Marketing channels can help you reach the right audience and increase your brand’s visibility. Some effective platforms you can use are email, website, SMS, and social media.
For a business to succeed, it’s not enough to simply have good products or services. It’s crucial to generate interest from the right people so your goods can reach their intended end-users.
This is why it’s important to manage your marketing efforts strategically. The goal behind every marketing activity is to gain visibility, and this can be achieved by marketing through effective channels. Any method or platform used to promote goods and services is considered a marketing channel. The goal of your marketing efforts should be to build a connection between your brand and potential customers.
When it comes to selecting channels to market your brand on, you’ll come across a plethora of options. Apart from conventional means like broadcasting, print media, and signage, there are also more versatile digital marketing platforms such as social media and email.
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Choosing the Right Channels
With so many options, it can be tricky to determine which ones fit your goals. The answer will mostly depend on the type of business you run and your target consumers. Regardless of their scope, not all channels will work for your company or help you get noticed by the right demographic. It’s best to first create test campaigns and measure their results.
Moreover, while each channel works differently, they all aim to capture attention. Fortunately, you don’t have to try running a campaign on every single one of them to find out if they are suitable. You can start by simply weighing factors like your industry vertical, products, budget, and target audience.
Additionally, a strong marketing plan is omnichannel in nature and able to deliver appealing and consistent messaging across traditional and digital marketing channels. Hence, it’s best to include several platforms in your marketing strategy mix. Here are a few notable channels to consider:
1. Website
A business website is an absolute must-have in this digital era, regardless of the size of your company. A well-designed website will allow you to build a solid online presence and educate people about your brand. Plus, it’s more commontoday to look up a company online thaninquire via phone call.
Keep in mind that what visitors see on your website can affect their buying decisions and set their expectations on everything—from the quality of your products to their pricing. That said, it’s essential to devise and implement a good content marketing strategy that suits your target audience.
2. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
As mentioned above, consumers often look up businesses they’re interested in. In fact, up to 93% of people’s online experiences begin with the use of a search engine. Moreover,90.63% of pages don’t get organic search traffic from Google.
Your website may need the help of search engine optimization to improve its rankings and garner attention from prospective customers. SEO involves variouspractices such as keyword research and placement, on-page and off-page optimization, generation of linkable assets, and organic link building to increase your visibility.
3. Email
When businesses undertake lead generation campaigns and other marketing tactics, they collect contact information from prospects, such as phone numbers and email addresses.
Email marketing is one of the most effective and personal digital marketing methods, able to deliver impressive ROIs of up to 3,800%. Moreover, despite not being the most advanced platform, trends like automation and personalization can still be applied in email marketing at a relatively low cost.
Email marketing also helps boost brand awareness and drive conversions. Plus, sending emails and branded content regularly to customers allows you to build trust, which increases their likelihood of eventually making a purchase.
4. Pay-per-click (PPC)
Pay-per-click advertising can drive highly targeted trafficin a short period. Its effectiveness, however, largely depends on howactively you invest in bids and ad placements, as well as how much you are willing to pay. In this marketing model, advertisers pay every single time a person clicks on their ad.
With PPC, you can set how much you’ll spend on ads for a day, a week, or a month. Note that their performance is determined by how well you select keywords and optimize the visual aspects and ad copy. That’s why it’s essential to work with experts to ensure your success rate if you’re unfamiliar about a marketing channel.
5. Display Advertising
Many people go to blogs, forums, and other online platforms they find interesting or useful. By placing relevant display advertisements on these third-party sites, you can reach potential customers. A few examples of display ads include banners, boxes, interactive ads, video ads, interstitial ads, and overlays that direct to a landing page.
Display advertising can help you spread brand awareness while also generating traffic that can be converted into leads and sales. Payments for these display ads are typically based on cost-per-impression (CPM), which is usually more cost-effective than the cost-per-click (CPC) system common in PPC advertising.
6. SMS Marketing
Like email, short message service (SMS) may not be the latest technology, but it still delivers impressive results as a marketing channel. InSMS marketing, a company engages with its customer base via text messaging and sends them promotions, news, and updates, among other branded content types.
Also, similar to email marketing, SMS marketing is an owned channel. This means you have complete control over who receives a message, what kind of material is shared, and when it is sent. With SMS marketing, you can set the tone and oversee the experience you provide to your customers from start to finish. You can also send MMS (multimedia message service) messages in addition to SMS, so you can add images, GIFs, and other animated graphics to your text.
7. Social Media
It’s no secret that practically everyone has a social media account these days. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and other popular social media platforms will allow your small business to connect with your target audience.
Plus, when you interact with your customers on social media, your company can also get noticed by their friends, especially if they post about your products or give reviews. Geotagging is another excellent social media feature that can boost your company’s visibility.
Furthermore, social media campaigns are quite easy to create and spread. It’s also convenient to monitor a campaign’s performance based on metrics like reach, impressions, engagement, and link clicks.To get started with social media marketing, make a list ofplatforms where your target audienceis most likely to be active.
8. Blogs
Blogs have evolved into an advantageous digital marketing channel. While blogging can be time-consuming, it is a practical approach to establish an audience, raise brand awareness,and build relationships with customers. Furthermore, publishing well-researched blogs regularly on your website canaid your SEO efforts. You can also offer to write articles for other blogs popular among your target demographic, with a link back to your website.
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Tips for Successful Marketing Campaign Execution
Choosing the right channels is just one step in developing a marketing strategy. You also have to maximize the channels you selected to successfully implement your campaigns. It’s also best to train your team or work with marketing professionals for a winning strategy and execution.
Knowing the best marketing practices will help you focus and complete your campaigns on schedule. Follow these steps to ensure a seamless implementation of your marketing projects.
1. Assign specific roles
Whether you’re working with an in-house team or outsourcing to a third-party marketing agency, it’s important to define every person’s role. This way, they will know how their work affects others and set realistic expectations for each member involved.
If you’re opting to outsource, choose a company with a diverse portfolio that includes a good mix of digital marketing channels. It’s also crucial to consider their experience, clientele, and recent works.
2. Don’t skip the creative brief
Every successful marketing strategy begins with a creative brief. You’ll probably wind up going in too many different directions if you don’t have one.
A creative brief will keep everybody on the same track, help you minimize scope changes, and consolidate all project data in one place for easy reference. Additionally, a creative brief will answer any questions you may have throughout the process, as it outlines essential aspects like the target audience, deliverables, and timeline.
3. Keep track of every task
Break down your marketing plan into actionable steps. Define how long it takes to accomplish each task so you can manage your time better and execute every step seamlessly.
In addition, when creating a schedule, take into consideration the marketing channel’s system. For example, to ensure that all ads abide by their guidelines, Facebook Ads Manager implements a review process that can take 24 hours or longer. Hence, you need to look up how the selected platforms approve campaigns and set time allowances accordingly.
4. Publish campaigns strategically
When it comes to social media marketing, timing can impact the success of your campaigns. Finding the best time to post can help reach more of your prospects.
Do some research on how you can determine the best time to post on specific social media platforms. This typically involves delving into target audience data and evaluating insights from previous campaigns. You should also read up on the best practices and tools you can use to increase your content’s visibility.
By setting a regular time to publish posts or ads on social media, you can navigate through variables out of your control, such as declining organic reach. Your campaigns can also achieve maximum engagement and exposure.
5. Put it in the calendar
Having a marketing calendar gives you complete control over every aspect of your marketing plan. It provides you with a high-level overview of objectives and production timelines. You will also be able to keep track of which campaigns have started running, are currently active, and have ended.
It’s important to have a content calendar to schedule ads ahead of time. For example, if your chosen channel is social media, you can schedule posts by batch. This goes the same for blog articles. On the other hand, with SMS marketing, preparing content and setting a schedule will ensure that your SMS messages are timely and relevant. You can even match the content of your messages with upcoming holidays.
6. Focus on Your content
Even with a good schedule, your marketing strategy may fail to generate positive results if your content is subpar. It’s critical to produce well-written copies and high-quality, eye-catching images.
In addition, your content should be suitable for your channel of choice. For example, if you’re using social media, keep your copy brief and concise since users typically scroll through feeds quickly and have a short attention span. In contrast, you can publish lengthy blog posts since people visit blog websites with the intention of reading.
Moreover, it’s important to keep your content mix varied. For instance, if you’re using Facebook, publish different types of content, such as carousel, video, and single-image ads, instead of constantly boosting posts. Repetitiveness can bore and drive away your audience, while variety will keep them engaged.
7. Establish an approval process
Whether you’re working with an outsourcing agency, a freelancer, or your staff, be sure to carry out an approval process for all types of content. They may be professionals, but you know your brand best. It only makes sense that you get the final say on every campaign and whether or not they represent your business accurately.
An approval process can also reduce errors and setbacks, allowing you to save time and resources. Plus, you can identify issues like violations of social media guidelines and avoid potential ad rejections.
8. Monitor performance
Continually track the results of your campaigns. It’s important to have a list of KPIs you can refer to keep the process systematic.
After each ad ends, evaluate its performance and use it as a guide when creating future campaigns. Do you need to adjust the geo-location targeting? Is it better to change the audience’s age range and list of interests? Do you have to increase the budget? These are some of the questions you may need to address after evaluating campaign results.
Key Takeaways
When creating a digital marketing strategy for your company, you cannot focus on a single channel and expect it to produce all your desired results. While digital marketing platforms offer great benefits, they all have downsides, such as unsuitable for specific target audiences and business niches. The ideal approach would be to conduct an experiment and take advantage of what each one offers.
Alex built Semaphore’s tech backbone and keeps it running smoothly. He has deep experience in tech and is passionate about helping startups. In his spare time, he grows hydroponic tomatoes and plays video games.