Digital marketing is often used as a blanket term for any form of online marketing. Others use it interchangeably with social media marketing. But what exactly is digital marketing?

Digital marketing is vast. It encompasses several kinds of marketing, including social media, search engine, and content marketing. In this article, we will mainly focus on the latter two.

Search Engine Marketing

Search engine marketing is any form of marketing that appears in search engines such as Google or Bing. Google is the largest search engine marketing service provider, as it accounts for more than 81% of search engine market share. Therefore, it might be prudent to familiarise yourself with Google Ads, Google’s platform for creating search engine marketing campaigns.

It is very affordable, and you will have complete control over your campaign budget. If the advertisement exceeds your budget, you can stop the campaign at your leisure. You can create the campaign parameters through the Google ads dashboard, including your target audience specifics. Once the campaign begins, you can view results, and insights and fine-tune your campaign through the same dashboard. The beauty is that Google also sends you regular updates on the appropriate adjustments necessary to obtain optimal results. Costs are calculated using a method known as CPM (Cost Per Click)— the amount you will spend on the campaign will depend on the clicks the campaign receives. As a result, you will only be paying for actual conversions. Most importantly, you need to determine your campaign objective during the start of the campaign. Do you want to receive calls? Do you want to send users to your social media page, or website? Your campaign objective will determine your overall ad spend and the criteria used in determining the CPM.

Content Marketing

Content marketing is another very affordable, yet highly effective form of advertising. Examples of content marketing include:

• Videos

• ebooks

• Blog articles

We highly recommend the use of content marketing because most forms of content marketing, such as email marketing and blogging, are absolutely free. Furthermore, even though most companies charge for setting up and sending bulk SMS, the cost is very affordable. Therefore content marketing is a low-risk, high-return marketing strategy, and could prove useful for cash-strapped start-ups or SMEs. Regularly posting blogs on your page also helps boost SEO. Thus, increasing your organic traffic.

Other Forms of Digital Marketing

Other forms of digital marketing include social media marketing, bulk sms, and email marketing.

Overall, in this day and age of information. Digital marketing is paramount for any business that wants to succeed in Kenya. If you focus on the forms of digital marketing we’ve discussed and continue to sharpen your skills, you will increase traffic to your website affordably, and sustainably.