Before modern technologies such as radio and TV, businesses could only attract customers who walked by on the street. Airtime increased businesses’ ability to reach more customers.
Then the Internet came along and gradually changed the ways and speed at which we communicate. This means that businesses can reach more customers and sell more of their products and services, helping the business grow and be more successful.
Today, most businesses know the importance of having an online presence. The challenge is keeping up with the ever-evolving trends and best practices of the digital landscape. To do this successfully, a comprehensive digital marketing strategy is needed. In this article, we will provide an overview of the most common digital marketing channels and discuss how to create a strategy that adapts to modern digital marketing standards.
Table of Contents
Types of Digital Marketing
Before we delve into creating a comprehensive digital strategy and using it to attract more customers, let’s first go over the most common digital marketing channels. These are the channels you will need to consider for your business and include in your digital strategy.
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
- Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising
- Social Media Marketing
- Content Marketing
- Email Marketing
- Influencer Marketing
- Affiliate Marketing
- SMS Marketing
Search Engine Optimization (SEO):
Making a website easy for search engines to find and understand so it appears higher in search results.
SEO is the practice of optimizing a website and its content to improve its visibility in search engine results pages (SERPs). This is done by incorporating keywords related to the business into the website’s content and meta tags and building quality backlinks from other websites.
Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising
Creating ads and paying for them to appear in search results when certain keywords are used.
PPC advertising is a method of placing ads on search engine results pages or other websites, where the business pays when the ad is clicked. Google Ads, Facebook Ads, and Twitter Ads are popular platforms for PPC advertising.
Social Media Marketing
Building a following on social media to drive sales.
Social media marketing involves using platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn to create and share engaging content. The goal is to attract followers that can be directed to a landing page or sales page to drive more sales.
Content Marketing
Creating helpful and engaging videos, pictures, and media to attract people to visit a website or buy a product.
Content marketing is the process of creating and distributing valuable, relevant and consistent content to attract and engage a clearly defined audience. It involves creating blog posts, videos, e-books, and other content that can be used across different channels.
Email Marketing
Building an email list and sending special offers and news.
Email marketing is the process of sending targeted and personalized messages to a list of subscribers through email. This can include newsletters, promotions, and automated sequences. Email marketing nurtures segments of people at different stages in the buying process.
Influencer Marketing
Getting popular people on social media to promote your products and services.
Influencer marketing is like word of mouth at scale. It is marketing that focuses on using niche celebrities to help your business reach a larger market. Instead of marketing directly to a large group of consumers, you instead get help from people with large followings to spread the word for you.
Affiliate Marketing
Partnering with other websites or people to promote your product or service.
Affiliate marketing is performance-based marketing and relatively risk-free. Your business rewards your affiliates for each visitor or customer they bring through their own marketing efforts.
SMS Marketing
Sending direct text messages of offers, promotions, and news to a list of cell phone numbers.
SMS marketing involves sending text messages to inform people about special offers or important information. It is an effective way for businesses to reach their target audience on their mobile devices.
Creating a comprehensive digital marketing strategy
Now that we’ve covered the most common types of digital marketing, let’s discuss how to create a comprehensive strategy for your business to start getting customers and growing online.
- Goal Setting
- Audience Research
- Competitor Analysis
- Content and Channels
- Analytics and Reporting
- Optimization and Testing
Goal Setting
Deciding what you want to achieve with your online presence.
Setting specific goals so that the marketing efforts are aligned with the overall objectives of the business. This helps with identifying the target audience, the channels to reach them, and the outcomes of our campaigns.
Audience Research
Learning about the people who might want or need your products and services.
Understanding the psychology, challenges, and needs of the target audience. This allows you to create messaging, offers, and calls-to-action that resonate with your audience.
Competitor Analysis
Checking out what other similar businesses are doing online.
Looking at the strategies and performance of the competitors to identify opportunities and trends. This helps to differentiate your business and avoid making the same mistakes.
Content and Channels
Planning what channels we want to use to reach your audience online and turn them into customers.
A plan for identifying the most effective channels for reaching your target audience. It will include a combination of types of digital marketing. It helps to determine what type of content your business would need to produce and creates a cohesive and consistent message across all channels.
Analytics and Reporting
Keeping track of and reporting your digital marketing initiatives’ performance.
Continuously monitoring and analyzing key performance indicators and creating reports. Data and reports provide insights and help with making decisions regarding the direction you should take with your digital marketing efforts.
Optimization and Testing
Trying out different combinations of media, angles, copy, and more to see which one works best.
Continuously testing and refining various elements of the campaigns such as headlines, images, calls-to-action and offers to improve the performance. This helps you increase your conversion rates to get more customers at lower costs and increase the ROI.
Conclusion
We’ve now covered popular digital marketing channels and how to create an adaptable digital marketing strategy. Here are the most important takeaways from this article and next steps:
- Understanding the most common digital marketing channels
- Determining the most effective channels for your target audience
- Setting specific goals for your initiatives
- Researching your target audience
- Analyzing your competitors’ successes and failures
- Tracking and reporting your performance
- Optimizing and testing campaigns
Need help with your online strategy?
A comprehensive digital marketing strategy is essential for any business looking to establish and grow its online presence. To get started on developing a digital marketing strategy for your business, we recommend scheduling a Free Technical Analysis/Strategy for a customized strategy tailored to your business. Or Learn more about our digital marketing services.