DIGITAL MARKETING CHANNELS YOU SHOULD UTILIZE: 2019
When we use the term “digital marketing,” we are referring to all of our marketing efforts to reach out, attract, engage, and convert our target audience.
Such is the influence and impact of the digital marketing channels like social media, email, and websites that as per Status Lab reports, 90% of the consumers won’t decide on the brand unless they have searched for it on online platforms.
Take, for example, PPC, an internet marketing model where advertisers pay a fee for every time their ad gets clicked. Not that this channel is underestimated, but its importance hasn’t been emphasized enough, maybe because instead of earning visitors on the site, advertising with PPC, the business buys these visitors. But did you know that 64.6% of people click on ads before purchasing an item online?
Do you know how many digital marketing platforms are there for businesses to leverage from?
There is banner advertising, purchase list marketing, social media, website, mobile marketing, online newsletter, podcast, and many more to help expand your audience base and growth.
It’s easy to get overwhelmed with the plethora of platforms at your disposal. For a second there, you might have also thought, “what is the harm in investing in all major digital marketing platforms? I might earn benefit somewhere?”
But you can not just mindlessly invest in any or every platform.
After all:
- Your budget limits you;
- Not every platform is suitable for the brand of your niche;
- You might end up doing more harm than good to your business
Hence, you need to sketch a list to determine how are you going to choose the digital marketing channel that is best equipped with and can be controlled to deliver results aligned with your goals and objectives and generates maximum return on investment. To figure that out, keep the following things in mind when looking for the right digital marketing platform:
- ESTABLISH YOUR GOALS
You must have started the business with goal and objective in your mind, right? Similarly, you need to introspect about what goals do you plan to accomplish by investing in digital marketing channels? Are you looking for generating leads? Increase your ranking? Enhancing website traffic? Do you expect to make direct sales through these channels? Or is getting a qualified audience to know about your brand’s product and services is your reason? Whatever it may be, it should be sound and transparent in your mind, so that you can accordingly plan ahead of an effective strategy.
- KNOW YOUR CONSUMERS
What is an ultimate businesses goal, aside from collecting profit? Resolving the audience’s issues finding innovative solutions to the problems that the customer base didn’t know they wanted. While you can easily categorize your audience based on their demographics, such as age, gender, locality, sex; a better option for long term benefit would be to understand what challenges your audience is facing? What platform do they prefer for regular interaction? Which type of content strikes a chord with them with its actionable data?
- BUDGET
Establishing your goal and figuring out your target audience is the job half done, as now you will be left with a specific, accurate set to find the most effective digital marketing channel. But you know how they say, it all boils down to the budget?
Yes, aside from having an aggressive goal and comprehending your customer’s desire from your service, it’s crucial to take your budget into account. Before you even think of reaching out to the industry experts or consultants, make sure you are well aware of where you stand, financially. Does your budget allow investing in risky digital platforms? What are your goals and expectations for each marketing channel? Define your budget allocation for whichever service you choose, for example, content creation service paid to advertise, etc.
Aside from these three, it is also essential to take a look at how your competitor is utilizing which marketing channel and how. Then there is a decision to make as to whether your digital marketing campaigns will be taken care of by the internal team, or you would prefer outsourcing a dedicated agency for the services.
Having said that let us talk about some of the digital marketing channels which you can use to your advantage in 2019:
Despite the introduction of more technologically advanced and efficient marketing channels, email marketing is still being hailed as one of the most effective platforms for digital marketing. To take it up a notch and make the audience feel more valued businesses are going the personalized way. Customization through triggers and segmentation practices can help email become more relevant, escalating immediate conversion and keeping the audience engaged with your brand. Forge and foster a loyal subscriber base with creative personalized email marketing.
- WORD OF MOUTH
No matter how high end your business is and how your revenue is continuously increasing, if people are bad-mouthing your label, it is ultimately going to impact your business in the long term adversely. Place yourself in a customer’s position and imagine, the first thing that will come to your mind when you see a marketer promoting a brand? That they have an agenda behind it, right? And what if a consumer raves about it? Would you give it a try? You can ensure effectiveness with word of mouth, by staying up to date with the current trends, keeping a hawk-eye on the shopping behavior and pattern of the consumers, ensuring their needs are met timely, and your brand following gets increased.
- PROGRAMMATIC ADVERTISING
Per AppNexus, digital display marketing via programmatic advertising escalated to 80% in 2018. Been in the marketing landscape for more than a decade, this strategic implementation of machine learning and AI optimization. It’s the versatility of existing in all forms; mobile, video, social, makes it an adept marketing tool. This automated form of buying digital media, provides real-time reporting and data measurement, thereby cutting down on the possibility of error due to human navigation. It gives marketers and advertisers the ability to how are their advertisement faring in real-time. Its increased flexibility enhances the campaign targeting capabilities, expanding its audience reach.
- SOCIAL MEDIA
One of the most prominent players in the marketing field right now, social media is always coming up with new ways to keep the audience engaged and entertained. But they either fade away with time or are called off because of their inability to retain attention. The features that have stayed and is beneficial from a business perspective are live videos, stories. While live stories are helping business interact and resolve issues of their audience in real-time, stories help expand market reach, improve customer experience, and increase sales. Their ephemeral features are what make the customer prioritize them, thereby increasing engagement and enhancing your brand identity.
In this time and age of advancing technology and escalating consumption of information through the internet, businesses have a wide variety of platforms to choose from and take their business ahead with. While undoubtedly those mentioned above are the ones that will help your brand stay relevant, ultimately it is your decision to invest in those that are aligned to your goals, and you perceive the probability of drawing maximum benefit from.