Advertising a business today has shifted from print media where businesses used to advertise on newspapers and magazines to digital marketing where the business now advertise on digital technologies over the internet. This digital disruption has come as a business adapts to the changes in technology.
Modes of Digital Marketing
- Social media Marketing
- Digital Marketing Publisher Agencies
- Content Marketing
- Search Engine Marketing
- Display and Video Advertising
- Email Marketing
- SMS Marketing
- Automated Calls
- Affiliate Marketing
- Influencer Marketing
Social Media Marketing
This is where a business uses Social media networks such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc to market its products or services.
The business needs to create business profiles on social networks such as create a Facebook page or LinkedIn Company Page. Using social media to market business could be free or paid advertising.
The business can use social media networks for free to reach people that follow the business on social media. Sharing business posts across Facebook groups is also free and it will reach several people especially sharing on a group with many members.
Social media networks also offer paid ads where a business can pay to reach more people on the social network.
Paid advertising on social media is very effective and delivers results where a business has a good plan that covers the target audience and an optimal budget.
Digital Marketing Publisher Agencies
This is advertising through publisher agencies such as Google AdWords. Google AdWords posts the adverts on websites and other platforms such as email and YouTube. The advertisement, therefore, reaches a wide audience.
A business can place an advert with the publishers in the form of text, image graphics, and video format. The adverts are mainly meant to drive traffic to a website to prompt a user to take action on the website.
The most common form of this advertisement includes:
Cost per Click (CPC)
In a CPC advertising, business is charged per click made.
Cost per Action (CPA)
In a CPM advertising, the business is charged per action taken by a person brought to the website from a CPC add. Examples of the actions include; sign up, buying a product, downloading a file, registering on a form, playing a video or reading a post.
Cost per Mile (CPM)
In a CPM a business is charged per mile of users reached. The mile is a thousand users reached.
Publisher networks, therefore, are very cost-effective and also deliver results. When a business advertises through this mode its ads are matched with an audience of their choice or the AdSense algorithms can match the perfect audience.
Content Marketing
Content marketing works where a business invests in coming up with content for the product or service, they are offering in form of blog posts.
For example, a business in the real estate sector can write content that relates to real estate such as “Acquiring your dream house at an affordable mortgage”.
When a business writes a lot of content that is related to the niche the business serves, it will get more traffic from google search results since it will be ranking top on google
Search Engine Marketing
A business can also focus on getting traffic to its website organically where people just search on the internet a phrase and land to the business website.
To get such organic traffic, a business has to invest in Search engine optimization or consult an SEO expert to audit the website and implement strategies that will help the website rank on search results.
Briefly, some of the SEO techniques include; Keywords, Sitemap, backlinks and inbound links, site speed and meta tags. These are discussed in our SEO posts here.
Video Advertising
A business can also use videos as part of its digital marketing strategy. The videos could be descriptive or illustrative video tutorials on how to use a product the business sells. These videos once well optimized and posted on the internet on platforms such as YouTube or Vimeo will reach a wide range of people.
The video platforms such as YouTube also accept paid ads where a business pays to have its video clip shown to more people. You must have seen the video ads that play on YouTube for a few seconds before you can watch what you wanted.
Email Marketing
A business can also use email marketing where it sends out emails to people who have subscribed or form the business clients and leads database.
Emails marketing is an effective tool for digital marketing where a business can send a promotional email to very many email contacts. Emails are effective since they are relatively cheaper and have well-designed templates that will prompt a subscriber to read the email content. A good email marketing platform is Mailchimp.
SMS Marketing
Where a business has mobile numbers of its customers and new prospective customers it can use SMS to send promotional text messages. Research has shown that SMS is rarely ignored making it effective, it’s also good for reaching people using feature phones that can’t access the internet.
We offer a Bulk SMS program that a business can use to send promotional SMS in the name of the business.
Automated Calls
This is a pre-recorded call message that is pushed to subscribers as a phone call. Once a subscriber receives the call that listens to the recorded message, it’s not a two-way communication call, the subscriber-only listens to the call message.
This marketing strategy is effective in targeting already existing dormant customers that know the business.
Another form of call marketing is the popular Skiza Tone where a business can set a skiza tone for its business lines. When people call the business lines they are played the skiza tune before the call is picked.
Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is where a business recruits affiliates as business partners to market their products and pay them commissions on all successive sales they generate.
The affiliate partners are all given unique links that identify them, the business affiliate network system is thus able to identify and match all the incoming traffic to the business website and match it to the affiliate whose link was used.
Top eCommerce websites utilize this marketing strategy to generate more sales. E,g Amazon affiliate network, Jumia Affiliates.
Influencer Marketing
A business can also use influencers as a mode of digital marketing. Influencers are top known celebrities and personalities with a huge following on their social media networks.
The influencers are paid by a business to post either image or do a video about the business and post on their social media platforms such as Facebook page and YouTube channels.
Influencer marketing is effective in creating awareness more than converting to sales.
Advantages of using Digital Marketing to a Business.
- It is Effective in Delivering Results
Digital marketing, unlike print media advertising, will deliver results since on the website its possible to drive traffic to make orders.
For example, a person will see an add on Facebook, click on it and directed to a business website where they buy a product and make payment. This can’t be achieved by print media.
- It is Cost-Effective
Digital marketing is relatively cheap. Paid advertising on social media, for instance, can be done with as little as $1. The budget for digital marketing can be adjusted with time as the advertisement runs.
A business only pays for what it has incurred e.g. in Cost per click, it will only be charged on the click made.
- Measuring Performance
Digital marketing has analytic tools that track how people interact with a business ad. A business can, therefore, see how its ads performed and plan effectively for the next ad. For instance, a Facebook ad will show the number of people who viewed the ad and liked, commented or sent a message; email marketing will show the people who opened the email and actions they took on the website.
Creating an effective Social Media Marketing Plan
A social media marketing plan will help a business implement social media as part of its marketing strategy. The plan should have the following;
1. Market Research
The business should do market research to determine which digital marketing mode it will use.
2. Creating a Custom Audience
To use digital marketing businesses must also come up with a custom audience it will be targeting in its digital advertisements. These could be from the leads, email subscribers, SMS subscribers, etc.
3.Budget
Digital advertising has a cost and a business has to plan a budget of the amount it will spend on digital advertising.
4.Creating the content of the ads
5.Broadcasting the ads
6.Measuring the ads conversion.
Conclusion
For social media marketing consultation and planning contact us for a quote.
A website developer and digital marketing consultant.
