Digital marketing is an industry where everything happens with lightning speed.
Every year new trends appear while others pass into history. There is hardly a company that does not invest in marketing activities today. Software development agencies, eCommerce and even your favorite coffee-house at the corner, all use different means to promote their businesses.
Today, it is important to build a whole digital marketing strategy to maximize performance and minimize expenses. Let’s jump right into juicy details and learn what it takes to build successful marketing activities in 2020.
What is Digital Marketing and Why Use It?
Digital marketing encompasses all marketing activities performed on the Internet. Today, it consists of a wide range of marketing efforts and includes content marketing, email marketing, social media marketing, paid to advertisements, etc.
Consumers spend a lot of time on the Internet surfing social media, looking up information and entertaining. In most cases, if you need to reach the target audience, the online world is the best place for that.
Digital marketing forms the basis of all marketing activities for a company. Embracing it, you will be able to stay competitive. Moreover, customers expect companies to invest in marketing so that they have the ability to interact with their favorite brands online.
Main Types of Digital Marketing
As was already mentioned, digital marketing consists of different activities that companies engage in to attract new clients and retain existing ones. Let’s take a look at the main types of digital marketing that can be applied in 2020.
Search Engine Optimization
You’ve probably heard a thing or two about SEO. During the process, you need to optimize the website and its content to make it rank higher in search engine results.
Search engine optimization includes both on-page (you perform directly on your website) and off-page activities (one that you perform outside your website but in relation to it). The first type of SEO usually includes working with keywords, meta tags, etc., while the second encompasses link building, guest posting, etc.
Content Marketing
Content marketing directly correlates with SEO. The main purpose of this marketing activity is to improve brand awareness with the help of content, including blog posts, ebooks, whitepapers, infographics, etc. For example, if your company provides software development services, you can write an article “How much does it cost to develop an app?” explaining to the readers of your blog how your company approaches app development.
Social Media Marketing
The promotion of brand and content through social media channels is a common practice both among big and small companies. Based on the type of business you are running, you might need to engage Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok, etc. Content that your share on social media should be fun, interesting, and created with less formality. Often, companies show the behind-the-scenes life of their companies and people that back-up all their operations.
PPC
Pay-per-click ads are thriving and bringing great results for companies that utilize them wisely. Aside from the most famous Google Ads, almost every social media offers such services. You can set up paid campaigns on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and even on Quora.
Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is the type of marketing activity when you pay other people or companies for promoting your services and bringing new customers. It is based on providing your affiliate partners with links that direct users to your website. You either pay some percentage from the sales generate from a brought customer or operate on the per-customer-based basis.
Email Marketing
Even though some say that email marketing will be dead soon, today it brings no less significant results than it brought a few years ago. Companies use email marketing as a way to communicate with their audience, promote content, offer discounts, tell about holiday sales, invite to events, and much more.
Influencer Marketing
In 2020, the number of social media users worldwide has surpassed 3.8 billion. For some companies, including eCommerce, fashion, and lifestyle, there is no better way to reach a target audience.
While the creation of your own dedicated group of followers on Facebook or YouTube can take a lot of time, you can speed up the process of building brand awareness with influencer marketing.
Influencer marketing entails cooperation with influencers, people or organizations that are widely known for having an expert level of knowledge and social influence in some specific field. When choosing such influencers, it is important to pay attention to their target audience and whether it relates to your target audience and niche.
Digital Marketing in 2020: Final Thoughts
With thousands of companies offering the same services and products, the need to invest in marketing activities has never been so pressing. There is a saying that if a business is not online, no one will know about it.
Digital marketing is a complex approach to business promotion that requires the participation of a whole group of specialists. Still, for small and medium businesses, it is possible to select up to three types of activities and concentrate all the efforts on them and later move to others.
Author’s Bio
Ana Lastovetska is a technology writer at MLSDev, a custom software development company in Ukraine. She has been researching the field of technologies to create educative content of distinct topics including app development, UX/UI design, tech & business consulting, etc. The opportunity to deliver information for people who want to understand more about IT and app development processes is something that inspires Ana. You can get in touch with her on LinkedIn or reach her at [email protected].
REF Altitude Branding.
