10 Types Of Digital Marketing

10 Types Of Digital Marketing

The digital marketing team at Portland Event Films makes the success of your business its number one priority. No matter the scale and budget, we give maximum effort to thoroughly research, strategize, and implement a digital marketing approach for each one of our clients that will provide you with the greatest return on investment.

But before you dive in to a full-scale digital marketing campaign, it’s important to know what your options are, and the various platforms available. That way, you can align your digital marketing strategy with the strengths of your company.

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Content Marketing

Content marketing is a very broad concept in the digital space, as it comprises many different types of marketing.  And while it offers tremendous advantages in terms of engagement and branding, it’s also one of the most difficult to pull off successfully. This is because it takes a long term commitment to start seeing results.

Some examples of popular content marketing campaigns include newsletters, blog posts, white papers, case studies, industry deep dives, infographics, eBooks, tutorials, documentaries, video highlights, and more. Social media campaigns are normally built around content marketing. Basically, anything that involves creating original pieces or informative series involves content. And in order to be successful, your audience needs to rate the content as valuable and meaningful. Otherwise, it will be ignored.

Creating this kind of original content isn’t easy (or cheap). But when done right, it’s the best way to earn the loyalty and attention of your customers. And there’s no more powerful branding than that.

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Search Engine Marketing

We’ve all likely heard about Search Engine Optimization, but that doesn’t mean we really understand it. It’s become trendy for website designers and online marketers to provide SEO services, but most of them do little more than play around with your page titles and metadata. And while this is one part of a successful SEO campaign, by itself it will barely move the needle.

The fact is that SEO is one of the most important marketing approaches. But it’s also extremely difficult. Think about it. Every company wants to rank at the top of Google searches, but each search term can at most display about ten suggestions on that first page. So the competition is fierce.  

In fact, the best way to rank well is through a consistent and long term content marketing campaign that provides value to your customers. But it’s also possible to game the system by working with the right marketing agency that really understands how SEO works. The bottom line is that a successful SEO campaign will require time, consistency, and money, but the rewards can be immense.

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Display Ads

Digital advertising is very different than traditional print advertising, and that’s best exampled with the use of display ads. In the old days, businesses would run ad campaigns in magazines, newspapers, advertorials, and other physical publications, and hope that they would be seen. The closest thing to analytics was circulation numbers and surveys.

The good news about modern display ads is that marketers have much more information and feedback at their disposal. While some people will tell you that display ads are not as effective as print ads back in the day, the sheer wealth of information, such as impressions, click rates, and conversions, means you can track almost exactly how valuable they are to your company.

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SMS Marketing

When it comes to local advertising, SMS marketing is a growing category that offers many attractive benefits. Because of the geographic factor, text campaigns often achieve better response rates, which justifies the higher cost.  When people talk about geo-fencing this is a closely related subsection of SMS marketing.

Geo-fencing allows you to directly target consumers located in a specific geographic location. If you run a store front business, you can target mobile users as they pass through your neighborhood, offering them a coupon or announcing a special deal for coming into your store. It’s basically the digital equivalent of hiring someone to twirl a sign outside your business.

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Social Media Marketing

A maxim in advertising is to go where your customers are. In 2021, that means advertising on social media platforms. Whether we’re talking Facebook, Instagram, Tik-Tok, or Twitter, these digital gathering places are immensely popular and have created advertising networks that are highly effective at targeting exactly who you want.

The amount of personal data that these companies have, even if it’s anonymized, is truly staggering. Marketers are able to target consumers based on their actual buying habits and demographics, making social media marketing campaigns highly effective and efficient. For the right kind of product or service, social media marketing is a no brainer.

There’s a lot of diversity in terms of how to create campaigns on social media. Some businesses choose popular influencers to sponsor their products. Others approach social media in a creative manner, with videos and humor, for example. And there’s always a new platform popping up, such as TikTok, and there’s an advantage to getting in one these platforms early.

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Email Marketing

If you hear email marketing and are equating it with spam, then you aren’t thinking in the right way. When reputable marketers talk about email marketing, they are referring to opt-in newsletter campaigns that people actually have to consent to receiving before messages end up in their inbox.

Effective email marketing is one of the best digital marketing categories for this very reason. You are directly communicating with people who have agreed to receive content from you. Obviously, if you want that relationship to continue (and why wouldn’t you) it’s incumbent on you to provide content that is valuable and interesting.

A lot of businesses entice email sign ups by offering discounts or a free gift in exchange. When offering a promo code for use at check out, you not only are getting a current customer, but hopefully a continuing one as well.  

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Influencer Marketing

As mentioned under social media, influencer marketing is growing in popularity. And while social media is often where you will connect with influencers, it’s not the only way. Any kind of celebrity testimonial is a form of influencer marketing after all.

Some of the common influencer-business relationships are obvious. Sports equipment or apparel companies that sponsor popular athletes. Food and beverage makers that work with a celebrity chef. If you sell digital gadgets, offering them to popular YouTube reviewers is a great way to get your product seen by a lot of people. But no matter what  industry you are involved in, there’s almost certainly a group of influential people who would make good marketers for your company.

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Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing doesn’t apply to every industry, but if it fits in with your business, you definitely want to take advantage of it. One of the most basic examples of affiliate marketing is when popular websites promote links to Amazon products in exchange for a tiny percentage. It’s a good way for many bloggers and online reviewers to make a bit of extra cash, and it’s great marketing for Amazon.

That, in a nutshell, is what affiliate marketing is. Anytime you can rely on your network of sellers, distributors, or users to push your products to more customers, it’s a form of affiliate marketing.

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Audio Marketing

While radio may be dying, audio content has never been more popular, thanks to the rise of streaming music sites and podcasts. Because they are now digital in nature, it allows marketers a lot more information about the effectiveness and reach of their advertising investment, making audio marketing a growing category for digital specialists.

It’s possible to approach individual podcasts popular in your area or industry. You can also advertise through podcast networks that will be able to disseminate your message across many channels. Platforms like Spotify and Pandora also offer popular advertising networks.

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Video Marketing

At Portland Event Films, one of our specialties is video marketing. As a sub category of content marketing, video can be incorporated into pretty much any of the above types of marketing. It’s very effective at boosting your website’s SEO, and is a great way to engage with your audience.

Whether you want to market your new products, have events you want to promote, or information you want to document for your audience, video has an integral role to play. But make sure that you partner with an experienced video production team to make sure you get the most out of your investment.

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