Marketing is the process of creating, communicating, and delivering products or services to satisfy customer needs and generate revenue.
Digital marketing or online marketing refers to marketing activities targeting consumers using digital channels. It includes all online marketing tactics implemented through digital channels like website, landing pages, social media, email, and mobile applications etc to achieve business and marketing goals.
There are 8 types of digital marketing: (A) Affiliate Marketing, (B) Content Marketing, (C) Email Marketing, (D) Marketing Analytics, (E) Mobile Marketing, (F) Pay-Per-Click (PPC), (G) Search Engine Optimization, (SEO), (H) Social Media Marketing.
(A) Affiliate Marketing: Affiliate Marketing is a marketing arrangement in which affiliates receive a commission for each visit, signup or sale they generate for a merchant. This arrangement allows business to outsource part of the sales process. It is a form of performance-based marketing where the commission acts as an incentive for the affiliate. This commission is usually a percentage of the price of the product being sold, but can also be a flat rate per referral.
Merchants favor marketing because in most cases it uses a ‘Pay for performance’ model, meaning that the merchant does not incur a marketing expense unless results are accrued (excluding any initial setup cost).
7 ways to succeed at Affiliate Marketing (i) Influencers: Influencer marketing is the top trend in affiliating marketing. Celebrities like RJ Kibria, Manobic Showkat, Milton Somadder, Amrao Manush are some pf the most well-known social media influencers of our country. But there are also a lot of everyday people that have found fame as influencers due to their ability to create content and interact with their audience. (ii) Affiliate Blogging: Most bloggers specialize in a niche and share services and products within that niche which they know will grab the attention of their audience. A blogger may promote things like health trackers, credit card systems, or customer management systems.
To turn a blog into an affiliate marketing machine, one can include things like: Banners, Video clips, Pop-ups, Links to products within blog posts. (iii) Referral Links: After we sign up for our chosen affiliate program(s), we shall have access to our own personal links. These are called referral links.
On social media, it’s not best form to directly share affiliate links. However we can share the links of our published content that includes affiliate links. (iv) Micro-sites: Mini-sites/Micro-sites
are separate from our main site. The goal of a micro-site is to target a very specific audience. A brand will use a micro-site to highlight a specific thing such as: an individual event, campaigns, branded content. (v) Social Media: We can use Facebook, Twitter, and other social media sites to promote our affiliate links. But we shall have to make sure that the ads we use comply with each platform’s guidelines. (vi) Email List Marketing: Email lists are yet another way we can share links with the people who follow us. We can setup an email list of users who have registered with us by using services such as Awaber, MailChimp. (vii) Videos: Video content is the best way for busy people to consume content. And it’s also perfect for teaching people how to use products, how they can benefit from those, and for discussing pros and cons of the products we promote.
Affiliate Marketing strategies should avoid: (i) Using hard sells, (ii) Not looking into the legitimacy of the product we promote, (iii) Misleading our buyers, (iv) Creating content of poor quality.
(B) Content Marketing: Content marketing is a form of inbound marketing that attracts users to a brand by providing useful or entertaining content—usually in the form of text, video, or audio. Content marketing is valuable to companies because it helps them build relationship and trust with their potential customers and existing customers at scale.
Types of content marketing: (i) Blogs: Blogs are written resources that businesses use to promote their products, discuss to trending topics, or demonstrate thought leadership. Most business publish blogs for their own websites, but it’s also common to create guest blogs for other websites as a link-building opportunity. (ii) Video: Videos allow to communicate complex ideas and feelings with their audience in just a few seconds posted on a company’s website or on a platform like TikTok or YouTube. Many businesses use videos to share product demos, distribute customer testimonials, tell their employees’ stories, or announce new features. (iii) Podcast: Podcast content marketing allows business to reach out to niche audiences through the power of audio-first content. In branded podcast, businesses primarily offer solutions to audience pain points, but they also frequently feature customer stories, industry trends case studies, and other narratives that create an emotional connection with their listeners. (iv) Social Media: Social media is a beneficial form of content marketing that helps business socialize and engage with customers wherever they are. Instead of trying to engage with shoppers via email or website one can share updates and fun content on social media to engage targeted audience. (v) Infographics: Infographics are a type of content marketing that complies interesting statistics and facts into a pleasing visual format. Infographics are a mainstay of B2B content marketing, but they are useful in some B2C applications, especially for sharing instructions or product features. Infographics are helpful because they distill big concepts into engaging visuals that are easy to read and share.
(C ) Email Marketing: Email marketing is a direct marketing strategy that involves sending commercial messages to potential and existing customers via email. Business can use email marketing to promote new products or services, share news, drive sales, and encourage customer loyalty.
4 types effective email marketing: (i) Email Newsletters: Email newsletters often contain news and updates aiming to keep the audience engaged. At the same time, they are designed to gently push users towards the conversion. (ii) Transactional Email: A transactional email is a type of automated email that’s triggered by an action, typically a purchase. Transactional emails are sent automatically to one person to confirm a transaction, communicate important information, or deliver a specific notification, like a shipping notice. (iii) Email Promotions: Email promotions are integral components of an email marketing strategy. A business sends promotional emails to a subscriber list to increase awareness of products and services, generate sales, convert subscribers into customers and build customer loyalty. (v) Retention Emails: Retention email marketing is a strategic marketing approach aimed at maximizing the value of existing customers by forecasting long-term relationships and encouraging repeat business. It is the practice of engaging with customers beyond their initial purchase and making them loyal, long-term, and engaged customers. This type of marketing focuses on developing relationship with customers to increase retention rates, and ultimately boosts sales.
(D) Marketing Analytics: Marketing analytics is the practice of analyzing marketing data from multiple systems to gain insight and make informed decisions. It helps to evaluate the effectiveness of marketing efforts, track campaign performance, and understand customer behavior. By utilizing data-driven insights, one can optimize his marketing strategies and drive business growth.
3 types of Marketing Analytics: (i) Descriptive Analytics: Descriptive analytics uses marketing data analysis to tell what happened in the past. This information can help to understand past marketing performance and provide context for a better understanding of what’s happing currently. (ii) Predictive Analysis: Predictive analytics is a type of data science that uses past data to make predictions about future outcomes. This typically involves large volumes of data and a machine learning algorithm that can use that data to make increasingly accurate predictions of customer behavior over time. (iii) Prescriptive Analytics: Prescriptive analytics focuses on using past marketing data to recommend the most impactful things can be done. It is often used in tandem with marketing automation to ensure that its recommendations can be carried out instantly.
(E ) Mobile Marketing: Mobile marketing is a type of advertising that promotes products and services to people using mobile devices.
8 types of mobile marketing: (i) SMS Marketing: SMS marketing consists of sending short text messages directly to customers who have subscribed. (ii) MMS Marketing: MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service) marketing is an extension of text message marketing that allows businesses to send multimedia content such as images, videos, and audio directly to customers’ mobile phones. (iii) Location-Based Marketing: Location-based marketing takes advantage of users’ real-time geographic locations to send them targeted offers or content in real-time that is personalized and relevant. (iv) Mobile Search Ads: Mobile search ads are advertisements specially created for mobile devices for specific products. (v) App-Based Marketing: App-based marketing refers to advertising goods or solutions via mobile apps. This strategy allows businesses to connect with a highly targeted audience. (vi) In-Game Mobile Marketing: In-
game mobile marketing refers to advertising in mobile games in order entice gamers while they play. (vii) QR Codes: Quick Response Codes are two-dimensional barcodes designed for scanning with mobile phone cameras to provide quick and easy access to apps, websites, or specific contents. (viii) Push Notifications: Push notifications are brief messages sent directly and instantly via mobile apps that provide instantaneous interactions with users, such as announcements, reminders, or updates promoting apps.
(F) Pay-Per-Click (PPC): Pay-Per-Click is a type of internet marketing which involves advertisers paying a fee each time one of their ads is clicked. Simply, one only pay for advertising if his ad is actually clicked on.
9 types of PPC advertising: (i) Search Ads: The effectiveness of search ads lies in their ability to present any ad copy directly to users who have a high likelihood of converting. (ii) Display Ads: A display ad is excellent for brand awareness and can be highly effective for remarketing campaign. (iii) Social Media Ads: Social media ads are displayed on platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and others. (iv) Shopping Ads: These ads display product images, prices, and details directly in the search results, making them highly effective for driving online sales. (v) Video Ads: These ads can be placed as pre-roll, mid-roll, or post-roll videos, meaning they can play before, during, or after the main video content. (vi) Remarketing Ads/Retargeting Ads: Remarketing ads are highly effective because they target users who have already shown interest in a brand, increasing the likelihood of conversation. (vii) Gmail Sponsored Promotions (Gmail Ads): Gmail ads are effective for reaching users in a more personal environment and can be used for various marketing goals, from brand awareness to direct response. (viii) Amazon Ads: Amazon ads are highly effective for e-commerce businesses looking to increase product visibility and sales on Amazon. (ix) In-app Ads: In-app ads are advertisements that are specifically designed to appear within mobile applications, catering various formats such as banners, videos, interstitials, or playable ads.
(G) Search Engine Optimization (SEO): Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process used to optimize a website’s technical configuration, content relevance, and link popularity so its pages can become easily findable, more relevant and popular towards user search queries, and as a consequence, search engines rank them better.
9 types of SEO: (i) On-page SEO/On-site SEO: All the measures are taken to make web page rank higher on search engine results pages (SERP) falls under On-page SEO. (ii) Off-page SEO: This refers to everything done outside of a site to fare better and feature higher up in Google’s SEROPs. (iii) Technical SEO: It is largely to help Google bots successfully crawl, interpret, and index all pages of a site for future use. (iv) Local SEO: Focuses on optimizing a business’s online presence to attract local customers through Google search results and Google Maps. (v) E-commerce SEO: Involves optimizing online stores to improve their visibility and rankings on search engines, driving more traffic and sales. (vi) YouTube SEO: Optimize video content on YouTube to increase visibility, attract viewers and like video titles, descriptions, tags, and thumbnails. (vii) International SEO: Targets global audiences by optimizing websites to work well in multiple countries and languages. (viii) Mobile SEO: Ensures websites are optimized for mobile devices, improving users experiences and search ranking on smartphones and tablets.
(ix) Voice SEO: Adapts SEO strategies for voice search, focusing on conversational keywords and featured snippets to cater to voice-activation searches.
(H) Social Media Marketing: Social Media Marketing is the use social media platforms to connect with an audience and promote a brand. It can help increase sales, website traffic, and brand awareness.
7 types of Social Media Marketing: (i) Content Marketing: Content marketing is a strategy focused on creating, publishing, and distributing relevant and useful content for a target audience online. (ii) Influencer Marketing: Influencer marketing is a form of marketing that enables businesses to collaborate with individuals who have following for increased brand exposure. (iii) Social Media Advertising: Most popular social media platforms for advertising are Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok etc. (iv) Video Marketing: Video marketing involves creating a short and informative video that promotes a product and is played before, during, and after the main video. (v) User-generated Content: User-generated content (UGC) is a published information that an unpaid contributor provides to a website. (vi) Social Media Contests or Giveaways: Social media contests or giveaways include tasks such as liking/sharing a post or commenting on why someone loves a certain products. (vii) Live Streaming: Live streaming is the process of broadcasting video and audio content over internet in real time or near real-time.
Importance of Digital Marketing: Digital marketing allows reaching target audiences online in a variety of ways and on a variety of platforms. It can help spreading brand awareness, reach new audiences, increase revenue and more. Digital marketing for (i) Reaching new audiences, (ii) Build better relationship, (iii) Greater brand interaction, (iv) Staying up-to-date and Relevant, (v) Data-informed decision making, (vi) Versatile and efficient, (vii) Increased trust, (viii) Grow sales, (ix) Cost effective, (x) Personalized experiences.
Conclusion: As generation evolves and technology develops, the advancement in the field of marketing and advertisement has been immense. No longer are businesses bound by the limitations of traditional marketing techniques. The old has been heavily replaced by the new. One of the newest and most effective strategies has been of online marketing, which is the topic that this whole e-book was centered on. Online marketing utilizes the internet and its wealth of resources for promotional, profile-raising purposes.