Digital marketing has become a buzzword in marketing circles, along with terms like SEO. These tools are forming the foundation of campaigns to attract customers and develop long-term relationships with them. Four types of digital marketing have acquired prominence and we outline these. Then, there is the little-known ‘Advergaming’, although it is not new, having been around in its current form since 2000. What is it and which marketers will benefit from advergames?

The Four Types of Digital Marketing

There are four types of digital marketing and experts advise concentrating on more than one of these for marketing campaigns. These are content marketing (CM), search engine optimization (SEO), search engine marketing (SEM), and social media marketing (SMM).

CM provides valuable and interesting information to consumers. Rather than marketing per se, it aims to build brand awareness and a relationship with customers.

SEO is broken down into three groups. On-page SEO is used mainly for high search engine rankings and involves optimizing your website for keywords. Off-page SEO utilizes backlinks to quality websites to improve how search engines rank the site. Technical SEO improves user experience by ensuring the site is mobile-friendly and increasing site speed with attention to indexation, site structure, and crawlability.

SEM is better known as pay-per-click (PPC). Paid advertising through Google Ads results in ads appearing on Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs).

SMM works according to the rules of each social media platform. This may mean posting an ad, a video, a podcast, or blog content. Businesses design their approach to the users of platforms. SMM is good for engaging users and creating customer relationships.

Advergames

Although the term ‘advergames’ has only been used since the 2000s, it did exist in the 1980s and was attempted even earlier. The reason it remains relatively unknown is that today’s gamers use their mobiles to play wherever and whenever they choose. They can stop playing when it suits them.

However, advergames find their niche in social gatherings where friends come together to game. It provides an opening for marketers without disruption to consumers at inappropriate times. Advertisements are more effective when they are placed on sites that have related content as opposed to banners and pop-ups, which many people dislike.

Advergames transition into entertainment and are being played globally on all types of devices from desktops to mobiles, tablets, and laptops. They are placed in branded game portals, branded microsites, app stores, and on social media.

Marketers’ Use Of Advergames

Advergaming includes its brand and promotes its products through the use of advertising elements placed within games. It has a huge advantage in that it does not result in user ad fatigue. It even encourages brand dialogue.

It is as simple as creating a game using your brand by teaming up with a studio for production. Here are several examples of how it has been done. But any creative marketing team can make it work. For example, a seller of gaming hardware can use a specific gaming keyboard in its advergame. What is important is the relevance of the product to the game.

Advergaming has added a new digital media tool to the marketer’s arsenal that companies are using for brand awareness and building customer relationships.