Primary Digital Marketing Channels

In the previous post we came across the Digital Marketing key principles, Initiate, Iterate, Integrate, In this post I am going to talk about the key the Digital Marketing channels. At a highlevel this can be split into 11 main areas they are as follows :

1. SEO or Search Engine Optimization - The primary focus of this is to implement tools and techniques to optimize your website so that it is found on all search engines dynamically.
2. Search Engine Marketing(SEM) and Pay PerClick(PPC) - This is an ongoing process to setup paid advertisement with goals, setup management review and iteration
3. Email Marketing - In order to send timely email communication to customers we use this platform 
4. Digital Display Advertisement -  By this medium our intention is to placing graphically rich advertisement in internet to relevant customers.
5. Social Media Marketing - Engagement of target audience through social media and online interaction forums
6. Mobile Marketing -  The aim of mobile marketing is to use range of digital marketing activities through mobile devices irrespective of their locations through sms,camera,music,phone browser,GPS, mail,gaming etc.
7. Analytics - By analytics we are measuring and monitoring customer activity and taking key marketing decisions with the huge volume of data that is captured from each customer's online behaviour.
8. Video Marketing - Using video channels like Youtube, vimeo, vine etc to market your products and services and to create viral videos is the key objective of Video Marketing.
9. Affiliate Marketing - Earning revenue by promoting other marketers products. This is a performance-based marketing in which  reward is given to one or more affiliates based on the new visitors or customers brought by the affiliate's marketing effort.
10. Shopping channel management - Today there are various marketplaces for similar products and it is important o identify the correct marketplace for your products and services so that you can constantly manage the ratings, reviews, descriptions etc. of your online products against marketers and provide suitable daily deals, coupons, and other offers to attract new customers.
11. Online PR and Article Management - There are various free and paid PR distribution sites, it is important that we leverage all channels and reach out to the various bloggers, journalists, investors out there to generate a positive online feedback of your product and thus promote your product or service. 

Digital Marketing Fundamentals

We are moving in the digital economy faster than anyone could have guessed in the last decade.

The below picture shows how fast the digital divide between countries is getting blurred. As we are racing fast to embrace the power of this Digital world to launch our own products and services, we need to pause a little and ponder if we are ready.  The process to get the answer depends upon what you want to achieve. Successfully Implementing a Digital Marketing(DM) strategy is a key enabler in your path to success. So how do we define this DM strategy, As per Digital Marketing Institute, Ireland, this starts with 3 "i"s. Initiate, Iterate and Integrate .

During "Initiation" we find out who is the consumer of your product and service and work backwords in defining the goals and objectives to reach to them. Once we have the details of the consumers wants and needs we focus on a strategy to engage with the consmer in various "iterative" ways . In this process gradually we "integrate" various other DM tools like SEO/SEM, PPC, Email marketing , digital display marketing, mobile marketing, social media marketing. Finally we monitor the results and keep improving the various engagement results with a set of powerful analytics.