Which Type of Digital Marketing is Best for Your Business?

Anybody working within the digital marketing industry will tell you how competitive the online marketplace is. There are many challenges for your business to overcome, however by using the right types of digital marketing, there are also a lot of benefits to digital marketing including scope for growth and success.

Whether you’re talking about a large corporation or a local takeaway, employing different forms of digital marketing is essential for your continued success online.

There are many different digital marketing channels, however these 6 are considered the most popular forms, used most widely to help businesses grow.

• SEO
• PPC and Biddable Media
• Social Media Marketing
• Content Marketing
• Outreach
• Email Marketing

So, with that in mind, which types of digital marketing should you choose to focus on? Well, that all depends on the factors below:

• The amount of time you can invest
• The size of your budget
• The type of business you own
• The audience that your targeting

It’s important to remember when implementing any of these marketing strategies, that Google is the ultimate frenemy and it’s something that we as marketers have a love-hate relationship with. Since it was first released 21 years ago, Google has continued to develop its algorithms, release new services and provide fast, relevant answers to all of our queries.

Once you have an in-depth understanding of both your customer and the resources that you can allocate, you can then start to think about the type of digital marketing campaign you could launch. Although there are 6 main forms of digital marketing, initially you should decide whether your campaign falls into one of two main sections; organic digital marketing (free) or paid digital marketing. Ideally, you should go for a combination of both, however if your budget is low, this understandably can’t always happen.

An organic digital marketing campaign is a huge part of being successful online. It revolves around keywords, which are the search queries that you want to appear for in Google’s rankings.

For example, if we were to sell a selection of handmade leather boots for men, we’d want customers to be able to find our client on page one when they search for this term. Ideally, we would like to appear at the top of the first page, above the client’s main competitors.

Practices such as including the keyword and its variations (e.g. men’s leather handmade boots) throughout the content is a good start, and we can also add relevant search terms to alt tags too (a type of image description for the visually impaired). These are just a couple of examples of how we could optimise a page, helping Google to identify that the content is of good quality and relevant to users searching for handmade leather boots.

To summarise, an organic search campaign is a great, low cost way to improve your rankings. However, it should be noted that it can take a long time to see the results and conversions that you want. If you’re not filling an unoccupied niche, it can be notoriously difficult to achieve first page visibility.

Paid digital marketing comes in many forms, and the type that you choose should depend on your target demographic. Paid marketing doesn’t offer the same financial benefit as an organic digital marketing campaign (where you don’t have to pay for visibility or desired actions), however it can provide quick results and instant visibility.

For example, Facebook could be used for B2C advertising. It offers a detailed targeting system so that you can appear to your chosen customer persona. For example, if we were selling a designer handbag, we could limit the ad to appear to professional women aged between 25-50. We might then choose to focus on their relevant interests, high-end clothing brands and fashion magazines targeted at this age range. Facebook advertising can also incorporate Instagram placements, which can be great for more visual products.

If we were working with a B2B business, we would be also considering LinkedIn as a paid advertising platform. This isn’t quite as developed as Facebook, and generally offers less value for money. Despite this, it is a great way to target working professionals when they’re in a work frame of mind. You can also target job titles, helping you to appeal to people with the authority to be able to invest in your product or service.

Google Adwords is the dominant method of paid digital advertising, something that we as an agency have a great deal of experience with, all starting with utilising the correct bidding strategies. With options to place your adverts in search engine results, Gmail and across different websites within its network, it is the ultimate, multi-pronged approach. Ads can also be placed in many different formats, including text, image and video, or a combination of these.

To learn more on about how different forms of digital marketing can be used to grow your business, contact a member of our expert team. We can advise you on the best way forward and offer guidance on how best to carry out your online efforts.