Techniques Of Digital Marketing

The 7 big categories of online marketing are :

1.Search Engine Marketing (SEO)

In simple words, SEO or Search Engine Optimization denotes to any activity performed for the
improvement of Search Engine rankings of websites, products, services or other content. It shows
unpaid results which is also referred to as “free”, “organic”, “natural” or “earned” results.
The importance of SEO starts with the desire of the companies to gain more traffic for their websites.
The ranking over search engines matter because users pay more heed to the first 5 searches on
Google. Moreover, the users tend to trust Google’s refined search results because they consider
these searches to be more authentic and specific.

2.Search Engine Marketing (SEM)

Search engine marketing, or SEM, is one of the most effective ways to grow your business in an increasingly competitive marketplace. With millions of businesses out there all vying for the same eyeballs, it’s never been more important to advertise online, and search engine marketing is the most effective way to promote your products and grow your business.

3.Content Marketing

Content marketing is a form of marketing focused on creating, publishing and distributing content for a targeted audience online.[1] It is often used by businesses in order to:

• Attract attention and generate leads
• Expand their customer base
• Generate or Increase online sales
• Increase brand awareness or credibility
• Engage an online community of users

Content marketing means attracting and transforming prospects into customers by creating and sharing valuable free content. The purpose of content marketing is to help companies create sustainable brand loyalty and provide valuable information to consumers, as well as create willingness to purchase products from the company in the future. This relatively new form of marketing usually does not involve direct sales. Instead, it builds trust and rapport with the audience.

Why Content Marketing?

Perhaps more important than understand what content marketing is, is understanding why content marketing is important to your business. First we need to understand the four steps of the buying cycle:

1. Awareness. Prior to awareness a customer may have a need, but they are not aware there is a solution.
2. Research. Once a customer is aware there is a solution, they will perform research to educate themselves. For example, a car buyer will try to find out what different types of cars exist, and which one will fit their needs.
3. Consideration. At this point the customer starts comparing different products from different vendors to make sure they’re getting a high quality product at a fair price.
4. Buy. Finally, the customer makes their decision and moves forward with the transaction.

Content Success Factors 

• Clicks and staying power. The first indicator of content success comes in the form of clicks and visits. These are measurable instances that indicate your content was worth exploring to the average visitor. Online users are exposed to hundreds, sometimes thousands of pieces of content in a given day, so if yours manages to attract them enough to click on your headline and at least skim through your material, you can consider the piece somewhat successful.
• Comments and engagements. Users may be reading your content actively, but how much has your content engaged them? There are a few different ways to define engagements, but comments are a good standby. You can also measure engagements as link clicks, quiz completions, or conversions, depending on what interactive elements are present in your piece. In any case, more comments and engagements is an indication of more engaging material.
• Links and shares. Finally, the number of links and shares your content earns is an indication of how authoritative or valuable people believed it to be. The more of these you get, the higher it’ll rank in Google searches, the more visibility you’ll receive, and the better reputation you’ll earn as a brand.

5 Key Factors For Successful Content

1. Quality

“Quality content” is so much more than a catchy buzzword for marketers. It’s one of the factors that search engines use to determine your rankings, so it’s imperative that your content is up to scratch. Spelling mistakes, typos and broken links are not acceptable in the digital age.

2. Powerful Titles

At the ideation phase, it’s important to establish your predominant target audience and research what your competitors are producing. This way, you can create content on topics that will resonate with the right people.

3. Useful Content

Put yourself in your audience’s shoes. What do they want to see? Get to know them and you will soon discover what content appeals to them the most. You can then create tailored and targeted online campaigns for your desired audience from the off.

Examples of useful content include:

• Infographics
• Videos
• Interactive content like quizzes, polls, surveys and questionnaires
• User guides
• List format posts

However, this will ultimately depend on your target audience, so remember that it’s important to do your research first before you start creating your content

4. Creativity

Make the most of relevant, upcoming events and breaking news stories to make your copy instantly connect with your audience.

5. Frequency

With 3.17 billion Internet users browsing the web every day, it’s never been more important to keep active online on different channels, whether that’s social media, webinars or blogging. This will help increase brand awareness and traffic and will also improve your rankings and conversions in the long run.

4.Social Media Marketing (SMM)

Social media marketing (SMM) is a form of Internet marketing that utilizes social networking websites as a marketing tool. The goal of SMM is to produce content that users will share with their social network to help a company increase brand exposure and broaden customer reach.

Social media itself is a catch-all term for sites that may provide radically different social actions. For instance, Twitter is a social site designed to let people share short messages or “updates” with others. Facebook, in contrast is a full-blown social networking site that allows for sharing updates, photos, joining events and a variety of other activities.

How Are Search & Social Media Marketing Related?

Why would a search marketer — or a site about search engines — care about social media? The two are very closely related.

Social media often feeds into the discovery of new content such as news stories, and “discovery” is a search activity. Social media can also help build links that in turn support into SEO efforts. Many people also perform searches at social media sites to find social media content. Social connections may also impact the relevancy of some search results, either within a social media network or at a ‘mainstream’ search engine.

Social Media Marketing At Marketing Land

Marketing Land is the sister site to Search Engine Land that covers all facets of internet marketing, including these popular topics within social media marketing:

• Facebook
• Instagram
• Twitter
• Pinterest
• You Tube
• Linkedin

5.Pay-per-click advertising (PPC)

PPC stands for pay-per-click, a model of internet marketing in which advertisers pay a fee each time one of their ads is clicked. Essentially, it’s a way of buying visits to your site, rather than attempting to “earn” those visits organically.
Search engine advertising is one of the most popular forms of PPC. It allows advertisers to bid for ad placement in a search engine's sponsored links when someone searches on a keyword that is related to their business offering. For example, if we bid on the keyword “PPC software,” our ad might show up in the very top spot on the Google results page.

Purpose 

Pay-per-click, along with cost per impression and cost per order, are used to assess the cost effectiveness and profitability of internet marketing. Pay-per-click has an advantage over cost per impression in that it tells us something about how effective the advertising was. Clicks are a way to measure attention and interest. If the main purpose of an ad is to generate a click, or more specifically drive traffic to a destination, then pay-per-click is the preferred metric. Once a certain number of web impressions are achieved, the quality and placement of the advertisement will affect click through rates and the resulting pay-per-click.

Every time our ad is clicked, sending a visitor to our website, we have to pay the search engine a small fee. When PPC is working correctly, the fee is trivial, because the visit is worth more than what you pay for it. In other words, if we pay $3 for a click, but the click results in a $300 sale, then we’ve made a hefty profit.

6.Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is one of the oldest forms of marketing wherein you refer someone to any online product and when that person buys the product based on your recommendation, you receive a commission.

Affiliate marketing overlaps with other Internet marketing methods to some degree, because affiliates often use regular advertising methods. Those methods include organicsearch engine optimization (SEO), paid search engine marketing (PPC – Pay Per Click), e-mail marketing, content marketing and in some sense display advertising. On the other hand, affiliates sometimes use less orthodox techniques, such as publishing reviews of products or services offered by a partner.

Affiliate marketing is commonly confused with referral marketing, as both forms of marketing use third parties to drive sales to the retailer. However, both are distinct forms of marketing and the main difference between them is that affiliate marketing relies purely on financial motivations to drive sales while referral marketing relies on trust and personal relationships to drive sales.

Affiliate marketing is frequently overlooked by advertisers.[1] While search engines, e-mail, and website syndication capture much of the attention of online retailers, affiliate marketing carries a much lower profile. Still, affiliates continue to play a significant role in e-retailers' marketing strategies.

7.Email Marketing

Email marketing is the act of sending a commercial message, typically to a group of people, using email. In its broadest sense, every email sent to a potential or current customer could be considered email marketing. It usually involves using email to send advertisements, request business, or solicit sales or donations, and is meant to build loyalty, trust, or brand awareness. Marketing emails can be sent to a purchased lead list or a current customer database. The term usually refers to sending email messages with the purpose of enhancing a merchant's relationship with current or previous customers, encouraging customer loyalty and repeat business, acquiring new customers or convincing current customers to purchase something immediately, and sharing third-party ads.

Advantages

Email marketing is popular with companies for several reasons:

• An exact return on investment can be tracked ("track to basket") and has proven to be high^[vague] when done properly. Email marketing is often reported as second only to search marketing as the most effective online marketing tactic.^[4]
• Email marketing is significantly cheaper and faster than traditional mail, mainly because of the high cost and time required in a traditional mail campaign for producing the artwork, printing, addressing, and mailing.
• Businesses and organizations who send a high volume of emails can use an ESP (email service provider) to gather information about the behavior of the recipients. The insights provided by consumer response to email marketing help businesses and organizations understand and make use of consumer behavior.
• Email provides a cost-effective method to test different marketing content, including visual, creative, marketing copy, and multimedia assets. The data gathered by testing in the email channel can then be used across all channels of marketing campaigns, both print and digital.
• Advertisers can reach substantial numbers of email subscribers who have opted in (i.e., consented) to receive the email.^{[citation needed]}
• Almost half of American Internet users check or send email on a typical day,^[5] with emails delivered between 1 am and 5 am local time outperforming those sent at other times in open and click rates.^[6][7]
• Email is popular with digital marketers, rising an estimated 15% in 2009 to £292 million in the UK.^[8]
• If compared to standard email, direct email marketing produces higher response rate and higher average order value for e-commerce businesses