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Digital Marketing Strategies, Types & Examples

Digital marketing strategies: where creativity meets clicks, and ROI gets a standing ovation!

Digital Marketing Strategies, Types & Examples

Digital marketing strategies: where creativity meets clicks, and ROI gets a standing ovation!

A digital marketing strategy is a plan that outlines how your business will use different online channels to create an online presence in order to connect with and convert your target market. Search engine optimization (SEO) , pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, email marketing , and other tactics are examples of digital marketing strategies. 

A strong digital marketing strategies expands and strengthens client involvement in the competitive online marketplaces, which helps them propel business growth. Fortunately, each tactic has particular benefits, restrictions, and (ROI) return on investment. This post will examine a few concrete instances and describe how to create an all-encompassing digital marketing strategies that yields quantifiable outcomes. 

Table of Contents

What is Digital Marketing Strategy?

what is digital marketing strategy

A digital marketing strategy is a plan that outlines how your business will use different internet channels to create an online presence. Increasing your online presence is the aim of a marketing strategy in order to connect with more people in your target market and persuade them to become paying clients.

Data from across the company should be used to inform and speculate in order to develop a successful plan. This will assist you in determining your target market, the best digital marketing channels to use or test, and the best ways to convey your message or brand. 

Note that tactics are the steps you take to put your strategy into practice, but a strategy is something else entirely.

14 Types of Digital Marketing Strategy

types of digital marketing strategy

Digital marketing strategies come in a variety of forms. We’ll look at the top 14 digital marketing strategies currently employed in our sector to see which ones work better than others.

Inbound Marketing

The entire system of techniques, tools, and strategies used by a marketer to turn a website visitor into a paying customer is referred to as inbound marketing. It consists of:

inbound-marketing

A comprehensive approach for taking in, screening out, developing, and rewarding clients and prospects is known as inbound marketing. It is not something that is implemented fast or infrequently; rather, it is centered on building enduring relationships with clients. 

content-marketing

Content Marketing

Content marketing prioritizes providing genuine assistance and answers to people’s queries through content, as opposed to bothering them with uninvited advertisements. Content from blogslanding sites, podcasts, films, infographics, white papers, eBooks, case studies, and more are all included.
Most of the time, content marketing has multiple objectives. It can be applied to: 

ABM

ABM, or account-based marketing, is a potent B2B marketing tactic that targets particular accounts you designate. Its goal is to assist marketing and sales teams in swiftly guiding prospects through the sales funnel. You focus on the accounts that are most significant to you while using ABM.  

account-base-marketing
seo-services

SEO

The practice of improving your website and content for search engines to get better rankings and drive more organic traffic to your website is known as search engine optimization, or SEO. It uses a range of strategies, such as:  

Optimizing your website is paramount for achieving higher conversion rates. A swift, user-friendly interface that smoothly adjusts to various screen sizes enhances user experience, thereby increasing the likelihood of conversions and fostering client loyalty. Furthermore, optimized content increase brand visibility, promoting trust among visitors and ultimately leading to more conversions.

Establishing a robust online presence not only boosts brand credibility but also drives sales by capturing the attention of potential customers. Moreover, investing in optimization yields long-term financial benefits as well. While initial content creation requires effort, the steady growth in visitor traffic over time reduces the need for continuous financial commitments while still attracting qualified leads actively seeking your offerings. 

social-media-marketing

Economical marketing strategies leverage the power of social media to promote brand awareness efficiently and cost-effectively, even when audiences are not actively engaged. By allocating a comparatively small financial investment, businesses can reach a vast audience base. However, to optimize ad spend and achieve high conversion rates, employing A/B testing or similar optimization techniques is crucial.

With approximately 45% of the global population using social media, and most users spending an average of three hours daily on these platforms, businesses can capitalize on audience participation. By selecting appropriate channels, mastering advertising platforms, and engaging directly with target audiences, businesses can maximize the impact of their marketing efforts while minimizing costs. 

email-marketing

Sending informative and promotional emails to your audience with the goal of promoting relationships, converting prospects into customers, and transforming one-time purchasers into devoted brand advocates is known as email marketing. These emails might be about future sales, unique offers, promoting content on your website, or regular business messages hits to your website. 

Including links to your website within your email communications is crucial for driving engagement and measuring performance. Key performance indicators such as the open rate, indicating the percentage of recipients who open your email, and the click-through rate, measuring the ratio of users who click on a link compared to those who open the email, are essential metrics to monitor.

Economically, email marketing proves to be a cost-effective strategy compared to alternatives like direct mail, search engine marketing (SEM), or social media marketing (SMM). Your investment covers expenses such as hiring an administrator for the program and subscribing to email marketing software capable of sending bulk emails efficiently.

Moreover, email marketing allows for highly targeted messaging as all members of your email list have opted in to receive updates, indicating their interest in communication. By further segmenting your list, you can tailor messages to specific audience segments, assuring that your content is well-received and drives meaningful engagement. 

PPC Advertising

With pay-per-click, or PPC, advertising, you, the advertiser, are charged each time a user clicks on one of your web advertisements. It can be a useful strategy to connect with customers who are looking for terms associated with your company and is frequently carried out through Google Ads, Bing Ads, or other search engines. However, depending on the scale and complexity of your campaign, charges might vary from quite cheap to hundreds of dollars per month. Additionally, the traffic that a campaign generates is also stopped when it is discontinued.
Pay-per-click advertisements drive consumers to landing pages with specific actions in mind when they click on them: 

ppc-marketing

Utilizing a PPC platform like Google Ads offers several advantages for your marketing campaigns. Firstly, easy tracking allows you to monitor who views your ads, who clicks on them, and the conversion rate of those clicks, providing valuable insights into campaign performance. Additionally, PPC marketing operates on a pay-per-click basis, enabling you to control spending and adjust or halt campaigns that aren’t delivering satisfactory results without being tied to a fixed budget.

Moreover, PPC advertising yields immediate outcomes, unlike other strategies such as SEO or content marketing, which require time to gain traction. With PPC, you can swiftly launch campaigns and observe immediate results, making it an efficient and effective marketing tactic for businesses seeking rapid impact and measurable returns on investment.  

video-marketing

Video Marketing

Customer testimonials, product demos, thought leader interviews in your sector, and how-to films are some examples of videos that you may use to market your brand, goods, and services. To increase conversions and sales, you can post movies on your website, PPC landing pages, and social media accounts. 
KPIs could be: 

Implementing video content on websites offers several benefits for marketers. Firstly, incorporating videos can significantly enhance SEOincreasing the likelihood of appearing on the first page of Google search results by 53 times due to their ability to boost SEO and improve page rankings. Moreover, using videos on landing pages can lead to a substantial 34% increase in conversion rates, providing a compelling case for their inclusion in marketing strategies.

Fortunately, video content contributes to enhanced brand recall, with brand association rising by 139% after viewers watch a video, further bolstering conversion rates. Furthermore, the viral nature of videos facilitates organic sharing, with 92% of customers who view videos opting to share them with others, thereby amplifying brand exposure and engagement. Incorporating video content into marketing efforts not only enhances search visibility and conversion rates but also promotes stronger brand recognition and audience engagement.

Online (and In-Person) Events

Nothing generates excitement about a product like an event. Trade exhibitions, like the International CES tech show, have existed for a long time. However, with its string of high-profile iPhone and Mac debuts during the 2010s and into the 2020s, which were frequently watched by up to 1.8 million people, Apple reimagined such events for an online audience.

Even if it’s improbable that you’ll achieve these levels of participation, there are still valuable lessons to be learned—whether you’re utilizing an event to introduce a new service, good, or enterprise.

online-events

To build anticipation for a live event, leverage social media to generate awareness about upcoming releases, akin to Apple’s strategy of teasing tidbits about new products before their launch. Utilize platforms like Twitter and Instagram to tease features and generate excitement among your audience.

During the live event, focus attention on your merchandise, creating compelling narratives around its features and benefits, similar to how Steve Jobs showcased Apple products with captivating presentations. This captivates the audience and draws their interest towards your product.

Moreover, encourage dialogue and engagement by live streaming the launch, issuing press releases, and establishing a dedicated hashtag for the event. By promoting conversation and interaction around your product, akin to the way Apple’s events trend on Twitter with hashtags like #AppleEvent, you can add excitement, reach a broader audience, and generate buzz that extends beyond the event itself.

Chatbot and Live Chat Marketing

During the last ten years, chatbots and messaging applications have become more prevalent and are now recognized as important tools for customer support and marketing. 1.4 billion messaging app users are content to converse with chatbots.

Using chatbots, brands can:

chat-bot-and-live-chat-marketing

Even so, it’s important to take into account research from the chatbot platform Drift. Perhaps keep your chatbots simple as the most common anticipated purpose for them is “getting a quick answer in an emergency.

Providing prompt responses is essential in online interactions as users often seek quick solutions to their queries or issues. Chatbots play a crucial role in delivering timely responses, assisting users in resolving issues promptly, and thereby enhancing consumer perception of brands. Additionally, incorporating chatbots into customer service strategies improves the overall experience for customers by fulfilling their expectations of finding human-like assistance and receiving detailed explanations.

This commitment to customer satisfaction strengthens the interaction between consumers and brands. Moreover, chatbots can be effective tools for promoting goods and services by engaging users in conversations that lead to sales. While some may initially hesitate to consider chatbots as a sales channel, research suggests that a significant portion of users are open to using chatbots for both purchasing items and gathering ideas for future purchases, highlighting their potential as valuable assets in driving sales and fostering brand engagement. 

Earned Media

Simply said, earned media is unpaid coverage of your company, goods, or events that is authored by a third party. It’s best described as PR in digital marketing, where you reach out to the media. Earned media occurs when a publication uses the content and writes an article about it for their own website.
Among the earned media examples are: 

earned-media

It’s cost-free. Any coverage you obtain from websites is free until you’ve paid your employees or an agency to distribute your content. As a result, it’s an affordable digital strategy that frees up funds for other efforts.

It is expandable. Any budget can be used to deliver earned media. From a straightforward tactical piece—like providing quotations to a newswire on a hot topic—to a more ambitious creative campaign—like building a website or carrying out a poll.

It has strong SEO. Obtaining backlinks to your website from reputable organizations and publications can be extremely valuable. Websites with greater Domain Authorities (DAs), such news and college websites, are ranked higher by Google and can boost your own authority. 

influencer-outreach

Influencer Outreach

Giving your influencers more benefits indicates the possibility for a long-term business partnership, but be sure to follow through on your commitments. Would your influencer be interested in receiving a commission on purchases, or would they eventually want to become an affiliate model?

Offering to pay for your influencer’s production expenses could be another method to work together. If your brand has access to a team of photographers, you might think about using your contacts and resources to assist the influencer in creating their content.

The influencer will be overjoyed to obtain some high-quality photos that they may utilize going forward.

Every brand or influencer manager is free to decide how strategically to handle financial disclosure. Brands differ in terms of transparency as well. Transparency has no set standard; knowing when and how much is required requires judgment and intuition.

Saying something like, “We’re still a really young, bootstrapped company, and honestly, we cannot afford anything above $X,” could be a good example to use if your following is smaller. Being transparent can help you negotiate a lower price if you’re a major influencer, or an influencer with a sizable fan base. 

Virtual Reality Marketing

Virtual reality, or VR for short, is software that simulates a real-life experience by immersing users in a three-dimensional, virtual, interactive environment, usually through the use of a headset and special lenses. A lot of virtual reality experiences are 360 degrees. Companies can utilize virtual reality (VR) to showcase and market their products to prospective buyers. Indeed, a wide range of sectors have been using virtual reality (VR) to take people to locations they may otherwise have to travel to or just imagine.

virtual-reality-marketing

Prior to delving into several instances of companies utilizing virtual reality for marketing, it’s important to note that virtual reality differs significantly from augmented reality, a word you may be familiar with from the same field. 

How to Create a Digital Marketing Strategy?

digital-marketing-strategy
It’s time to put everything together and create a digital marketing strategy. Whichever of our digital marketing methods you decide to use, it is imperative that you set objectives, identify target groups, and choose whast content you must provide.

Set Goals and Objectives

Create and record your short- and long-term objectives before deciding on a digital marketing strategy. Once your plan has been determined, list precise goals in an outline and record so you can assess its effectiveness. Aim for SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and timely) goals and objectives. 

When it comes time to assess your progress, you can review all of your goals, tactics, and objectives that you have documented.

Consider Buyer Personas

You cannot develop a successful digital marketing strategies without first having a thorough understanding of the target audience. Personas for buyers can help with it. Buyer personas are made-up individuals that embody the characteristics of the customers you want to use your goods or services.

Research and data ought to form the foundation of personas. It’s possible to focus incorrectly when you build personas based just on your instincts and no supporting evidence. This implies that you must conduct phone interviews, in-person interviews, and surveys with your customers.

Items to incorporate into your personas:

Where: Web analytics solutions allow you to track the origins of your consumers’ purchases.
Earnings and profession: Customers should be asked if they feel comfortable sharing information about their job and income.
Interests and hobbies: Finding out what individuals are interested in could be facilitated by focus groups or online forms. However, you may also investigate popular pastimes for particular groups using search trends.
Objectives and aspirations: What are the desires of your clients? What motivates them? Surveys and focus groups can assist you in determining this. Current consumer data and reports are another excellent resource.
Obstacles and trouble spots: What is it that prevents them from reaching their objectives? You may better grasp this by having conversations with both your own sales people and customers.

Once you’ve created several personas, you’ll find it easier to market to different types of buyers and cater to their demands. 

Audit Your Assets

Document your present digital assets to get a complete picture of what your organization already possesses. After that, thoroughly examine each one and assign a ranking based on effectiveness. When you do, you’ll be able to determine which assets require improvement and which require a complete rebuild.

Let’s examine an example of a content audit with an SEO focus. Important components consist of:

Audit the website: Compile all of the URLs from your category sites, blogs, and other pertinent pages.
Find the gaps. Determine any glaring content gaps from the list of URLs using your personas and marketing strategies as a guide.

SEO knowledge: Collaborate with an SEO to assess the effectiveness of the current URLs and identify any new prospects derived from keyword analysis. 

Assemble the information: To see all the important information shown side by side, compile all of this data into a spreadsheet.

Make tasks: Make a plan for the new pages you need to build as well as suggestions for enhancing the ones that are already online. 

Plan your Content Creation Resource

To stay with the example of a content marketing campaign, once you have established what needs to be created, you’ll need to establish how that work will be executed and delivered. This generally means considerations around:
Budget:
 What is the total amount of money available for this campaign? Does your audit require you to make concessions, or is it sufficient to develop all the assets?
Resource: Do you possess the necessary abilities to make this internally? Or is hiring an agency necessary?
Tech: Is there any specialized software needed for this campaign? Something like a personalization tool or content management system, for instance?
Deadlines: What is the timeline for creating this content? Will they have enough time, even if you have resources on staff?
You may finish your plan for exactly what content you will develop and any additional resources you’ll need once you’ve taken into account the aforementioned along with your objectives, personas, and audit.

Decide How to Distribute Your Content

Once personas have been established, content development has begun, and resources have been secured, the next decision to make is how your material will be shared. The primary factor to take into account is whether you believe the content to be:

Possessed: Your channels are your website, blogs, email, and social media accounts.
Earned: content that other people like, share, discuss, or write about.
Paid: content—like PPC and influencers—that you have paid to market.

The majority of digital marketing strategies will combine all of these techniques. Using SEO -focused blog content on owned channels, like their website, securing social media shares and coverage through PR-focused content, and allocating funds for influencer advertising are a few examples. 

Pinpoint your KPIs

Every digital marketing strategy needs to be monitored often. Determine your KPIs, or key performance indicators, which are quantifiable numbers that indicate how well your tactics and approach are working. KPIs include, for instance:

  • Rates of digital conversion
  • Price per lead
  • Returning users’ click-through rates on websites
  • Values of a customer’s lifetime.

After your digital marketing campaign is over, you may have a wash-up meeting with all the important stakeholders to discuss the campaign’s accomplishments and failings. This information can then be used to inform the development of future digital marketing strategies.

Examples of Digital Marketing Strategies

After understood the fundamentals of a successful digital marketing strategy, it is beneficial to observe optimal methodologies in operation. Take inspiration from these well-known cases of digital marketing strategies to create more effective campaigns in the future.

Content marketing example: Salesforce+

Salesforce uses content marketing as a key part of its customer-centric marketing strategy. Content marketing includes blogs , videos, and webinars that provide valuable content and industry insights to establish Salesforce as a thought leader. Salesforce also uses content marketing to engage customers and build relationships with target audiences.

  • Blog: Salesforce’s blog provides valuable content for its target audience.  
  • Events: Salesforce hosts events like Dreamforce to engage customers and showcase innovations.
  • Storytelling: Salesforce’s Content Marketing Manager and Senior Writer, the nest writers, believes that good marketing messaging is based on storytelling. They say that content marketing strategies should focus on helping the target audience solve their problems, rather than just promoting products and services.

Salesforce also uses other marketing strategies, includingSocial media and influencer marketing, Personalization and targeted campaigns, and Partner ecosystem 

Influencer Marketing Example: Absolut

Absolut has used influencer marketing, in several campaigns, including: 

#AbsolutPlanet

In 2019, Absolut partnered with influencers to create content about being kinder to the planet. The campaign used the hashtag #AbsolutPlanet and included 95 influencers creating 612 posts that generated over 8.6 million social media engagements.

Twitch streamers

Absolut created original content with influencers on Twitch, which generated 4 million impressions, 1.1 million unique user visits, and a 74.5% video completion rate. 

Adidas recognizes the transformative power of AI in personalization. By integrating advanced algorithms, the brand is transcending conventional email marketing strategies, adopting a dynamic and individualized communication model that resonates with the diverse preferences of its customer base.

Personalized Suggestions: Adidas uses a service that selects the best content for each customer and populates a branded email template. This lets them send personalized emails to millions of customers in more than 20 countries within a single campaign.

Boston Marathon: In 2017, Adidas sent an email to all Boston Marathon finishers.

Minimal Text: Adidas uses minimal text in emails to make suggestions specific to shoppers. They rely on product images to pique customer interest in promotional emails.

Average Spam Score: Adidas has a very solid email marketing strategy with an average spam score of -15.

Personalized Promotions: Adidas uses AI to personalize promotions.  

FAQ's

The digital marketing strategy that best suits your brand, target audience, and campaign goals is the most successful one. This might be an event-based strategy that generates excitement around product launches and trade fairs to garner media attention and increase engagement, or it could be a content marketing strategy that leverages content like blogs and whitepapers to engage audiences. There is a plethora of additional options available, and firms frequently integrate many strategies into their comprehensive digital marketing strategy.
A specific action you'll take to carry out your strategy is called a marketing tactic. Creating blogs and articles, releasing adverts, and sending emails to leads and consumers are common examples of marketing methods.
A digital marketing campaign is a promotional effort that is intended to assist you in reaching a particular strategic objective as opposed to your ultimate aim. Usually, campaigns have a beginning and an ending date.
Some of the main strategies of digital marketing include: Social media marketing, Email marketing, Content marketing, SEO and Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising.

Final Verdict

When developing a digital marketing strategy, many companies decide to invest in software solutions and collaborate with a reliable partner. ITVerticals.Inc. offers options for lead management, campaign execution, personalization, content management, and more if you’re prepared to implement your plan. ITVerticals.Inc. offers end-to-end digital marketing, allowing you to manage, customize, optimize, and coordinate cross-channel campaigns for both B2B and B2C use cases when you’re ready to step up your digital marketing approach. To find out what ITVerticals.Inc. can achieve for you, get a demo right now.