People who got into online selling these days or even before the pandemic ask this question: Which digital marketing channel is best for my business?
In maximizing digital marketing investments, it is vital to utilize the appropriate channel for your business. But you cannot spread yourself too thin, creating a presence on every digital channel there is. Not especially when you only want your “exposure” for your business.
Know that you have several options, such as below.
Owned, earned, and paid channels
There are three major categories of digital marketing channels: earned, owned, and paid media.
You might’ve already heard these terms, but did you know the differences between these channels?
Each channel is an essential part of the whole, contributing to a more holistic digital marketing strategy.
Owned media
Any digital asset that you can directly create and control and is unique to your brand
These digital properties are the extension of the website since the site is the primary owned medium of any brand, company, or organization. Other examples are blogs and social media pages, including YouTube channels. Together, these channels are the extension of the brand.
Having more owned media means extending the brand presence and reach in the digital realm.
Earned media
Any activity that leads to engagement with the brand voluntarily given by users
Earned media be a share, mention, word of mouth, discussion, or interaction. Reposts, reviews, and recommendations are also earned media. These could be initiated by the users as well as the public and press. Earned media can also be within or outside the brand’s niche, although the former tends to have more weight.
The main drivers of earned media are top rankings on results pages and high-quality, share-worthy content.
Paid media
A paid leverage using third-party channels
Sponsorships, influencer marketing, and all forms of online advertising such as Google Ads campaign management and retargeting services are considered paid media.
Paid media aims to direct traffic to owned media while also driving earned media. As a result, these media create more exposure for both the brand and the owned media.
Top digital marketing channels
When deciding which digital marketing channels are best for your business, it would be wise to focus on owned media first, such as below.
Website
Your website is at the digital marketing forefront. It means social media channels cannot replace a website’s value regardless of how active you are on these channels.
This is your business hub online. One good thing about having a website is complete control over branding and content, including the message you want to convey to your target audience.
You want something you can manipulate for search engine optimization (SEO) to rake in a more targeted visitorship. This may sound technical, but it only means attracting users deep into the sales funnel or ready-to-convert.
SEO is an organic search. However, even if you choose paid search through pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, you still need a landing page.
The website needs to be professional-looking and, of course, relevant to the overall brand aesthetics. At Optimind, our principle is design to convert to achieve the marketing objectives our teams set early on.
Optimind offers web design and development services. We’ve been developing sites since 2002, completing more than 1,000 projects. Our development team handles projects of varying requirements and complexities.
Facebook, Instagram, and other social media channels
If your brand aims to build awareness and royalty like repeat customers, you cannot ignore social media platforms’ value to your business. This is perfect for small businesses, particularly those that rely on geo-specific operations, such as restaurants, spas, barbershops, and more.
This requires careful planning, though. For instance, you should determine the demographics first. Is your target audience using Facebook more or Instagram? Are they leaving Facebook in favor of Instagram? Targeting is crucial to ensure that the omnipresence of the brand remains on top of the mind of the consumers. This is also the reason why appealing to generations accordingly on social media is a must.
Aside from being a cheap digital marketing channel to explore, social media also offers personal interaction with the target audience. This humanizes the brand interaction experience. Additionally, the process builds familiarity and trust.
As such, if you keep on asking which digital marketing channel is the most suitable for your business, social media is a no-brainer. You may easily extend your reach more so that about 70% of consumers use these channels, and 33% of them prefer being contacted through chat or direct message than through a telephone call.
Social media offers healthy competition. If you care about your target market, you will be on this platform. The lack of presence on social media creates a poor impression among the users, especially when you are just launching a new brand, product, or service. And they will surely tap the services of your competitors who have a social presence.
Optimind is a social media agency. Our social media marketing services aim to grow your exposure, engagement, and community, translating to higher conversions.
YouTube and other video-sharing platforms
Brand storytelling is the mantra nowadays. So it’s not surprising to see brands big and small trying their hand on video marketing, particularly on YouTube. This is the brand’s way of interacting with the consumers as authentic and intimate as possible.
YouTube is a prominent choice since it is free, although the video itself is evolving. Case in point: Facebook live, webinar, short- and long-format video ads, and even stories. There are several methods of interacting with the audience. The catch is video production could be costly.
Yet another way to use video marketing is through vlogging or video blogging. With this, though, you need to connect with influencers for branded video content and supply them with what they need to produce the video (i.e., the goodie pack or service for review).
Optimind can also help with video marketing or YouTube SEO. We can help optimize your video content.
Any digital marketing channel expert will tell you that building an email list takes time, so you should do it right from the start. What’s good about this channel is that you need a primary medium to make this work, such as your website (an e-commerce site) and social page from which you will generate email addresses.
Still, many businesses shy away from building their email list without realizing how important this is in growing credibility and nurturing relationships. Those that implement email marketing have seen tremendous growth in profits because of high-quality leads and repeat sales.
If you’ve been operating your business for quite some time, you probably know by now that a business thrives on both new and existing customers. However, gaining new customers requires a sizable amount compared with leveraging the existing customer base.
Looking at this from a different perspective, this means providing them value over time. You can spread such value the entire time the subscribers are on your email list. So it’s also up to the content of the newsletters you send regularly. Anything that matters to your customers must find its way into the newsletter—new product launches, promos and discounts, additional payment options, additional services, etc.
Optimind believes in the value of email marketing. Learn more about email marketing statistics and how these may help your business. A corporate website, social media marketing, video marketing, and email marketing are just four of the digital marketing channels that could make your business more profitable. Nevertheless, you need to experiment until you find what works best for your business. Digital marketing is a world of A/B testing, and it starts with the choice of channel or channels to exploit for your business.
Having been in the business since 2002, we have a good grasp of what digital marketing channels for which niche and which don’t. We can guide you in choosing the right channel. Talk to us!
