Digital Marketing

What is digital marketing used for?
In today’s fast-paced environment driven by technology, it has become imperative for every big and small enterprise to leverage digital marketing for enhanced revenues and growth. While in the old days, entrepreneurs and marketing managers relied on advertising and PR through traditional media, those seeking new opportunities nowadays invariably turn to digital media like Facebook, Instagram, Google, and YouTube, among others, to build online presence and reach out to customers. Before you take on the competition, it’s important to learn what is digital marketing used for and gain a thorough understanding of all aspects of the digital marketing landscape, including SEO, SMO, and SEM.
What is SEO?
Search engine optimisation (SEO)- is the most basic mantra that every marketer has to master. The digital space is a battlefield where brands and websites are vying with each other to attract the attention of consumers. Given the competition, a digital marketer needs to be conversant with the underlying process of search optimisation strategy.
For example, whenever a user types a query into a search engine such as Google, s/he gets a response in the form of Search Engine Results Pages (also known as ‘SERPs’).The search engine reaches into its indexed pages and throws up the most suitable response, which can take the form of organic results or paid results. The websites appearing organically on the first page of Google are the ones that reflect the most relevant and best results in approximation to the typed query or keywords, as determined by Google’s algorithm.
The order of appearance of websites then determines how many clicks a website is going to get. Obviously, higher visibility on page seo & off page seo in terms of the first few positions on top of the page translates into greater number of clicks for the website.
Paid results and featured snippets containing text or videos can affect the visibility of organic results by pushing them down in the order of priority. Of late, a “people also ask” snippet has also become a regular feature on SERPs.
Given this scenario, you need to be adept at ensuring that your website gains highest rankings whenever a potential customer heads to a search engine, by adopting an effective SEO strategy. This includes constantly researching trending keywords, analysing competition, optimising content, ensuring a great user-friendly experience, and embedding backlinks into the content to attract high click-through-rate (CTR). That’s why many businesses entrust this complex task to experts like Endive Media, in order to stay one step ahead of the competition at all times.
What is SMO?
Social Media Optimization-Though SEO is an essential part of digital marketing, it’s certainly not all. Nowadays, there are multiple channels available to businesses to showcase their products and services and stand out from the crowd. Enter social media optimisation (SMO), which is a technique designed to create awareness about products and services among consumers through multiple social channels.
New age consumers spend considerable time on various social media like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Snapchat, among others. What’s more, each of these sites attracts a unique demographic and social profile. Therefore, these platforms present an ideal opportunity for businesses to connect with potential customers an expert chef promoting your products, in case you are in the business of selling food items, pre-mixes, meal kits or organic foods? It’s certainly a worthwhile strategy. In fact, video sites like YouTube, and networking sites like LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter can be effectively used to create brand awareness and enhance the value of your brand.
However, it’s easier said than done. A successful SMO strategy has to be carefully crafted after due consideration to various aspects. In other words, haphazardly made or placed content and videos will not translate into higher sales and revenue. You have to identify the correct platform for the customer profile you have in mind, connect with those customers through engaging content, rope in a social media influencer if needed, continuously track and analyse data, and respond through perfectly executed campaigns and communication strategies, all while keeping an eye on competition.
SMO can be immensely rewarding for businesses, but it is certainly not an easy task. Customer engagement is a complex process, where Endive Media has emerged as a trusted partner for devising insightful SMO strategy. We target consumers with the right content at the right time on the right platform, all with the ultimate objective of optimising the social media presence of your brand.
What is SEM?
Search engine marketing (SEM)- is the technique of driving higher visibility through the search engines. As we have seen earlier, there are two ways of garnering traffic through search engines such as Google – organic traffic through SEO or paid traffic through advertising. The paid results that appear on Google in response to a query are advertisements for products or services whose placement and appearance are driven by both relevance and bidding.
Increasingly, businesses of all hues are ready to spend money to show up the association of their products and services with the keywords typed into the search engines. In paid search advertising, your brand advertisement or website appears in SERPs mixed with or on top of organic search results, and you have to shell out money for pay-per-click (PPC) if the searcher follows it to your specific webpage. This means you have to pay the search engine for increasing visibility, in addition to incurring the expenditure on setting up a website and creating compelling content. This is where SEM comes into play.
To conclude, digital marketing offers many tools and techniques for businesses to expand customer base and enhance revenues. Partners like Endive Media can design expert strategies and deliver value for your business to address the opportunities and challenges offered by social media.