answering their questions and truly helping them. It includes content such as blog posts, landing pages, videos, podcasts, infographics, white papers, e-books, case studies and more.
In most cases, content marketing has a number of goals. You may use it to increase brand awareness, improve brand loyalty, and educate your target audience. It can also help you convert and nurture leads.
Savvy marketers create content that’s ideal for multiple user personas in all stages of the sales funnel. For example, a user who is unaware of your brand and found your website through organic search needs different content than a prospect who is almost ready to buy. You’ll need to understand your buyers’ journeys and come up with unique content that addresses their needs every step of the way.
Why use content marketing?
3. ABM
Account-based marketing (ABM) is a powerful B2B marketing strategy that targets specific accounts you select. It’s intended to help sales and marketing teams move prospects through the sales funnel quickly. With ABM, you target the accounts that are most important to you.
Why use account-based marketing?
4. SEO
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process of optimizing your website and your content in order to achieve higher rankings in search engines and increase the amount of organic traffic to your site. It involves a variety of tactics, like creating high-quality content, optimizing content around specific keywords and user needs, incorporating meta information, and ensuring that your website is technically optimized for search engines.
Ultimately, SEO strives to bring in the right visitors organically to drive more leads and sales.
Why use search engine optimization?
5. SMM
Social Media Marketing (SMM) uses social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram to promote your content, products, or services, build brand awareness and visibility, gain fans or followers, engage current and prospective customers, and drive traffic to your website.
It requires an ongoing advertising spend and, most of the time, a website landing page designed specifically for users from that ad spend. As soon as your advertising spend ends, the website traffic, “likes,”and “followers” end as well.
Why use social media marketing?
6. Email Marketing
Email marketing is the practice of sending promotional and informational emails to build relationships with your audience, convert prospects into buyers, and turn one-time buyers into loyal fans of your brand.
These emails may discuss exclusive deals, promote website content, upcoming sales, or general messages on the behalf of your business.
Why use email marketing?
7. PPC Advertising
Pay-per-click advertising (PPC) is a strategy in which you (the advertiser) pay every time a user clicks on one of your online ads. It’s often done through Google AdWords, Bing Ads, or other search engines, and it can be an effective way to reach people who are searching for terms related to your business. However, costs can range from relatively inexpensive, to thousands of dollars per month, depending on the size and scope of your campaign. And, when a campaign is discontinued, the traffic generated by that campaign also is discontinued.
When users click on pay-per-click ads, they are directed to dedicated landing pages that encourage them to take a certain action: make a purchase, complete a form, download a report, or similar. If you implement a PPC campaign, your primary goal will likely be to increase sales or leads.
Why use PPC?
8. Video Marketing
Video used to promote your products, services, and brand may include product demos, interviews with thought leaders in your industry, customer testimonials, or how-to videos.
You can add videos to your website, PPC landing pages, or social media outlets to encourage more conversions and sales. KPIs may include engagement (time spent watching the video), view count (how many times it was watched), the click through rate (how many users clicked through to the website), conversion rate (how many leads, prospects, or customers were generated from the video content), and more.