We can safely say that almost every single person in this world involved in some sort of business has come across the term digital marketing. It’s obviously becoming more and more common practice for even the most unlikely brands these days.

It’s still normal if someone is not an expert in it though. In case you’re not familiar or experienced enough you shouldn’t be shy, it’s honestly completely normal to ask for a little help. We only get better at something by not being afraid to learn through any means. None of us is born ready or aware.

Since it’s becoming a broad term, a definition would make things a bit clearer. Digital marketing is any form of marketing activity that takes place through one or multiple digital devices.

By the way, you should take into account that traditional marketing methods are definitely not outdated. Only working with a good combination of both can you create wonderful and effective campaigns. You should always use a well-defined mix.

Digital marketing can include millions of different things. In the journey of one becoming an all-star in this whole process, all it starts with is a good introduction.

So, here are 8 of the most important, must-do types of marketing that every business should consider in 2020.

1. Search Engine Optimization

Regardless of size, sector, revenue or profit, all brands should have an official website. It’s de facto.

In the audience’s eyes websites are the true faces of brands. And this is where SEO helps. It’s about all those practices that make a page user-friendly, accurate and ultimately more authoritative. People make positive or negative impressions whenever they see a website high or low on Google’s search engine. Different pages are assessed by search engines through keyword usage, website format, and content.

Giving users a nice experience and at the same time appearing as a top result is surely a fundamental step in doing digital marketing.

2. Search Engine Marketing

Similar to SEO, SEM’s purpose is also about making your website stand out. The difference is that you pay for it. What you should know is that ultimately the top results on search engines are the advertised ones.

You may be thinking, why would I need SEO if SEM does the work for me? Well, it’s not that simple. Search engines usually work with a combination of both.

At the end of the day things are pretty simple, what you need to do if you want Google to see you as a friend is both to optimize your website as well as possible and pay search engines a good amount of money compared to your competitors.

3. Social Media Marketing

You’re probably already aware of what Social Media are. What you may not know since you’re a digital marketing rookie is that things have shifted a little bit since they started digging into our lives.

Those platforms became incredibly successful by bringing people together and giving them the opportunity to socialize when distance tore them apart.

Today, Social Media are widely used as channels for conducting many different marketing activities. One can promote products, engage with people, transform opinions, hire workforce, make alliances and collaborate with other people or businesses.

Different media serve different purposes and any of them can be proven really useful. Today, almost every brand regardless of size has at least one official account on one or more social media.

If it happens that you don’t use social media and don’t know how they work, make a thorough examination of them and then start doing anything.

You seriously can’t skip using those platforms, they’re really the alpha and omega.

4. Content Marketing

Sometimes you don’t necessarily have to sell something to people. Creating engagement has really become something in the last decade. There’s some difference between customers and audiences.

Depending on what you do, you want to bring people closer to your brand or yourself. Content marketing is usually about telling an interesting story either about your purpose or something more or less related to your purpose. It’s really effective for building a brand image, transforming ideas and forming bonds.

Pulling individuals is always smoother than pushing something to them.

Use a guide and find out how you should write and where you should distribute your content.

5. Pay-Per-Click Advertising

As its name suggests, this is a form of paid advertising. Advertisers pay based on the number of clicks on a link to a particular page.

Basically, to some extent, it can be combined with almost all other marketing types. One can create advertisements and commercials for any targeted audience based on specific characteristics. Those ads then appear on almost all different websites.

Even though sometimes they may look simple, it takes a lot of work to create ads that bring results.

As a beginner, you must hire people that do this, don’t try it on your own.

6. Email Marketing

Emails are personal. You should be really careful whenever you attempt to address people on a personal level. A lot of times people can feel offended or stalked whenever some brand or strangers get personal.

Be careful with the legal framework around emailing people and create emails that are always gentle, friendly and warm.

Email marketing may be the most effective digital marketing tool for getting conversions and turning people into actual customersor loyal audience members.

7. Influencer Marketing

Is there an easier, more relaxed way to promote your products or services than using popular or simply effective public figures? Think about it. On your own part, all you have to do is just pay them. They’re experts at social interaction and convincing large crowds or unique individuals, that’s why they’re called influencers.

Influencer marketing has risen to prominence for good in the last few years. Whenever you see a popular figure addressing a particular topic or issue on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter or any other social medium there is a high possibility that it’s not because they themselves are interested.

Make collaborations and choose the right individuals in order to boost your brand or yourself. Give your purposes good publicity.

8. Affiliate Marketing

Through Affiliate Marketing what happens is two or more companies work together in order to help each other’s success. The result is that collaborations bring whatever’s needed and revenue is shared.

This all means that it’s positive to have good relationships, not just with customers, but also with other brands. Companies are also part of your target audience in a way.

Based on two different point-of-views, there are 3 or 4 different parties involved in Affiliate Marketing. There’s always the advertiser, the publisher and the consumer, and some consider the affiliate network as an extra, in-between party.

Give this a lot of attention. You can easily see a lot of profit just by picking the right publisher and giving good instructions.

Understanding these 8 fundamental types of digital marketing is a good first step in getting introduced to today’s methods of handling business and ultimately boosting your brand.

Visit other sections of One Team’s website in order to get ready for the next step. Take your time though, one game at a time.