6 types of digital marketing your business needs

To help you make sense of it all, here are 6 types of digital marketing that every small and medium-sized business should be utilising in their marketing strategies.

1. Website

A website might seem obvious, and chances are you already have a website for your business, but it might be more important you think.

Essentially, your business website is the foundation of your digital marketing. That’s because any digital marketing activity you utilise will drive traffic (either directly or indirectly) to your website. That includes SEO, social media, email marketing and even digital-focused public relations.

If your website copy isn’t clear and engaging with a consistent tone of voice, if it’s hard to navigate your business website, if you don’t have strong calls to actions, then you’re probably losing customers. Most importantly, you’re certainly not making the most of any other digital marketing activity you’re doing.

2. SEO / Blog articles

Dollar-for-dollar, SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) would have to be one of the most cost-effective forms of digital marketing for a small or medium-sized business.

Publishing regular blog articles to your website is the best way to increase your SEO, which means people are more likely to find your website through Google searches.

Even if you have to pay to have blogs written for your business, it’s still extremely cost effective because each blog you have can be reused and repurposed multiple times across your digital channels (i.e. social media, email marketing etc).

It’s important to note though that, like any digital marketing activity, you have a proper strategy in place, including for SEO.

3. Social media

When we talk about social media as a digital marketing tool for your business, it’s important to make the distinction between paid activity and unpaid activity (commonly referred to as organic activity).

For any business on social media, you’ll need to run both paid and organic activity.

The paid activity will help build your following more quickly and drive traffic to your website (if you’re running any type of sales campaign then you’ll definitely want to use paid activity).

On the other hand, you should also regularly publish organic activity to keep your followers engaged and your brand top of mind.

Don’t overextend yourself and create accounts for your business on every social media channel. To start with (at least), pick just one that’s most relevant for your business and focus on that before branching out to others.

4. LinkedIn

While many bigger brands have large followings on LinkedIn, where you (as a business owner) can get the most traction is with your personal LinkedIn profile (not your company profile).

Unlike some social media platforms that your business might use (think Facebook or Instagram), people using LinkedIn are more likely to connect to other people (as opposed to brands, particularly smaller brands they may not have heard of).

As the head of the company, you can use your personal profile to share your unique industry insights, provide your opinion on current affairs and update your followers on your company’s news.

By doing so, you’ll build your own credibility and authority within your network and increase awareness of your brand.

And yes, it’s perfectly acceptable to connect with people on LinkedIn who you’ve never met in person.

5. Email marketing

A lot of attention is placed on social media when it comes to digital marketing, but the quiet achiever has to be email marketing.

Compared to social media, email marketing will consistently provide higher conversions for your business and is typically cheaper.

The only catch is you have to put in the time up front to build your email distribution list. People have to opt-in to receive marketing emails from your business (it’s illegal to do without their consent) but there are several ways you can do build your list.

This included email marketing opt-ins on your information forms on your website, by offering free resources (like ebooks) in exchange for their details or running paid campaigns on social media.

The best way to leverage email marketing is through a regular digital newsletter, which can comprise your own blogs, company news, industry insights and exclusive offers.

6. Public Relations

While traditional media, such as newspapers, TV and radio, can still be part of an effective public relations strategy, there is now huge opportunity for businesses to leverage the digital landscape.

With the rise of podcasts and online publications, business can now tap into these super niche news outlets that have highly-loyal followers.

This means public relations can now be much more targeted with messages that are better aligned to their audiences.

So regardless of what business you own or what industry you’re in, public relations can now deliver greater impact than ever before.