What are the digital marketing channels?

Digital marketing includes all marketing activities that take place online. 

It leverages a range of tactics including search engine optimization (SEO), paid advertising, social media marketing, content marketing, and email marketing to reach and engage target audiences across a range of channels. 

Unlike traditional marketing, it offers measurable results, personalized messaging, and broad reach to attract, engage and influence customers.

What are the digital marketing channels?

The place to start when talking about digital marketing is the variety of digital channels available. There are seven main digital marketing channels you can use to drive traffic, engage prospects and convert.

• Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
• Pay-Per-Click advertising (PPC)
• Social Media Marketing
• Content Marketing
• Email Marketing
• Mobile Marketing
• Affiliate Marketing

Be aware, that while these are the most common digital marketing channels, the evolving digital landscape means that there could be more than these. 

Use our channel performance tracker if you’re looking for a simple way to monitor those you use in one place. 

So, let’s dive in and find out more about each channel. 

SEO marketing

Search Engine Optimization  plays a huge role in digital marketing. After all, it determines how and where your content, product or service gets found online.

But what is SEO in digital marketing and why is it important? 

SEO consists of many elements, and knowing what they are and how they work is key to understanding SEO’s importance. The elements to include in your marketing are:

• Keywords – Non-branded and branded keywords with high search rates and low competition
• Local SEO – Locally focused content (directories) and keywords
• Off-page SEO – External and third-party backlinks
• Content – Keywords and internal links peppered through content
• Search engine marketing – Paid marketing campaigns e.g. Google Ads, PPC, etc.

It’s crucial to include these SEO elements in your digital marketing strategy to increase visibility for your site and drive traffic.

SEO is the backbone of digital marketing.
 Link to: SEO Course page

Search Engine Marketing (SEM)

Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is all about optimizing your paid search advertising – unlike SEO which focuses on organic traffic. 

SEM and SEO complement each other by ensuring your brand has a presence on search engines and spreading your budget across organic and paid channels.

While the marketing techniques for each are different,  SEO and SEM need to work together. 

Remember that both rely on keywords to drive traffic and will become more important as a good user experience is ranked positively by Google, and AI has more of a role in content and search activities..

 Link to: Contact Page (so readers can enroll/join)

PPC Advertising

You may have heard the term PPC many times, but do you know what it means? It stands for Pay-Per-Click and is a targeted way of advertising online in which you pay for each click from an ad to your website or landing page.

As your PPC campaign directs prospects to your website or landing page, ensure those pages are optimized in advance. You also need to select a bidding strategy, research keywords, and set a budget.

Find out simple but effective ways to maximize your PPC strategy to complement SEO tactics and tap into search intent online.

Google Ads is one of the most used platforms for PPC.”

Link to: Your Services/Training in Google Ads (or make a separate PPC course page later) 

Content Marketing

The term content marketing makes this part of digital marketing self-explanatory, but it’s an area that can be difficult to get right. 

It’s easy to create tons of content to distribute online, but the key is creating great digital content that performs across different channels.

Content marketing encompasses a wide range of formats such as video, blogs, emails, webinars, social media posts, and ebooks which can be used at all stages of the sales funnel. 

The benefits of content marketing done well are increased web traffic, a spike in subscribers, boosted sales, and loyal customers.

Content drives SEO and customer trust.
 Link to: About Us page (showing Diginest Academy expertise)

Influencer Marketing or Sponsored Content

Influencer marketing is  now an important part of the digital marketing landscape. 

In a nutshell, it’s when a brand collaborates with an influencer, celebrity or industry leader on social media to endorse or sponsor a product or service.

The statistics speak for themselves as to how powerful it can be, with nearly half of consumers depending on influencers for recommendations. The real benefit of an influencer is when the collaboration makes sense to an audience or even better, takes people by surprise to drive engagement.

A campaign that took people by surprise was the collaboration between actor Michael Cera and skincare brand CeraVe. In the lead up to the Superbowl, ad agency WPP spent a month spreading a conspiracy theory that CeraVe was developed by the actor. 

This theory was helped along by seeding 450 influencers, such as beauty gurus and TikTok dermatologists with PR boxes from ‘Michael’. 

The next step of the campaign was for CeraVe to deny the claims – including a NY Times piece – that created a huge buzz and grabbed media headlines. This campaign saw 32 billion earned impressions, 300 million influencer impressions, and a 25% increase in sales. You probably don’t have the budget for a celebrity of that level, but micro-influencers can be a great way to promote your brand without a huge budget. 

Email Marketing

Email marketing is a structured, systematic process to deliver marketing messages to targeted subscribers. Email is the oldest form of online communication and is still very effective at bringing customers through the sales funnel and driving conversions.

With companies relying less on third-party cookies on Google, email is more important than ever. As a first-party data channel (i.e., information collected straight from customers), companies will become more reliant on email to communicate and convert.

As a way to connect with your prospects and customers it’s an invaluable channel, so take some time to clean up your databases, tweak your email marketing strategy, and drive subscribers.

Email is still one of the most effective channels.
Link to: Digital Marketing Course page

Social Media Marketing

Social media marketing is an essential part of any modern marketer’s toolkit. It offers exciting and effective ways to connect with customers through various forms of content.

While there were once a limited number of social channels, the networks on offer are growing and attract new users every day. This offers great opportunities for marketers: just think about how people use TikTok as a search engine or the live stream features on WeChat.

It’s a bit of a playground when it comes to social media marketing, so do your research and choose your channels wisely. 

It’s not about being on every channel, but about being on the right ones for your brand and audience. It’s also about being on-trends and piggybacking on topical issues.   

Have a look at our social media marketing resources if you’re trying to figure out where to start or need more info on a specific platform.

Platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn help brands grow 

Link to: Contact Page

Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing has been around for decades, but many marketers are still unsure how to take advantage of it. 

What is affiliate marketing? Basically, it’s when a company endorses another company’s products and gets paid for a click, lead or sale (depending on the deal arranged).

It works as a cycle by tracking the affiliate link, so it can be tied back to a sale that’s then credited to the affiliate. Amazon uses this tactic regularly to drive customers to its products through third-party sites, to great effect.

This strategy is commonly used by influencers, bloggers, large publishers or companies that include ads in their emails. 

It can be very useful for brands that want to plug into the rising number of customers looking for third-party or influencer recommendations before purchasing.

Affiliate marketing can generate passive income.”
Link to: Contact Us for partnership opportunities.