What is Digital Marketing?
Like any other type of marketing, digital marketing is a way to connect with and influence your potential customers. The difference is that you do so online through a combination of digital marketing channels that include video content, social media posts, content marketing, web and social media advertisements, and search engine marketing.

Companies reach goals through the above means instead of using traditional marketing strategies like billboards, television ads, and promotional mail sent to consumer residences.

Common Digital Marketing Assets
Almost anything can be a digital marketing asset, meaning any marketing tool that you use online. That being said, you may not realize how many you have at your disposal. Here are a few examples:

Your website
Branded assets (logos, icons, acronyms)
Video content (video ads, product demos)
Images (infographics, product and company photos)
Written content (blog posts, eBooks, product descriptions, Help Sections, “learning center-type” content or online courses)
Online products or tools (SaaS, calculators, interactive content)
Reviews
Social media pages
As you can probably imagine, this list only scratches the surface. Most digital marketing assets will fall into one of these categories. However, clever marketers are constantly coming up with new ways to reach customers online, and the list keeps growing.

Common Digital Marketing Strategies
Though the list of digital marketing strategies is also constantly evolving, these are some of the most common and effective strategies that businesses are using:

PAY-PER-CLICK ADVERTISING
Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising is a broad term that covers any online marketing where the advertising business pays for each time a user clicks on an ad. For example, Google AdWords is a form of PPC advertising called “paid search advertising.” Facebook Ads are another form of PPC advertising called “paid social media advertising.”

PAID SEARCH ADVERTISING
Paid search advertising is one of the best ways to target potential customers actively searching for a product or service like yours. Google, Bing, and Yahoo allow you to run ads on their Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs).

According to Google, 91% of users are searching from their mobile devices. All of your PPC and paid search advertising campaigns should be optimized for mobile so your business isn’t missing out on all of those clicks and potential customers. If you’re missing the mark on this, you need to revamp your digital marketing strategy ASAP.

PAID SOCIAL MEDIA ADVERTISING
Social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and Snapchat allow users to pay for digital media marketing ads on their sites. Paid social media advertising is great for building awareness with audiences who might not know that your business, product, or service exists.

SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION
Search Engine Optimization, commonly known as SEO, is the technique used by digital media marketing professionals to get pages and blog posts to rank organically on SERPs. It takes more skill and know-how to get on the front page of Google with SEO than with paid search advertising, and it can be time-consuming.

SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING
Like SEO, social media marketing is the free, organic way to use platforms like Facebook or Twitter to market your business through digital means. Unfortunately, organically marketing your business on social media takes more time and effort than paid advertising. Still, it can be very effective when you’re operating on a tighter budget. Social media marketing is one of the best digital marketing strategies you can use, even if you don’t pay for it.

CONVERSION RATE OPTIMIZATION
Conversion rate optimization (CRO) improves the online user experience to maximize the number of users who perform a desired action known as converting. This can be as simple as getting them to click on a link and sign up for your newsletter. Businesses often use CRO to get leads, chats, calls, and sales from their existing website traffic and increase those conversions.

CONTENT MARKETING
Content marketing is another broad digital marketing term. Content marketing covers any digital marketing effort that uses content assets (blog posts, infographics, eBooks, videos, etc.) to build brand awareness or drive clicks, leads, or sales. Most importantly, when you combine these elements the right way, you develop a clear online marketing strategy for your business.

NATIVE ADVERTISING
Have you ever noticed that at the bottom of an article you’re reading, there is often a list of suggested articles? That’s native advertising. Most of it falls under content marketing because it uses content to attract clicks (“You’ll never believe what happens next!”). Often, it can be difficult to spot because it is usually mixed in with non-paid content recommendations. Of course, that’s kind of the point.

EMAIL MARKETING
Email marketing is the oldest form of online marketing, and it’s still going strong. Most digital marketers use it for advertising special deals, highlighting content, or promoting an event. It offers opportunities to reach users who may not be on many of the more popular platforms, like social media.

AFFILIATE MARKETING
You use affiliate marketing to pay someone else — a person or a business — to promote your products and services on their website.

There are many ways to market your business online, which is why many companies outsource their online marketing efforts or pay for an in-house team and automation software to cover their marketing needs. This is one area where spending a little money can definitely improve your return on investment (ROI).

Does Digital Marketing Work?
Digital marketing is an excellent option for any business looking to take advantage of the marketing resources available and succeed in an increasingly digital world. At Disruptive, we’ve used it to help all kinds of businesses grow — including home service companies like mom-and-pop shops and larger entities like internationally-recognized universities. That’s the beauty of advertising online. If you know the demographics you want to target, using digital means can reach anyone, anywhere.

However, certain types of businesses will benefit more from specific types of digital advertising. As a quick overview, let’s take a look at which strategies tend to work best for business-to-consumer (B2C) companies and business-to-business (B2B) companies: