The 2 Categories of Digital Media Marketing (Highlights).

You can do more with the 2 categories of digital media marketing, infact you can do alot to scale up your online and offline presence. But what does it mean?

Digital media marketing is a method of communicating, marketing and/or conveying of relevant information to different groups or segments of the target market audience via a digital medium (either through online or offline platforms) with the aim of influencing the consumer's decision-making in their purchase process or consumption behaviours. Although it is effected through various digital media platforms, but more often than not the two categories are very confusing to so many people, and others even use the terms interchangebly to explain one form of digiral marketing to mean the other, while in actually sense thats not the case. Let me simply put it this way - both categories of digital media marketing (i.e online and offline marketing methods) use digital technology in the display or projection, but the marketing platforms and/or methods used to convey specific information might be different.

There are so many marketing strategies and methods used by various businesses and professionals who are involved in the web of digital media marketing out there; be it meant for inbound/outbound content marketing or not. Regardless of the objectives and the scope of a company's marketing blueprint, every other person who is tasked with reaching out to the target audience will tell you that no doubt they use at least one or a mixed range of the following two categories (and further down to the subcategories) of digital marketing i.e, online and offline digital media marketing. Although note that what I am going to highlight here are not arranged in any particular order of importance.

But before we proceed let me kindly bring your attention to the disclosure below.

NB: Disclosure. This post contains affiliate materials, contents and/or links, and we earn commission revenues if you click on them. Any action/activity that you perform only enables us to continue providing you with regular relevant contents, but it is not in anyway the main aim of this post.

So, let's look at those categories a little bit in details below.

Category 1: The Online Digital Media Marketing Methods.

This category includes but not limited to the following;

1. Content Marketing.

In the world of business today, every other technique or tactic that is used to reach and meet the audience's needs counts a lot. In other words you have to tailor your content in a manner that always meets the needs of your target audience, but you don't have to do it in a way that its clearly indicates you are only interested in making a sale by directly marketing a product/service. So give relevance to your contents and superior user-experience and satisfaction should be your priority. In that case if you narrow it down to the content marketing approach in digital marketing then it should take into account various types of contents; be it the article/blog posts, product reviews, listicles, e-books, images banners, video tutorials, case studies, tele-conferences, seminars and online training courses etc.

The main tactic here is the aspect of injecting relevance in your content strategy, which should be targeted for a specific group of audience in the market based on different categories or fields of business. But not a direct intention to sell a product/service.

2. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Marketing.

Search intent is the major goal of Search Engine Optimization. In simple terms the search engine algorithms (like Google for instance) works in a way that it returns results pages that are exact or are very very close to what a web user intended to get in their search processes. For example, if you plan to buy a Smartphone like (Infinix Smart2, Model X609, Version 8.1) and you visit a mobile phone review site, then you key in the above Specs. Then an assumption is that apart from you seeking exact product review and comparison information, you already have the buyer's intent - you are looking for commercial information at the same time. And that's Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) to boost your posts search ranking.

In this case you are likely to land on a page that is search engine optimized and containing Infinix smartphone reviews based on Google's results display for you. In other words the pages you land on are well optimized with Infinix smartphone keywords/images/video guide tutorials and contents. In short you market a product/service through a Search Engine Optimization method as a digital marketing method to reach a wider audience base.

3. Search Engine Marketing (SEM).

It involves a lot of traffic boosting in its marketing approach through paid advertising. Its more or less the same as PPC (Pay Per Click) advertising method, but the difference is that SEM increases your SERP (Search Engine Results Pages) presence and online visibility, while PPC is the channel or route that leads you to a specific site that SEM efforts are trying to promote.

You can use strategies like blog banners, text links etc that you strategically place online on the website so that when a visitor clicks on those links then they will be directed to a specific sales landing page or simply taken to another page within the same site, to conduct a certain action. Maybe to subscribe for e-mail updates, newsletters etc.

4. Social Media Marketing (SMM).

It is one of the most effective digital media consumption avenues used by many people to access information and communicate with one another over the internet. Social media and by extension community forums are some of the greatest digital marketing platforms used by many people to publish, to disseminate/share and to consume information of all aspects and virtually about any topic worldwide. The likes of Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Snapchat, Reddit, Pinterest, Google+, YouTube, Quora etc fall under the social media marketing platforms and attracts a lot of traffic on daily basis.

And it will channel to your site more traffic too if you link them together or if you use any to publish contents with links directing visitors to your own website/blog. So marketing in the social media and community forums can prove to be effective if done the right - and targeted - way. Whether promoted, sponsored or otherwise.

5. Affiliate Marketing.

This is a strong marketing partnership between the creators or merchants with their affiliate partners (publishers). In affiliate marketing you promote your company's products/services via links on other website(s), thereby generating more traffic flow, leads and sales for your business, where your customers will land on your e-commerce store front on the internet. It is one of the most effective digital media marketing methods or techniques available for online marketers.

6. Marketing Automation.

Scheduling unautomated task can sometimes be more time consuming - that is including post publications for instance, to ensure you stay ahead of your competition and deliver products/services on schedule. If you are a content marketer for example then you need to embrace automated processes for you to be more efficient in your service delivery. You need it to do quick e-mails, online social media and web presence etc, so make this method work for you. Its more or less the same as email marketing, but it is time specific i.e, its a time-schedule approach to effectively gain from it during certain periods of time. That means you schedule and automate your content delivery onto social platforms like facebook, twitter, instagram and many others for instance, through different marketing methods and tools e.g Marketo, HubSpot, ActiveCampaign etc.

7. Email Marketing.

This is another digital media marketing strategy that a lot of businesses use today to reach their current and prospective customers. When you use the email form of marketing it is called e-mail marketing and it's one of the most strategic and effective methods of digital marketing that are more specific and targeted, and will generate a good number of quality organic traffic, if well planned and executed to meet the target market's needs.

8. Inbound Marketing.

Inbound marketing is generally more of attracting business in terms of traffic into your company, which is one of the most effective digital marketing tactics or techniques that is meant to create awareness of your company's products and services to the potential customers out there. So using methods like SEO, Content marketing, SEO, e-mail marketing, PPC, phone, radio and television digital advertising etc are some of the ways to craft your inbound marketing strategy as one of the digital media marketing methods to showcase what your business is all about. In other words you use all the marketing methods, strategies and techniques to ensure you bring more customers into your business.

9. Pay-per-click Advertising (PPC).

As the name above suggests, Pay per click (PPC) is one of the online digital methods of marketing that is commonly used by many businesses including blogs and websites alike i.e, the merchant for instance will have to pay per the visitor's click on a link that leads them (visitors) to that merchant's landing page. So here a link is placed whereby when a visitor clicks on that link they will be directed to a specific product's landing page of an advertiser. The links used in this forms of marketing can also be in form of images, text links, photos or videos. A podcast can also be used together with a text link to advertise or create a brand awareness or promote a product/service through this method.

10. Blogging.

Actually blogging I would say is more or less like inbound marketing, but by large this is what I call the umbrella-strategy to all the other online marketing methods listed above, because its within the blog or even a website that you do all your product reviews, price comparisons, content marketing etc in a bid to promote a brand then spread the information via online or offline avenues. Its is the overall communication platform for you and your business, customers and can be used to house all those other techniques and digital marketing methods. So through it you can address your website visitors/clients/customers via a blog digitally, where you can engage with them, for instance by answering all their burning issues and questions and/or concerns among doing other things on your business blog to market your company digitally (online). Its your B2C and B2B channel.

NB: The above online methods of digital media marketing are not exhaustive, but those are the major highlights under the category 1 of digital (online) marketing methods. So lets look at the offline methods below.

Category 2: The Offline Digital Media Marketing Methods.

Like I mentioned or hinted above, the offline category of digital media marketing and methods too are also used by so many marketers and businesses alike, but that's depending on their choice and/or marketing strategies. They are more of an old-school method(s), but despite the fact that they are old-age approach to reaching your prospects in terms of marketing; they are the most simplest, cheap and time tested offline digital media marketing techniques still used to date. They are still very able to reach so many prospects within the shortest time possible, has some personal touch, are cost effective and still in use up to now.  That's why they are still preferred by many marketing strategists/professionals to supplement on their online marketing methods and brand awareness strategies.

So the offline digital media are just not yet going to be phased out anytime soon by the modern online methods of marketing like the SEO, Inbound marketing, Social media marketing etc.

Some of the offline digital electronic marketing platforms use the display technologies like the LED, LCD etc in their display projection. The panels which come in different sizes and shapes are normally placed strategically in common public areas or places like inside or outside the restaurants, public transport or commuter systems and vehicles, airports, banking halls, stadium, gas stations (petrol stations), schools, on the streets etc. See the image below.

They use text, videos, animations or a mixed of the three methods of display; and are used to display different types of information that are meant to help targeted consumers/customers in getting to know the products prices, hotel booking rates, commuter fares, help people in finding directions to exits, to their destinations among other uses.

Now, let me take you through a few of the most common ones as we look at them in their subcategories below.

1. Radio advertising.

The most effective forms of offline digital marketing and has been in use since time immemorial. Radio advertising uses audio/voice method where the radio-presenter plays commercial breaks to advertise a product/service to the masses. If the presenter talks about web-hosting, the rates and informs you (the listener) of the existence of hosting companies and tries to explain to you the reasons as to why you should buy web-hosting-plans from such agencies over the radio in a bid to promote that particular web-hosting, then that is referred to as radio advertising. Here you can use this medium of offline advertising to attract a lot of sales leads for a company. Remember it can be used to market any type of product/service. We have the live stream radio, clipped radio content etc.

2. TV advertising and commercials.

Like the radio marketing or advertising method, the TV commercials can be accessed by watching realtime or live streaming of contents, and are also used by companies and marketers among other professionals, to create brand and/or product/service awareness to the masses over the live screen display panels. This tables the form of audio-visual mode strategy as you can visually see the Ads at the same time listen to the audio advertisements. Which is a bit more effective than the audio-only method, since in the TV digital marketing methods you the viewer is able to actually see any product demonstrations before you make your mind on purchase of product/service.

3. The Mobile phone advertising.

Mobile phone has not been owned by so many people since the invention of both radio and television, and was owned by few people worldwide. It was a preserve of the rich, those who were able to afford them very many years back in the 70's. But it has evolved rapidly and has been one of the most successful digital communication gadgets/products, and with time it has been owned by so many people globally making it one of the most effective platforms for digital media advertising and marketing. The mobile phones can be used to access online information via applications like WhatsApp and internet too. 

Text Messaging as offline marketing method.

But mobile phones are also used most effectively for advertising through text messages i.e SMS methods that reaches a wide coverage and in larger geographical areas with poor internet connectivity.

4. Electronic Digital Display Boards.

These boards use the LED display technologies in the projection of images that are either static or dynamic. It can be used for animated advertising to pass and deliver an advertisement or information to the people. Most strategic places it can be used to display the communications and advertisements are at the airports, restaurants, train stations, direction signages at the hospitals, schools etc. So those are some of the offline digital media marketing methods and platforms.

Conclusion.

Social media is quite dynamic when it comes to digital media marketing and communication, and in that case for every business to stay competitive then definitely it will have to employ different advertising and digital marketing methods or strategies that is fit for them, so that they can reach as many audiences/customers as possible. Social media platforms are the major source of traffic into any website/blog out there, whether organically acquired or gained through paid methods as I have indicated above.

Remember, that there are a lot of digital marketing methods used by different companies and professionals alike, but the ones that I have indicted above are among the most commonly known and implemented by both the online and offline digital/social media marketers, companies and web presence strategists.

So, which method(s) do you prefer or you know of, that I have not mentioned in this post? You can let me know what you think in the comments below, but don't forget to share this post with your friends, colleagues and any one else who might have interest in it.

I hope this helped answer you.

Thank you.

Image credits pixabay, unsplash.