Digital Marketing Types: Which Form of Digital Marketing Should You Choose?

You have got a message, you need marketing to get it delivered to your ideal audience, leads, customers or whatever you call it.

You have got a product, you need marketing. You have got a service, you need marketing. Heck, even if you are non-profit and doing it for charity, you need marketing.

But since traditional marketing is becoming less effective now, therefore, people are shifting their focus to digital marketing, which by the way, is simply the marketing delivered through digital channels like Google, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, even TikTok - whatever you can think of.

No doubt, there are multiple forms of digital marketing which we’ll discuss in this episode, but the big question is: which form of digital marketing should you prefer? And why? You’ll find it out in this episode.

Hey digital learners, I’m Rahul from LearnDigitalwithRahul.com and welcome back to another episode of Digital Marketing Made Easy podcast.

In the last episode, we discussed what is Digital Marketing? In case you missed that, let me recap here: Digital Marketing can be defined as the marketing of products or services delivered through digital platforms like websites, social media, email, search engines, mobile applications or any new digital channel.

Well, that’s my way of defining it but different people have a different opinion and their way of defining and categorizing digital marketing.

And as you know, the name of this podcast show is: Digital Marketing Made Easy, and yes, I like to keep things simple and easy. So, I’ll first explain the various forms of digital marketing that are popularly known.

And then I’ll explain how I categorize digital marketing in a simple way so that you don’t feel it is complex. And finally, you’ll uncover which of the various forms of digital marketing should you choose and why?

So let’s get started!

Digital Marketing is basically marketing delivered through digital channels, so depending upon the digital channels, people categorize it into forms like Search Marketing, Social Media Marketing, Email Marketing, Influencer Marketing, Affiliate or Referral Marketing, Text Message Marketing, and Radio or Television Media Marketing.

So first know what are these?

Let’s start with Search Marketing.

Search Marketing is basically marketing delivered through search engines like Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo, etc.

When you search for something in Google, Bing, or any other search engines, you must have noticed some ads on the search page considering the fact that you don’t have an ad-blocker enabled on your browser or device.

These ads are purchased and shown on Google by a technology called Google AdWords. Same for Bing and other search engines as well.

Most of the search engines have their own digital advertising platform where People like me and you can purchase ad-space to get shown at the top of Google search or other internet-based properties like Blog or Website, YouTube or within any other apps as well.

Digital marketers or brands as the advertiser pay for these ads based on the impression or clicks they get. That’s why in the complex terms of marketing, paid advertising like this is often termed as Paid Per Click or PPC.

But search marketing is not limited to paid advertising only. There is organic, non-paid, or you may call it free search marketing as well, where you don’t have to pay for advertising. And that type of search marketing is known as Search Engine Optimisation or SEO.

SEO is basically optimizing your webpage for search engines (and people of course) so that you get listed higher in search engines and people may find you, your website, or your business easily in search engines.

Now here is something you need to pay close attention to. When you search something on Google or any other search engine, Google shows you more than 10 results on the first page itself, and 97 out of 100 times, you’ll click on one of the top 3 or top 5 search results, then land on any webpage where you’ll get solution to your search query.

And that’s not the case with you only, the same is true for every other searcher on the internet. People usually search in Google or other search engines and then find a solution to whatever they are looking for by clicking on one of the top 10 search results on the first page.

So, as an SEO, your goal is to optimize your web page for first page rankings, otherwise, it’ll be hard for people to find you, or your business.

And how do you achieve that first-page ranking? It’s simply by optimizing your webpages for search engines using various SEO tactics. And once you do that, your website would start getting free traffic organically from search engines.

So this is a free form of search marketing in which you don’t have to pay for clicks.

Let’s move on to the 2nd type of digital marketing which is Social Media Marketing.

And as the name says it all, social media marketing is basically marketing delivered through social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, Pinterest, TikTok, Snapchat, and many more.

By the way, YouTube and Pinterest are no longer social media only. These two have now become a popular search engine just like Google.

Let’s not go into details about that right now. But the point I want to convey here is: We have got various social media platforms, and whatever marketing is delivered through social media platforms is known as social media marketing.

Now, just like Search Engine Marketing, you may categorize social media marketing further into two categories: 1) Paid Social Marketing which is marketing delivered through paid ads on social media and 2) Free Social Marketing which is free marketing delivered through consistent social media updates. Be it text, pictures, video, stories - whatever it is.

Alright! Now moving on to the third type of digital marketing, we have Email Marketing.

And, this has existed for years and years so long that you may put it into the traditional form of marketing.

In fact, email has existed even before Google was founded in 1998. But unlike other traditional forms of marketing, email is still a very effective form of marketing.

So what is email marketing?

Email Marketing is basically marketing delivered through the exchange of emails between the brand or business and consumer.

If you visit LearnDigitalwithRahul.com right now, you’ll see some email subscription box where I ask for your name and email in exchange for tutorial, training, downloads, or simply a free newsletter.

Well, it’s not just on my blog only, almost every other website or blog does the same to collect emails of their leads, customers, or consumers.

When you enter the email, you give the website owner permission to contact you via email. And now, the webmaster may educate, entertain, and market or sell their products or services by communicating with you via the means of email.

This entire process is the way email marketing works. And the marketing delivered through email is email marketing.

And just like every other type of digital marketing, email marketing also may be categorized into two types: 1) Free Email Marketing which I discussed just now, and 2) Paid Email Marketing which is a paid form of email marketing like solo ads which basically is advertising space purchased in someone else’s email newsletter.

Alright! Now, let’s talk about the 4th type of digital marketing which is Influencer Marketing.

Influencer Marketing is basically digital marketing delivered by influencers using their digital influence. But you must be wondering “What the heck this Influencer term is, right?”

Well, anyone who has an influence over others, is an influencer. You must have seen those celebs or popular people on the internet with a huge number of fans following. Those people are known as influencers.

Every industry has different influencers and in order to consider someone as an influencer, the number of fan following may vary depending upon the industry.

So how does influencer marketing work?

You find an influencer in your industry or niche, you convince them to promote your stuff either by providing value to them, making good friendships with them by constantly getting on their mind, or by directly paying them.

For example, if you are a brand creating tech gadgets, you may find some YouTube influencers who post unboxing and review videos. Then offer them value by simply giving away free review units of your gadget and in return request them to promote your gadget on their YouTube channel.

Once you convince them to talk about your product, they can bring a huge chunk of traffic and sales for you.

Whether you provide value, get on their mind or simply pay them to promote your stuff - whichever the way you use, your goal is to convince them because the influencers can boost your marketing within a very quick time.

The fifth type of digital marketing that I’m going to share with you is quite similar to influencer marketing but the only difference is: the person who does marketing for you, that person doesn’t necessarily have to be an influencer. And we call this Affiliate Marketing or Referral Marketing.

Affiliate Marketing is like a joint venture where you pay a certain percentage of your sales amount to affiliate marketers who promote your product or services. This certain percentage is known as the affiliate commission.

Affiliate Marketing is one of the most popular forms of marketing where both parties form a win-win relation to helping the cause of each other. The affiliate marketers do marketing for you by promoting your product and referring people to your business, while you provide them the product and promotional material like banners, affiliate tracking links, etc. so that they may earn commissions without having to create products themselves.

But unlike other types of marketing, there is no free marketing here. Because if you don’t pay your affiliates and ask them to promote your product, then no one will promote it.

The only way to get them to promote your product and get referral sales is to offer some commission to incentivize them.

Okay, now we are getting toward the last 2 types of digital marketing and the 6th one is Text Message Marketing.

You might have already received some spam text messages on your mobile phone. You call them spam because you didn’t opt for them. But what if it is specific to your interest and you opted for it.

That’s when this spam text messaging turns into an effective digital marketing campaign that gets results. So the point here is: Text Message Marketing is not a new thing but surprisingly many people are still not using this.

Although people have found a digital marketing channel named Chatbot which is very similar and resonates with text message marketing to a great extent. However, the only difference is messenger chatbot marketing is not limited to text only.

Okay, so the last type of digital marketing is Radio or Television Media Marketing. And as soon as you heard the term Radio, you might be thinking, Rahul, have you gone mad? Radio and Television are so traditional, how can you put them into the Digital Marketing category?

Well, when I say Radio, the first few pictures that come to my mind are the Spotify logo, Apple Podcast logo, and Google Podcast logo. Because these are the new radio. And Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime are the new prime time television.

Now, don’t get me wrong here: the point I want to make here is: If your ideal customers are listening to Spotify, you need to market there. If your ideal customer is watching television, you need to market there.

So, don’t get surprised when the next time you are tuning into your prime time show or radio station, and someone interrupted with an infomercial like: “Hey! Before you tune in to your favorite show, make sure you learn important digital marketing lessons and not just waste time on your phone. Search for LearnDigitalwithRahul on Apple Podcast or Spotify and subscribe to Digital Marketing Made Easy podcast as that way you won’t miss any crucial lesson”.

Well, this wasn’t the best infomercial, but you got the idea, right?

Alright! So now we have learned the various types of digital marketing and you might be feeling overwhelmed with all this information, right?

So let’s make it simple and easy.

Next time when someone asks you what are different forms of digital marketing, you respond with something like this: There are only 3 forms of digital marketing: 1. Readable form of marketing - something that people may read

2. Visual form of marketing - something that people may watch or visualize

3. Audible form of marketing - something that people may listen to, like this podcast you are currently listening to.

Now, go back to all the types of digital marketing you ever learned or even I discussed in this episode, what you’ll notice is: whatever digital marketing strategies you choose, each of them will fall under one of these 3 categories.

Because any digital marketing campaign may either be Text-based, visual, or audible. There is simply no other way.

So now you have learned the various types of digital marketing that are popularly known and used. You have also learned how I make it simple by categorizing into just 3 forms of digital marketing.

Now, it’s time to find the answer to the question: which of these digital marketing strategies is right for you and which one should you choose?

So my answer would be: No one knows it better than you.

If you are good at writing text-based content, go for text-based marketing. If you love creating visuals like images, videos, gifs, etc. then go for the visual form of marketing. If you are good at speaking, go for the audible form of marketing.

If you have money to invest, go for paid marketing. If you don’t have money to invest, go for free or organic form of marketing.

The point here is: always play to your strength. That way it’ll be easier for you to stay consistent in the long run.

And as the saying goes, Slow and Steady Win the race however, the only terms or conditions are that you have to be consistent.

I hope you enjoyed listening to this episode. You may find more information including the transcript, and all other resources in the show notes below.

The show notes for this episode which happens to be the 4th episode of Digital Marketing Made Easy podcast, can also be found on LearnDigitalwithRahul.com/004

And hey, if you enjoyed listening to this episode or you found any value out of this, be sure to leave a review with 5-star ratings on iTunes, it would mean a world for me.

And by the way, when you do that, please take a screenshot and post it on Instagram tagging me @LearnDigitalwithRahul - I would love to reshare it and feature you on my profile.

With that being said, I’m Rahul signing off and I’ll talk to you in the next one, until then stay motivated, stay creative, and feel proud to be #DigitalLearner.