Introduction
Niche trends, customer demands, and global innovations are dynamic, and so is the world of digital marketing. To succeed with your business in these highly competitive times, you need to think outside the box, produce new online promotion strategies, and bring forth extraordinary company development ideas. Fortunately, there are various digital marketing channels you can benefit from when advertising your projects, services, and products.
This guide will reveal different types of marketing channels to prioritize in 2023. You will also discover the nuts and bolts of top channels in marketing and understand how to use them for your business to get the most out of online promotion.
What are Marketing Channels and Why they are Important?
A marketing or distribution channel is a coherent and multi-level system designed to transfer the product or service from the company to the customer. Simply put promotional channels or marketing channels represent places, activities, and organizations used to promote business, capture the end-user, and fine-tune communication with the audience.
Fundamentally, the channels of marketing trigger your business sales and help match supply and demand. Digital marketing channels allow you to understand the needs of your target audience, improve the buyer’s journey, emphasize your brand and bring you closer to reaching your marketing goals.
Utilizing promotional channels, you can collect information about your niche competitors and clients, convey your message to the audience, evaluate risks, manage the budget for promotional activities, stabilize pricing, and more.
Nevertheless, marketing channels are not a universal tool. Various businesses have certain objectives that cannot be suited to all channels of marketing. For example, some mediums require specific audiences, while others need additional customization depending on capabilities, and so forth. Therefore, it is crucial to find a promotional channel that is fully compatible with your target audience, goals, and expectations.
9 Effective Marketing Channels to Attract the Audience
Promotional channels in marketing can bring endless opportunities for business development, and they also help increase aided brand recall and connect the company and the clientele. SEO, PPC, podcasting, video marketing, social media, live streaming, influencer marketing, online marketplaces, and email marketing are the top digital marketing channels to prioritize this year. Consider their essentials and pick the best option to include in your strategy.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Since online search has become commonplace, SEO or search engine optimization represents one of the most high-converting marketing channels to focus on in 2023. Online users employ search engines for shopping, entertainment, and research, so companies have to optimize their websites to meet customers’ search intent.
Each search engine has specific search algorithms and ranking systems. For example, Google possesses a series of ranking factors — specialized criteria websites should comply with to obtain advantageous positions in organic search results. Some crucial Google ranking factors include domain authority, content quality, and how it is optimized for a search intent (keywords a webpage is expected to rank for), inbound links, behaviour factors like page speed and mobile usability, and more.
You can usually improve content relevance on your own by optimizing pages with the most suitable keyword suggestions. Meanwhile, backlinks often require involving other sides (e.g. website owners that are willing to link back to your website). Backlinks are a significant ranking factor that allows you to improve page rank, get more organic traffic and even draw referral traffic. Therefore, checking the inbound links you get is pivotal for your SEO strategy.
To get valuable insights on your backlink profile, consider using automated tools that provide the actual status of backlinks and check multiple backlink parameters. For example, take a look at the backlink analysis tool by SE Ranking. It is a data-driven SEO backlink checker that has an extensive backlink database and inspects your links in terms of anchor text, domain and page trust, do-follow or no-follow link attribute, Google index status, and so forth. It also allows you to check what your competitors do in terms of link building which will help you build your backlink strategy.
Search engine optimization denotes a crucial channel of marketing that also includes local SEO practices that allow you to take advantage of local searches. Local SEO is an effective digital marketing channel that helps small businesses to enhance their online visibility for local intent search queries. The impact of local SEO is huge as almost 50% of Google searches are localized.
Moreover, the three main positions of local search rankings get nearly 48% of all clicks, which means that local listings like Google Business Profile can dramatically increase your website traffic. Businesses with informative profiles on local listings attain real testimonials, clicks, and user engagement.
Combining local listings with SEO optimization can boost your results and help you grow brand awareness, attract more potential customers, and overcome niche competition.
Social Media
The number of active social media users has already surpassed 4.2 billion. There is no doubt that the impact of social media has reshaped the entire world. Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, Pinterest, and TikTok are the most popular social platforms representing the social media channel of marketing.
This digital marketing channel provides two possible ways of capturing the audience. The first way allows you to get social traffic and social engagement for free by creating organic content like posts with relevant hashtags, stories, contests, various challenges, etc. Additionally, push notification tools such as Truepush could be used for letting your prospects know the updates on your posts. The second way refers to paid advertising on social media. Both solutions are effective, so the choice is up to you.
For example, the KIKO Milano brand is highly active on Instagram. When visiting the official account, you can see the diversity of publications on makeup trends, the latest makeup techniques, new products, and more. At the same time, KIKO runs social media advertising and draws prospects with alluring sponsored posts targeted at particular audiences. Such a strategy helps the Italian cosmetics brand to hold 4.8M subscribers on Instagram and expand the base of brand fans, ambassadors, and new customers.
Podcasting
The demand for audio content has increased significantly since the beginning of the global pandemic. For example, over 20% of the population in the USA listens to podcasts regularly, which indicates almost 76 million people.
Podcasting belongs to specific marketing channels that help to educate the audience and build a strong community across your brand. With its help, you can develop a unique relationship with your customers by showing care and demonstrating your company’s expertise.
Apple is an exceptional example of a corporation that benefits from a podcast marketing channel. You can download the Apple Podcast app on the App Store and access an array of podcasts in the app that is fully compatible with your Apple device. In this case, Apple empowers its community, offering a new space to unwind and providing a personalized user experience.
Video Marketing
Video marketing is another game-changing marketing channel example to consider in the coming year. Nowadays, videos are more than just entertaining content; they educate, help make better buying decisions, and increase user awareness of various products or services.
Moreover, the online community trusts video content and wants different brands to showcase their goods with the help of interactive videos. That is why almost half of all consumers prefer to get acquainted with a brand through video content. The following stats determine the most popular types of video content during the second quarter of 2021.
As you can see, comedy, meme, or viral videos take third place in this chart, and how-to, video live streaming, educational, and product review videos go next. It means that a video marketing channel provides companies with the space for creative thinking and imagination. Well-crafted promotional videos allow advertising products or services in a non-promotional way as understanding customers’ pains and storytelling come to the fore.
For example, pay attention to Nike and its great video marketing strategy. The brand Nike creates viral videos that look like full-fledged movies touching consumers’ emotions. Nike marketers uncover the thoughts and fears of people, drawing a parallel between sports and everyday life. The company uses emotional branding to tell a story, motivate and inspire. That is why Nike videos get millions of views, likes, and shares.
Live Streaming
Although there are different types of marketing channels, live streaming or live digital marketing deserves special attention due to its novelty and versatility. In the midst of COVID-19, public events became a forbidden fruit, and live streaming was the only suitable alternative to visiting a performance, concert, or any other in-person event. Music fans from all over the world highly appreciated such a solution. Moreover, 60% of respondents intend to continue watching live streams after in-person events fully return. Meanwhile, 80% of survey participants would be glad to pay for a live-streamed show to support musicians.
These stats show that people are tired of feeling alone sitting by their laptops. Hence, various live-streamed events like conferences, shows, and real-time online sessions represent a robust and highly effective promotional channel that is ready to bring admirers and new potential customers to your brand.
Live broadcasts come in handy for brands wanting to go viral and lure target audiences. Nestle has chosen live streaming on Periscope as a digital marketing channel to accomplish the following goals:
- Widespread Drumstick ice cream,
- Entertain the audience by associating popular summer activities with new company products,
- Boost Nestle brand awareness.
Thus, the live streaming channel of marketing is the closest alternative to real-life communication providing deeper interaction with the audience and better reach to build a community.
Email Marketing Channels
Although some call the power of email marketing campaigns into question, the email channel of marketing remains a compelling way to spread the word about your company, draw more leads, and highlight your product or service line. The only thing that has changed is the approach to composing and sending emails.
Previously the conversion goal could have been obtained even with plain and half-baked emails. But now, you need to pay precise attention to email styling to achieve the desired outcome. Furthermore, increased market competition has reduced the average time consumers spend reading brand emails. For example, in 2018, people spent almost 13.5 seconds on a single email, while in 2021, this reached 10 seconds per brand email.
Such a decrease in time means you need to hurry up to attract users’ attention; otherwise, all your efforts may be in vain. Consider making your emails impressive and informative, keeping them concise and straightforward at the same time. You need to put yourself in your client’s shoes to win the game. For example, take a look at this promotional email campaign from Walmart.
The email above was sent two days before Christmas, and such a promotional campaign is great. Walmart proposes a solution for those who are super busy and have no time to buy Christmas gifts. This approach works as brands try to understand their buyer persona and provide their product or service as the most convenient option to solve a problem.
Online Marketing Channels
When choosing the most appropriate digital marketing channels for your business, all means are good. You need to stay creative and broaden your mind to find profitable opportunities to market the products or services you offer. Online marketplaces come as a select promotional channel that allows you to reach a wider audience and boost sales and brand recognition.
Below you can find stats showing leading marketplaces in the USA, and the data is based on monthly visits. The statistics show that Amazon was recognized as the largest online marketplace in the United States, with 2 billion visits per month. It means that by selling your products on Amazon, you can reach a huge pool of potential customers ready to touch your brand.
For example, Amazon provides opportunities for brands to sell handmade goods, self-published e-books, apps, and a diversity of other products, build online stores, and even refine products’ visibility with Amazon advertising.
The online marketplace channel of marketing provides a variety of marketplaces for your business development. So you can also sell on eBay, Etsy, AliExpress, Wayfair, Rakuten, Zalando, Newegg, Best Buy, etc. Remember that different types of marketing channels related to online marketplaces offer specific terms of cooperation.
Influencer Marketing
Influencer marketing means getting influencers to endorse your products, promote your brand, and grow your sales. Due to increased efficiency and incomparable ROI, it is one of the most in-demand marketing channels. You can attract nano, micro, macro, or mega influencers to take advantage of influencer marketing.
This classification defines the scale of influence and the number of followers on social media. Here nano influencers have a minimum of 1K followers, while mega influencers, also called celebrity influencers, have at least 1M followers. The chart below displays a list of the most expensive influencers on social media.
Successful influencer marketing campaigns also provide new advertising opportunities to turn some influencers into brand ambassadors. DeLonghi’s new global communication campaign comes as an excellent example of influencer marketing.
The DeLonghi brand representatives invited Brad Pitt to boost brand awareness and promote premium DeLonghi coffee machines. As a result, Google was flooded with questions about the coffee machine from that DeLonghi commercial with Brad Pitt.
Pay-Per-Click Advertising (PPC)
Pay-per-click advertising or PPC is a high-end channel in marketing that helps your products or services be found and seen by the right people. PPC advertising refers to effective marketing channels that allow you to get the word out about your company in the shortest terms. Whether you choose Instagram Ads, Facebook Ads, or Google Ads, you need to plan your campaign. Thus, make sure you know your audience and understand what your potential customers need, as only precise targeting helps obtain great results.
Also, pay attention to the content you would like to push with paid advertising. Suppose you prefer paid ads on social media. In that case, make sure your creatives have a decent look, proper sizing, and readable ad text. But if you want to advertise your company with Google Ads, consider creating captivating titles and descriptions to highlight your ad in search and make it look clear for prospects. Also, do not forget to create a proper keyword list for each ad group and optimize your campaign for it.
Conclusion
Although each promotional channel has its benefits and pitfalls, it is essential to include suitable digital marketing channels in your strategy in 2023. You will surely see progress by empowering your business with at least a couple of the above-mentioned solutions. Practice makes perfect, so do not be afraid of exploring new development opportunities.
