Digital Marketing Channels: What are some best channels to market yourself in 2022
Introduction
Digital Marketing is a part of “Marketing”. Digital Marketing is a kind of marketing that is done only online, with automation- the assistance of the platforms, tools, and software. Digital Marketing is more strategic, easy, and less time-consuming than traditional marketing.
Digital is slowly eating the space of traditional marketing and is soon expected to be called “Marketing” only.
While traditional marketing channels include billboards, pamphlets, newspapers, print media, etc, the channels of Digital Marketing are completely different.
Let us now understand the definition of the Digital Marketing channels
The places or platforms where we perform marketing operations with or without the help of possible software assistance, depend upon the objective of the operation.
Types of Digital Marketing channels
Types of Digital Marketing channels
There are mainly two types of Digital Marketing channels
1. Organic Channels: The kind of platforms that can be used to perform a set of marketing operations without paying any sort of fee are organic channels. In simple words, marketing is done free of cost.
2. Paid Channels: The kind of platforms that charge a fee to get the marketing operations running are known as paid channels. In simple words, marketing is done after making the payment to the channel.
Falling into the categories of Organic and Paid Channels, there are a lot of marketing channels used by businesses.
Organic Digital Marketing Channels
search engine optimization
A word or a group of words that are entered in the search bar on a search engine are known as keywords. A search query (keyword) is entered in the search bar, the search engine result page opens up to show the listing of websites. These websites are ranked up to the top from the bottom by a phenomenon known as search engine optimization.
search engine optimization means the set of operations performed inside a website to make it rank on the top of the search engine result page.
The search query can be informational or transactional. Transactional queries make the e-commerce websites fight for their positions on the search engine result pages as 95% of clicks happen on the first page.
The 5% of people going beyond the first page are usually for informational queries as they might have not found the required information on the first page of the search engine result page.
Brands make their website, perform Search engine optimization and rank themselves on social media depending on the search query which resonates with the services/products of the brand.
Social Media
Social Media is an internet platform, a website, or an application that allows users to create their account on it and create their content or put their content on social media.
However, it is not always necessary to register yourself on the platform as well. This is because social media is free to use.
Some popular social media platforms are Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Snapchat, YouTube, etc.
Brands create their social media handles to generate awareness and build their persona. The power of social media is as such that people themselves come towards the brand to opt for their services or to buy their products- This is known as Inbound Leads.
Social Media Marketing is one of the most popular forms of marketing that is done today, almost every band tries to connect with the audience and makes educational content to increase awareness about their product/service and boost their sales.
Email Marketing
Emails are one of the most personalized ways to reach a customer. Content on social media is seen by everyone but emails are only seen by the recipient.
This makes emails target the pain points of a customer.
When a customer has their email address with a website, they can receive the following types of emails.
There are four types of emails
Account-Related Emails
Generated for account creation, account details change, or password change.
Transactional Emails
Generated for transactions like receipts, and invoices.
Newsletter
Discounts, product-related information, and stories revolving around products.
Drip Emails
Automated Emails for conversion.
Paid Advertising
While organic channels- search engine optimization and Social Media take time to meet their goals, build their presence, and fetch inbound leads, paid marketing helps you to make your content showcase outside organic reach. This is known as Paid Advertising on the internet.
Display Ads
These Ads are the ads running on a website in the form of an image, audio, or video to showcase their service/product.
They use the model of pay per click or PPC and pay per impression.
Search Ads
These Ads appear on the topic of search engine result pages as results for a specific set of keywords. Advertisers pay the search engine for showing the ad.
They use the model of pay per click or PPC.
Social Media Ads
Ads running on social media platforms are governed by their guidelines. It is easier on social media to reach the customers who don’t even follow your page by highly targeted AdsManager.
Combination of use of channels
Remarketing
When the first attempt of marketing is not successful, a second attempt or Remarketing is done to make sure the lead is captured.
A typical example of Remarketing: Imagine a person A went to a website, spent a lot of time on the website, and put a product in his cart. However, he didn’t complete the purchase and kept the product as it is leaving the website.
A few hours later, the ad for the same product comes in front of him and the next day, he receives an email from the brand to check out the cart with a limited-time 25% discount.
This is what Remarketing is. Remarketing uses a combination of marketing channels as mentioned in the above example.
Content Marketing
This is a process of building a business, brand, content, or product around an idea or a particular piece of content. This can be someone’s unique selling point as well. This can be done through social media, website blogs, or emails.
This is how brands use different combinations of marketing channels to perform their marketing operations.