How To Find The Right Digital Marketing Channel For Your Business
These days there are more digital marketing channels than ever before. When there are so many available, it’s hard to know which one would be right for you. It’s tempting to think that you should use as many as possible, but that’s actually counterproductive.
Instead, you need to find the channels that work for your business, and put them to good use. Here’s how you can find the right channels, and use them effectively.
Identifying Your Best Digital Marketing Channels
Firstly, you’ll need to find the right digital marketing channels for your business. You would assume that using as many as possible would be right for you, as you’d get more exposure to possible leads. The fact is though, that will just spread your marketing team too thin and not give you the results you want. Here’s how you’ll identify the right channels for you.
Set Goals
The very first thing to do is set goals about what you want to do with digital marketing. Simply using certain channels won’t be enough, you need to know what it is you want to accomplish when you do so. Those who set goals at the beginning of the process have been shown to be a lot more successful overall.
As such, consider what you’re aiming to do with digital marketing. Do you want to build trust with customers online? Are you hoping to boost sales? Are you looking to build brand recognition? Really narrow down what it is you’re looking for, before you make the next step.
Look At What Your Audience Is Doing Online
You should already have an idea of who your target audience is. As you have that information, the next step is looking at what they’re doing online. Where do they go, and where do they spend time? What kind of content do they look for? Who are they following? If you can find that information, then you can start meeting them where they are.
You can do this by checking out your competition. Where are they online, and what channels do they use? You can use marketing tools too that analyse this data for you, so you can get some real insights.
Put Together A Budget
Now you’re ready to consider how much you can invest into digital marketing. Even something like social media marketing, which appears ‘free’ at first glance, will have costs involved. As such, you need to know how much you can spend.
When setting a budget, consider the return on investment you can get with some digital marketing channels. For example, making a Facebook post is very cheap, but it’s not guaranteed to reach a lot of people and get the results you desire. If you’re writing blog posts you will need to pay a lot at first, but as time goes on you’ll be able to cultivate an audience and get a good return on investment.
Look At Your Competitors
As mentioned above, you should be looking at what your competitors are doing online. What digital marketing channels are they using? You want to see what kind of results they’re getting from them, and whether they’re something that you’d want to consider too.
Marketing Channels To Consider
Now you have all the basics down, you’re ready to start picking out the right digital marketing channels for you. These channels will all bring different results for different people, so you’ll need to keep this in mind. Here are some of the most effective channels that could work for you.
Content marketing: Content marketing is a good base digital marketing channel that many businesses should consider using. As a business, you’ll have a website, and you want your potential leads to find that website. Content marketing organically grows what’s available on it, and will direct people to it when they search online.
The best content marketing is that gives your audience what you want. There are lots of ways you can create content that meets their needs. It can be blog posts, eBooks, reviews, infographics, guides, and more. Whatever form the content takes, it should address pain points, offer guides, and generally help set you up as an expert in your topic.
Email marketing: It’s tempting to write email marketing off as outdated, but you’ll be amazed at how much of an effect it still has. “Email marketing is so successful because email is something that your audience will be using every day” says Jason Piers, a tech blogger at Write my personal statement. “You can meet your audience where they are, and get their attention.”
As a digital marketing channel it’s inexpensive, and helps you to create relationships with your audience. You’ll also be able to track the results of your campaigns very easily, so it’s a great way to measure how well you’re doing.
Social media marketing: Typically, a would be customer will be looking to see if you’re on social media, so you’ll want to consider setting up profiles on their most used platforms. When you’re available on social media, it makes you very approachable, and allows customers to have one on one conversations with you.
You can also use social media to research your audience, and see what else they’re doing online. This is vital data that you can use to create future campaigns with.
Pay per click advertising: Pay per click (PPC) advertising is a good way to build brand awareness, when you want to grab your audience’s attention. This involves paying to have your ads appear at the top of search engine results. Every time someone clicks on the ad, you’ll pay for the click.
This option helps you get that recognition more quickly than with organic marketing strategies, so it’s a good option if you’re looking to target your audience, fast.
This has been a quick run down of how to pick the right digital marketing channel, and some of the best channels out there. There are lots of options for you, so use this guide to think about what you’re looking to do, and pick the right channel for your business.
Author Bio:
George J. Newton is a business development manager. He works with businesses to help them find and grow their audience.