In our last blog post, we dove into SEO terminology. But SEO is just one of several types of digital marketing. We gave it its own post because there are so many aspects of SEO and a lot of confusing lingo when you’re getting started.
Now, we’ll talk about the rest of digital marketing, from social media and content to ads and promotions. Whether you’re trying to get started doing your own marketing or are working with an agency like ours and want to know what all of us marketing geeks are talking about, this dictionary will cover all the basics.
Contents
Digital Marketing Beyond SEO: Social Media, Ads, and More
First, it’s important to note that you can’t cleanly separate the different types of digital marketing. SEO is fundamental to effective content marketing, and conversely, content marketing is fundamental to SEO. They don’t work independently. Some areas of marketing can be used independently, but they all work best when tackled in a comprehensive, interconnected way. That’s one of the benefits of working with a marketing agency that can help you with every piece of your marketing puzzle. It’s seamless and efficient.
So have your digital marketing dictionary of SEO terms handy, because those concepts all come into play here! But without further adieu, let’s explore the digital marketing landscape beyond SEO.
A Dictionary of Digital Marketing Terms
Digital marketing can be broken down by the tactic or channel you’re using, to keep things simple. So we’ll begin with an overview of several of the main channels and strategies in digital marketing, like social media and ads, excluding SEO since we already discussed that. Then we’ll look at a few general marketing terms you might hear and explain what they mean.
Types of Digital Marketing
Content Marketing
Many digital marketing tactics could fall under this umbrella, but generally, content marketing refers to content that you share on your website, like blog posts. It could also include ebooks and whitepapers, infographics, or even television and radio content.
Social Media Marketing
This increasingly vital element of digital marketing involves using social media channels to promote your brand and connect with customers. Anytime you post on a social media platform like Facebook or LinkedIn as your company, you’re engaging in social media marketing. One noteworthy subset of social media that’s increasingly valuable for marketing is forums like Reddit.
PPC Advertising
PPC stands for Pay Per Click. This is where you bring customers to your website with ads, and you pay for the ad when it gets clicked. Google Ads is a popular choice, which puts your ads in search engine results. You can also use PPC ads on Facebook and other popular platforms.
Email & SMS Marketing
The “Subscribe to our newsletter” option at the bottom of many websites is email marketing. They’ll send you offers, news, and other content by email. Though you might think emails are going out of style, email marketing remains an effective digital marketing strategy.
Newer to the field is SMS or instant message marketing. It’s the same concept as email marketing but done through texts or other instant messaging platforms, and therefore typically focuses on shorter content.
Sponsored Content
Think of sponsored content as the middle ground between ads and content marketing. In this strategy, you pay another company or person to promote your service or product. Influencers on social media are a common route for this, or product reviews on YouTube.
Inbound Marketing
You might hear the phrase “inbound marketing.” This is essentially a specific strategy for digital marketing. Traditional or outbound marketing is salesy and obvious: like pop-up ads and commercials. The idea of inbound marketing is to use softer, subtler techniques to genuinely connect with customers and bring them to your website in a more organic way.
Social media marketing, blogging, and other types of content marketing that aren’t paid or overly promotional are examples of inbound marketing. You use helpful, enjoyable content that the reader wants to engage with and that builds their trust in your brand, rather than bombarding them with ads.
Online Reputation Management
Another element of digital marketing, which goes hand-in-hand with inbound marketing, is online reputation management. You want your company to get seen online, but you also want to get seen positively. A thousand reviews are only beneficial for you if they’re predominantly positive.
Online reputation management is the marketing puzzle piece where we improve and maintain your online presence and reputation. Using interesting, high-quality content and inbound marketing techniques, we engage readers in a way they appreciate, rather than only annoying them with ads. It also involves things like getting and responding to reviews and general public relations work.
KPIs and Metrics
The nice thing about digital marketing is it’s easy to track. You can see in detailed numbers how well your marketing efforts are working. These numbers are metrics, and we use KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) to evaluate them. Here are the metrics and KPIs you can expect to encounter:
- Impressions: how many times your content is displayed on someone’s screen
- Clicks: how many times someone clicks on your content
- Conversion: when someone takes the desired action from your content. I.e. they see your ad, click on it, and buy your product. Conversions are the goal.
- CVR: conversion rate, meaning what percentage of people convert out of the total number of impressions and clicks.
- CPM: cost per impression, measured as how much you spend per thousand impressions
- CPC: cost per click; how much you pay when someone clicks your PPC ad
- CTR: click-through rate, meaning the ratio of clicks to impressions.
- ROAS: return on ad spend, meaning the revenue generated from your advertising expenditures. This is like the ad-specific version of ROI.
Start Your Digital Marketing Journey with GreenHaven!
We covered a lot of ground in just two blog posts on digital marketing terminology, and still only scratched the surface of all there is to know! If you’re ready to up your marketing game or dive in for the first time, GreenHaven Interactive can help. We offer all the SEO and marketing services your business needs to thrive in the digital world. Find your personalized marketing solution at GreenHaven today!
