Digital Marketing Channels For Your Business: An Essential Guide

Digital marketing has already made waves in businesses across many industries. Believe it or not, there are many ways to connect with consumers, besides word of mouth. Nowadays, thanks to the rise of technology, digital marketing channels have paved the way for companies to grow closer to their consumer base.

But where to start?

This essential guide will talk about the types of digital marketing channels, and how you can choose the right ones for your business:

Types Of Digital Marketing Channels

There are many digital marketing channels to choose from when setting up avenues for your business. Just keep in mind that results from channels will vary, depending on your marketing campaign and your industry. That’s why it’s important to analyze and understand your options, before moving forward with a specific channel.

Let’s see how each of the following digital marketing channels operate so that you can get an idea of how they can help you and your business:

Social Media

First, social media consists of not just one channel but several. Here are just some examples of social media channels:

Facebook is one of the longest-running social media platforms online. Users of all age groups use this platform for both leisurely and professional manners. Companies – including novice marketers – can take advantage of the paid advertising tools that Facebook offers.
Twitter is well known for its usage of hashtags (#) and keywords. This is great for search engine optimization (SEO), which is a part of organic traffic marketing. Every time you use a hashtag with the right words and phrases on the platform, you’ll rake in users that use and acknowledge said hashtag. With that said, this platform is ideal for companies with certain niches, as well as industry influencers.
Instagram is a great platform to share images and create amazing ads for your brand. Depending on your customer base, you can use this platform to post visual content – photos, videos, livestreams, and even attractive (and interactive) advertising.
LinkedIn is considered the “professional” social media network. On this platform, businesses (including B2B ones) can connect with each other, along with prospective job seekers. Job seekers, in turn, can speak to hiring professionals and agency, and even submit their resume on their personal profile to attract businesses.

Overall, social media marketing is ideal for:

Building brand awareness
Building stronger relationships with customers
Encouraging direct sales, AND
Targeting the right audience

Organic Search

Users use search engines like Google all the time. As a result, search engines evolve to accommodate popular keywords and phrases that are being entered by users.

But what if you knew those popular keywords and phrases, based on your industry? That’s an organic search!

Organic search is a marketing strategy that shows you relevant keywords. All you have to do is type a word or phrase that you believe equates to your niche, and then allow the search engine to give you various results. As you may see from the first page of results, you’ll notice recurring keywords and phrases. As a result, this tactic is cost-effective and takes seconds to do online.

Organic search for ideal for:

Bringing in website traffic
Building relevant links

Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Marketing

Pay-per-click marketing has businesses… well, paying for more clicks, of course. Essentially, businesses can pay bidding platforms like Google Adwords to target visits based on the keywords that they choose. While this tactic is effective for getting quick turn-outs, it can still have businesses dishing out money to “buy” more clicks.

Despite its pitfalls, PPC marketing is ideal for:

Bringing in website traffic
Establishing your business as an authority, AND
Generating leads and prospective investors/donors

Blogging

As much as this method may seem outdated these days, blogging is still a crucial part of any content marketing plan. Blogging allows you to share your mission statement, stories, and information about your business and niche. As a result, blogging is great for:

Building brand awareness
Establishing your business as an authority, AND
Telling stories about your business

Content Marketing

Content marketing (CM) helps marketing teams build a strong online presence, as well as help them establish themselves as an authority in their niches. All businesses need is a website, so that they can get content marketing off the ground.

The best thing about content marketing is that it opens doors to creativity. How? By letting you create all kinds of content. So, besides blogging, your company can also create some of the following:

Case studies from clients, customers, etc.
Customer reviews
eBooks
PDF downloads
Press releases
Product/Service comparisons
Research articles, etc.

With that in mind, content marketing is best for:

Boosting website traffic
Building authority in niche
Building brand awareness
Educating consumers
Generating leads
Generating return of investment (ROI)
Tell stories about your business

Direct Emailing

Believe it or not, marketing teams still use email to communicate with consumers. From newsletters to email confirmations to other important updates, emails can still be used in marketing campaigns. To justify its relevancy in today’s marketing, marketers can make sure that they personalize emails based on the campaign, the consumer, and so on.

In short, email marketing is best for the following:

Building brand awareness
Building consumer relationships
Directing sales
Generating leads, AND
Generating ROI

Mobile Marketing

Did you know that there are an estimated 6.4 billion mobile users in the world, according to Oberlo? That’s a lot of mobile users!

Nowadays, companies are looking into reaching more and more consumers. Since many consumers are on their smartphones, tablets, and other mobile devices these days, companies want to communicate with them via text, email, etc.

To make the best in mobile marketing, you’ll need to make the design of your website and or app easy to navigate through. For this, think about:

User experience (UX) design – how easy users can interact with your site
User interface (UI) design – how the site itself is designed (its appearance)
The formatting for smartphones, tablets, and other devices…

…and so on.

As such, mobile marketing is ideal for:

Directing sales
Generating leads, AND
Sending your customers instant updates

Choosing The Right Digital Marketing Channels

Choosing the right digital marketing channels starts with having a marketing plan. A marketing plan allows you to work towards incorporating the right channels for your marketing campaigns. The plan accounts for essential elements needed for your marketing venture.

With that in mind, here are some tips on choosing the right digital marketing channel(s):

Know Your Audience

First, know who your business needs to cater to. That will depend on what your product or service is, as well as your desired industry. You can use tools like bid management software to help you find the best marketing platform for your business. With the help of this software you can save lots of resources while still reaching your target audience.

Then, look at where your audience is hanging out online. Suppose you’re selling beauty products. You see that many influencers are taking to platforms like Instagram to share makeup tutorial videos on your competitor’s beauty products. In that case, consider posting videos and photos of your product, so that users can start posting their own media about your brand.

As you can see, it takes plenty of research in order to know and find your audience.

Have A List Of Goals

Next, take the time to jot down the goals of your business, when it comes to digital marketing. Already, your goal should be to know your audience. But what about everything else?

First and foremost, you’ll need a set of short-term and long-term goals. While it’s good to think about what your business needs for the short term, you would still need to think forward to the future with long-term goals. In other words, where do you see your business in a few years or more with digital marketing?

Set Up A Budget

Then, you’ll need to set aside a budget for your digital marketing endeavors. Now, depending on the size and turnout of your brand, how big or small your digital marketing efforts will be based on how much money you can put into it. Keep in mind: While you might not throw money into so many channels, you can prioritize at least one channel that you find successful. For example, if you see that more users are flocking to your business’s Instagram than Facebook, then you would prioritize budgeting your marketing on Instagram more so.

Utilize Talent Acquisition

Finally, think about the people on your marketing team. Do you have tech-savvy individuals? Do you have persons that are knowledgeable of social media? Can your team commit to a posting schedule on social media? Can your team commit to sending emails regularly to consumers? These are some of the questions that you’ll need to ask yourself when thinking about talent acquisition.

Conclusion

Ultimately, your business will thrive once you take advantage of digital marketing channels. Since technology has already been cemented in consumer lives, digital marketing is here to stay.

We hope that this essential guide will help you to understand digital marketing, the types of channels to consider for your future marketing endeavors, and how to make it work for you. We hope that this guide will help you reach more consumers.

Good luck with your marketing endeavors!

George J. Newton is a writer and editor at Write my personal statement. As a business development manager, he has overseen various projects in select companies in the state of Kentucky. As a content writer, he writes articles about digital marketing, coding, and social media trends.