Today’s businesses know that they need a strong online presence to be competitive in an already noisy landscape. While digital marketing is crucial for this effort, marketers need to be careful about where they choose to promote their brand online.
After all, what works for a B2B business may not accomplish the same goals as a digital marketing strategy for a B2C business. Therefore, marketers need to consider the types of digital marketing channels they’re using to promote their brand – and how to optimize the interactions they generate.
When it comes to marketing and branding, the world moves fast. It only follows, then, that in order to stand out, companies seeking to connect with prospective customers need to move quickly.
That’s why today’s digital marketing strategies draw from a variety of strategic, technologically-backed approaches. From marketing automation to producing personalized digital content, today’s marketers are most effective when they are combining traditional marketing approaches with data science and technological innovations.
Before marketers can start taking advantage of innovations in martech, however, they need to understand the tools with which they are working.
It all starts with digital marketing channels.
Before you can determine which digital marketing channels are best for your business, you first need to familiarize yourself with the channels available to you. What do we mean by that? In short, digital marketing channels are platforms marketers use to reach their target audience and promote their product, service, or brand. Let’s take a look at some of the most useful ones:
1. Email Marketing – Promote content, discounts and events, and direct people toward your website through email marketing. Common emails sent during a campaign include customer welcome messages, holiday promotions, and blog subscription newsletters.
2. Content Marketing – When you create and promote content assets in order to generate brand awareness, traffic growth, lead generation, and customers, that’s content marketing. Blog posts, ebooks and whitepapers, and infographics all make up a part of a content marketing strategy.
3. Search Engine Optimization – Commonly referred to as “SEO,” this is the process of optimizing your website to rank higher in search engine results pages, which increases the amount of organic search (or free) traffic your website or blog receives.
4. Social Media – With this practice, you can promote both your brand and content on social media channels like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram. Through social media marketing, you’ll increase brand awareness, drive traffic, and generate leads for your business.
5. Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Advertising – PPC allows you to drive traffic to your website by paying a publisher every time you receive clicks on your ad. One of the most common types of PPC is Google Ads, which enables you to pay for top slots on Google's search engine results pages at a price "per click" of the links you place (also known as paid search). Other channels include Twitter ad campaigns, paid ads on Facebook, and sponsored messages on LinkedIn.
6. Affiliate Marketing – Through this type of performance-based advertising, you receive commission for promoting someone else’s products or services on your website. Affiliate marketing channels include posting affiliate links from your social media accounts and hosting video ads through the Youtube Partner Program.
7. Display Advertising – This channel includes display ads like banners, boxes, interactive ads, videos, and other similar ads that are placed on a third-party site, then linked to a landing page or website. It creates greater brand awareness white attracting highly-targeted traffic that is more likely to convert. Payment for these ads is typically based on Cost-Per-Impression (CPM).
8. Online PR – Secure earned online coverage with digital publications, blogs, and other content-based websites. Maximize PR efforts by reaching out to reporters via social media, responding to comments left on your personal website or blog, and engaging online reviews of your company.
To build an optimal marketing strategy, you need to consider the types of channels that will suit your marketing goals best. For instance, if your audience doesn’t spend a lot of time on LinkedIn, it probably isn’t a great tactic to limit your marketing efforts to that platform.
When you’re in the planning stage, follow these steps:
1. Define your marketing goals – What is your business hoping to accomplish with its marketing efforts? To choose the digital marketing channel that will benefit your marketing strategy the most, consider the following objectives:
In an increasingly connected world, your approach to marketing must be just as integrated. Stefanini provides solutions that focus on strategy, data science, media, and advertising while also leveraging data intelligence to boost business, connect people, and create experiences. Connect with us to get started!
Using our expertise, best practices, and statistical techniques, we produce actionable business insights based on data mining and predictive models. Our insights are further solidified through research and analytics.
Continuously improve your marketing strategy to ensure your business thrives with better interactions, engagement, loyalty, and brand awareness.
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