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As a brand, you can not deny the importance that digital marketing strategy holds in establishing a strong presence in a marketplace. 2021 was the year of digital advertising and marketing due to the sheer number of people who have turned to online platforms to discover and engage with brands.
With customers relying on online platforms for transactions, it has never been a better time for brands to work on their online visibility and presence. The journey to achieving that is tough and you might need a Brisbane SEO agency to help you in the endeavour. That said, if you want to know how to go about marketing channels and implementing them by yourself, we have you covered.
In this guide, we shall look at the different kinds of marketing channels — traditional and digital, that you can leverage to boost your brand’s performance. What’s more, we shall also discuss how you can go about choosing the right marketing channel for your brand based on the goals that you are looking to achieve.
Looking forward to knowing more? Let us dive right in.
Regardless of your life or day, you have probably encountered a marketing channel at one point or another. But when you are a brand deciding on how to best market your product or service, the term “marketing channel” can seem slightly complicated.
With that in mind, let us first understand its definition. Well, it is actually quite simple.
Any platform or medium that you use to market your company, products or services to your target audience or consumers is a marketing channel. Marketing channels are mediums that help you place your products or service in the consumption stage.
Certain primary examples of marketing channels include social media platforms, SEO, websites, print marketing channels, and email marketing channels among several others.
See, how you may have easily come across a marketing channel without realising what it is? Now, let us take a look at why it is essential.
Why are Marketing Channels Important?
The primary goal of marketing channels is to take your goods from the point of origin to the point of consumption by consumers. They attempt to create a connection between companies/organisations and consumers.
When a company aims to launch a new product or service, the first thing to consider is creating a marketing mix that will bode well for the brand. The four crucial Ps of a marketing mix are — Product, Price, Place and Promotion.
Basically, the company will need to first ensure that the product they develop is one that the consumers want to purchase, and set a price that is viable for them. Next, the brand will need to consider where the product or service will be sold — online or offline. If offline, then what kind of physical location should the company opt for.
The last factor in consideration here is promotion. This is precisely where marketing channels come into the picture. If you have an online business, your focus should be on leveraging digital marketing channels, and other businesses can alternatively leverage traditional channels.
Following us so far? Great!
Now, let us take a look at the different types of marketing channels that are available for companies to leverage in their strategies.
As discussed so far, marketing channels are how companies can connect and effectively market to consumers. Such channels can be classified into two main categories — traditional and digital.
Your marketing channels will largely depend on your business and sales models. Based on these factors, you can then figure out appropriate channels of marketing.
What is a Traditional Marketing Channel?
Let us start with understanding what a traditional marketing channel is.
As we briefly mentioned earlier, businesses that follow a more traditional model often opt for traditional marketing channels. But that is not all — brands and companies that are growing and scaling up can also make use of these marketing channels to strengthen their promotional efforts.
To put it simply, traditional marketing channels are those that result in materials that appear offline. Traditional marketing is definitely a crucial tool in connecting businesses that operate at physical locations with prospective customers. So, you will find that such materials are often placed at locations where customers are most likely to interact with businesses.
Essentially, traditional marketing channels help businesses reach customers that are spending time away from their smartphones and computers. The more thought you put into the placement of these traditional marketing materials, the better the odds of attracting more attention from your target customers.
When leveraged properly, traditional marketing channels can help brands elevate their marketing strategies significantly, and even help you reach out to that segment of the audience that is otherwise inaccessible through digital channels.
Some of the primary advantages that your brand can get from print advertising are that they are more memorable, they are easily understandable and impactful and lastly, most of these materials have higher permanency. Having said that, some of the disadvantages associated with print advertising are that it is more expensive, makes it difficult to measure the result of the campaigns, and does not involve much customer interaction.
What are the Different Types of Traditional Marketing Channels?
By now, you may have a great understanding of what marketing channels are, how traditional marketing channels fit into your strategy and the pros and cons associated with them. Let us now delve deeper into the different types of traditional marketing channels so that you can effectively use the best suitable ones to your advantage.
Print Advertising
When you are a budding brand that is new on the block, creating awareness of your existence and offerings is one of your primary goals. Print advertisements help you do just that. Print advertising involves raising awareness about your brand by placing advertisements on mediums such as newspapers and magazines.
Remember, you will have several options when you look to leverage print advertising. However, choose those publications that align best with your brand offering, and are most likely to be read by your target audience.
Quick tips
- Use consistent branding across different channels
- Seek out editorial space so that you can set more context
- Keep the copy crisp and concise
- Add images that are impactful and grab attention
Best for: All kinds of companies, specifically ones that are looking to make a dent through their physical location.
Radio
If you think radio advertising is not as effective as it once used to be, you are not completely wrong. But it definitely comes with its share of advantages. Radio advertisements are still one of the primary channels to consider for attaining local recognition.
You can promote your brand as well as products effectively through the radio as long as you have a definitive and impactful copy.
Quick tips
- Focus on creating intrigue and curiosity through radio advertisements
- Utilise listener surveys to understand your audience
- Pay extra attention to the timing, and placement of your ad
Best for: Brands that operate at physical locations and want to target a local audience
TV
As marketing channels, radio and television advertising typically go hand in hand. Television advertising follows the same logic as radio advertising, with an additional and more prominent visual element. As of 2026, it is estimated that there will be over 5.68 billion TV viewers across the globe.
If you aim to be a global brand, there are quite a few perks that you can gain by opting for television advertisements. Broadcasting your brand to such a wide audience raises the odds of people taking notice and researching your company and products.
Quick tips
- Apart from the copy, utilise visual and verbal cues such as brand name, logo, language and colours effectively
- Spend enough time on creating a highly impactful and engaging storyboard
- Look for opportunities to create a memorable signature character or theme in the tv advertisements
Best for: Brands that have a bigger advertising budget and want to attract a wider audience — possibly nationwide.
Billboards
Billboards are everywhere, aren’t they? That’s precisely why you should consider advertising on them. Billboard advertising is a proven way to be present at multiple locations and be visible to a wider audience. Billboards generally combine images and copy to create highly engaging and attractive visuals.
The most important thing — it should be absolutely memorable for the audience.
Also known as outdoor advertising, billboards are a great way to portray your brand’s creativity as well.
Quick tips
- Keep your copy short and highly impactful
- Use bright and bold colours that successfully grab attention
- Keep the overall appearance simple and clear — even the fonts and images
Best for: All kinds of brands that want to get more visibility and want to be memorable for customers.
Direct Mail & Newsletters
If you use emails regularly, you may invariably come across mails from companies that simply dropped into your inbox to introduce themselves. This is the power of direct mail, except they are in the physical format.
With the help of direct mail, you can stay in touch with customers who live in the vicinity of your business or have interacted with your business in any capacity. Before online forms and websites were a thing, businesses used to collect names, and contact details of customers so that they can stay connected.
Brands mail printed materials such as letters, postcards, and brochures to customers to either introduce or promote their products. Such materials can also help you make them aware of your location, offerings and the convenience they have by deciding to transact with you.
Make sure to use a brochure maker to create professional and visually appealing brochures and other materials to effectively communicate your brand, products, and services.
Even though it may sound too traditional, know that direct mail is likely to generate purchases that are five times larger than typical email campaigns.
Quick Tips
- Focus on having a highly impactful copy
- Tie up your direct mail strategies with your other marketing strategies
- Provide unique value through the direct mails that you send to customers
Best for: Brands with target audiences that are not digitally savvy, and prefer the traditional format of receiving mail.
Telemarketing & Door-to-Door Selling
Whenever we talk about marketing and sales in the traditional sense, it is impossible to discuss marketing channels without mentioning telemarketing and door-to-door selling. We all remember those salesmen and women who visited us come rain or sun, and passionately described their products in the hopes of a sale.
But this is still a viable marketing and sales strategy for many brands. This strategy is most often used by non-profit organisations and institutions, which send emotional appeals using direct mail. They leverage the opportunity to introduce the organisation and their causes.
Quick Tips
- Invest in training the telemarketing and salespeople effectively
- Produce highly impactful scripts that can generate the desired results
- Create materials that marketing and salespeople can share with customers even if a sale does not happen.
Best for: Small companies that face a lot of competition that can thrive by engaging directly with customers.
Events & Trade Shows
Event marketing has by and far been a consistent strategy to market brands, products and services alike. The format and actual event may change based on the industry, however, the production of materials for such events is also a necessary tool.
Whenever you walk into a conference or trade show, you will find yourself bombarded with fliers, catalogues and brochures. For a person who belongs to the industry, these materials are necessary to get the extra information.
Quick Tips
- Invite people who would be most likely to benefit from your products or services
- You can also set up booths and consider sponsorships for events organised by others
- Be on the lookout for events that will help you engage with the right audience
Best for: Brands that have products which require demonstration and raising awareness.
What is a Digital Marketing Channel?
So far, we have discussed extensively the traditional means of marketing and the channels that you can use in the process. It is now time to shift our focus toward the digital. Digital marketing channels refer to those channels that can help you establish better communication with customers.
Some of the tools that can help you in this strategy are websites and social media. Of course, there are many more channels that you can leverage in a digital marketing strategy, however, these two are the primary ones.
Plus, digital marketing is an up-and-coming strategy for many new-age brands. Over 63% of businesses have increased their digital marketing budgets in 2021, owing to the increase in the online audience. While different kinds of digital marketing channels offer various kinds of returns to brands, these digital marketing channels can be quite the boon for brands that have or want to establish an online presence.
What are the Different Types of Digital Marketing Channels?
It is time to now delve deeper into the different types of digital marketing channels just as we did with the traditional marketing ones. While there is no fixed pathway to marketing your brand digitally, knowing about the different ways to do it is definitely beneficial.
So without further ado, let us understand the different types of digital marketing channels and all that they can contribute to your strategy.
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
To make your website work effectively for your business, you need a little bit of extra help. No, we are not just talking about hiring a digital marketing agency (although it could always be useful). We are talking about a term that has revolutionised digital marketing — SEO.
According to BrightEdge, 68% of online experiences start with a search engine. So, making a mark on the search engines is absolutely crucial for any business that wants to succeed in the digital space. This is where SEO comes to your rescue.
SEO includes a set of strategies that are aimed at optimising your website and all your digital marketing efforts so that your company can rank in the organic search results. SEO has by and far proven to be a more time-tested and sustainable strategy than paid campaigns in generating a long-term impact.
Showing up as a top search result for questions or queries that your target audience has related to your product or service is just the thing you want to put your brand on the map. You always have the option of having an expert SEO agency take care of this for you, but in case you want to implement SEO on your own, here are a few tips that you can follow:
Quick Tips
- Integrate the right keywords and empower your content to perform better on the SERP
- Build relevant and high-quality links for your content, on authoritative websites
- Ensure that your website is always up-to-date in terms of technical features and requirements and focus on delivering a seamless website experience to customers.
Best for: Brands that want to have higher visibility in the organic search results and establish a strong digital presence.
Content Marketing
Any brand that has a website has heard about the superpowers of content and content marketing. The age-old practice of bombarding customers with “call to buy” emails and messages rarely works anymore.
Instead, customers now prefer brands that support the various stages of their buying journey with relevant content. This strategy of marketing your brand and its offerings with the help of creating and distributing valuable content is known as content marketing.
Your content marketing strategy can use several formats and target a wide range of goals for your brand. You can use content to raise awareness among customers, generate leads or in some cases, even prompt customers to buy your product or service.
Content marketing can perfectly complement your SEO strategy, which is probably why more than 57% of companies have a documented content strategy.
Quick Tips
- Have a long-term focus when you are trying to develop your content marketing strategy
- Content marketing works best when clubbed with other marketing strategies
- Produce highly valuable content that assists customers with each stage of their buying journey
Best for: Brands that want to develop credibility and visibility organically in the long run.
Social Media Marketing (Organic)
It would not be an actual list of marketing channels without mentioning social media platforms. The word on the street right now is that brands need to invest extensively to make a dent on social media channels. But the truth is far from it. You can create quite a bit of impact with the help of a solid social media marketing strategy as long as you know how to leverage it to your advantage.
As of January 2022, there are over 3.9 billion social media users worldwide. While this statistic is not surprising at all, the lack of companies leveraging this growing opportunity definitely is. Today, the average person jumps across at least seven social media platforms every month.
With that in mind, companies that want to target this huge opportunity should have a consistent presence and activity on several social media platforms. Most importantly, social media marketing is the perfect way to engage with your customers and really understand more about their behaviour and needs.
Quick Tips
- Have an organised strategy for social media, create a calendar and follow it religiously
- Social media marketing strategies work best when combined with other kinds of digital marketing strategies
- Get to know your target audience on social media platforms and post content that they will find useful
Best for: Brands that are targeting a younger demographic and want to increase brand engagement
Email Marketing
Everyone today uses emails — one way or the other, which is why companies have consistently found it to be a successful marketing channel for quite some time. Email marketing is a tool using which companies can develop and nurture relationships with existing as well as potential customers.
Like other digital marketing channels, emails can be used for a wide array of purposes including raising brand awareness, keeping customers informed, and pushing higher product sales among others. It is also a great way to engage with customers who have shown interest in your brand or all that it has to offer.
Email marketing is such a preferred marketing tool because you can expect a return of $42 for every dollar that you spend on the strategy. Remember, just as you do with any marketing strategy, creating optimising content and providing value have to be at the top of your priority list.
Quick Tips
- Personalise your emails as doing so increases the odds of your email getting opened and read properly
- Do A/B testing with email drafts so that you can target maximum effectiveness from your email marketing campaigns
- Write highly impactful subject lines and email copy to generate maximum results from your email marketing strategy
Best for: Brands having a target audience that uses emails as the primary mode of receiving marketing messages and communication.
Influencer Marketing
Regardless of how good your brand or product/service is, you are going to need a good marketing strategy to back it up. And when you are looking to immediately get customers, you need influencers. This is pretty much how it works today.
Influencer marketing is a strategy that brands use wherein an individual who has expertise in their industry, is hired to try and vouch for the products or services offered by the brand. Influencers are termed so for a reason. They usually have a large social media following and significant engagement.
A typical influencer marketing campaign can be carried out in the following formats:
- Sponsored Content
- Product Reviews
- Giveaways and Contests
- Product Collaborations
You may have undoubtedly come across a few influencer marketing campaigns especially if you are active on social media platforms such as Facebook or Instagram. For instance, Tinder came up with a successful influencer marketing campaign in 2021, by roping in several Gen-Z mega influencers. Since the Gen-Z population is Tinder’s target audience, the dating app collaborated with content creators from that age bracket to create engaging content while promoting Tinder.
Needless to say, this move was widely successful and even caused quite a bit of stir on TikTok and Instagram alike.
Quick Tips
- Do not rely just on the follower count of the influencers that you are associating with. Instead, use a combination of follower count along with engagement on their channel to find influencers who can bring about a real impact.
- Ensure that the influencers that you pick are aligned with your brand values and voice.
- Keep the content created by influencers subtle and not overly promotional or sales-oriented.
Best for: Brands that want to cater to the masses and have a target audience that relies heavily on reviews and credible user feedback.
Word of Mouth Marketing
Admit it — every time you make a big purchase, you rely on someone’s expert opinion to ensure that you are making the right choice. It is not just you though. A study shows that people are 90% more likely to purchase a product that is recommended by a friend, simply due to the higher trust factor.
This is not a novel discovery, of course. But when you consider the plethora of mediums that you can use to discover a product, you can truly understand how powerful word-of-mouth marketing can be for your brand.
Word of Mouth Marketing (WOMM) is the result of targeted efforts by the brand, which results in an organic expression of satisfaction by customers. The primary factor of consideration here is experience sharing about a product, service or brand as a result of a successful marketing and sales strategy.
Even in the physically disconnected world that we live in today, social media platforms offer the perfect opportunity for customers to share their buying experiences and express them directly to their acquaintances and the brand itself.
And as stressed before — yes, it absolutely works!
Quick Tips
- Enable user-generated content (UGC) for your brand by incentivising and encouraging customers to share their experiences
- Utilise hashtags to your benefit by sharing them with your customers
- Show off the customer reviews on the landing pages and web pages on your website
Best for: Brands that have a highly valuable product or service that needs that extra promotional push to generate sales.
Mobile Marketing
Currently, we spend more than 3 hours every day on our mobile phones. No, we are not saying this to you for the sake of awareness, these are 3 hours that you have to grab your customer’s attention.
Mobile marketing is definitely an integral part of digital marketing strategies for a simple reason — you can reach your customer regardless of where they are and what they are doing. The activity of promoting your product or service via mobile devices is termed as mobile marketing, and it has a lot to offer to brands of all kinds and sizes.
Right from text messages to communicating through push notifications, brands can get their marketing communications amped up with the help of focused mobile marketing efforts. When it comes to marketing for mobile devices, there are multiple avenues to explore mobile advertising, SMS marketing, and search advertising among others.
Brands must consider the channels and advertising strategies that they align with the most to select the one that works best for you.
Quick Tips
- Take a multi-channel approach to your mobile marketing strategy
- Personalise all the content and messaging that you use for your mobile marketing efforts
- Invest in creation of mobile-friendly emails and website
Best for: All kinds of brands and companies — especially ones that want to increase customer engagement.
Video Marketing
When your brand is just starting out and wants to establish a better understanding of your product or service, video marketing is undoubtedly a highly viable strategy. About 94% of marketers affirm that videos have helped them in increasing customer awareness.
What’s more, video marketing can also help you reach out to audiences with low attention spans and those who do are unlikely to read too much online. If you have been around for long, you may have already come across many influencers and digital experts who have leveraged videos to their advantage.
Quick Tips
- Focus on creating successful stories and narratives instead of just generating sales
- Target relevant audiences and promote the brand and offerings while including CTAs
- Collaborate with influencers and celebrities who can give your brand that extra impetus
Best for: Brands that want to engage visitors at various stages of the customers’ buying journeys.
PPC Advertising
While taking organic means to marketing and advertising is a proven way to sustain any momentum that you generate for your brand, paid channels can help you generate a quick buzz around it.
Take PPC Advertising for instance. It is an online advertising model using which brands can get clicks from target users, wherein the advertiser will pay each time a user clicks on an ad. Essentially, this means you are buying the visits to your website - but this way of generating traffic is the perfect way to get things moving for your brand immediately.
Before you embark on a PPC ad campaign, it is crucial to figure out a specific bidding strategy as well as figure out a budget that works for your brand. Based on these aspects, you can then move forward with customising your target audience on the basis of interests, locations, and search terms.
Quick Tips
- Target long-tail keywords to generate more value out of the traffic that you are getting
- Have a strong attribution mechanism in place with so that you can derive the exact value that you are fetching from PPC advertising campaigns
- A single CTA will be unable to generate the same kind of effect across different platforms such as websites, social media and search. Instead, using a wide range of CTAs can raise the odds of conversions more effectively.
Best for: Brands that want to see immediate boost in website traffic and higher conversions for a definite period of time.
Partnership Marketing
We live in a more evolved business world, wherein you do not have to treat every other brand out there as a competitor. Instead, brands now collaborate and engage with each other to put forth a more approachable and humane stance. Of course, there are exceptions to this even today (read: Pepsi and Coca-Cola).
But for most brands, such collaborations can be quite fruitful. This is the concept behind partnership marketing. It involves a strategic collaboration between multiple brands aimed at achieving business goals for all the parties involved in the partnership.
Some of the common goals included in such partnership marketing campaigns include increasing brand awareness as well as generating more traffic or engagement for the brands included in the partnership.
RedBull and GoPro - two brands that have firmly rooted themselves as lifestyle brands representing youth, energy and adventure did this in 2012. The two brands launched the Stratos campaign wherein they had captured Felix Baumgartner capture a jump from a space pod placed 24 miles above the Earth’s surface, on GoPro cameras. If that does not sound impressive enough, how about the fact that the brands managed to break three world records that day.
Even if you are not targeting any world records at this time, you can definitely leverage the additional fame and promotional momentum.
Quick Tips
- Achieve alignment on business goals pertaining to both brands so that you can reap the benefits of the campaign equally.
- Partner with brands who share the same values and principles as you
- Consider co-hosting events and collaborating on blog posts and website content to engage a wider audience.
Best for: Brands that want to go big on their marketing campaigns and have the option of partnering with brands sharing the same ethos.
Podcast Marketing
Having started out in the 2000s, podcasts have now become a strong marketing tool in recent years. Statista predicts that the number of podcast listeners worldwide will increase to 504.9 million in 2024.
That said, podcast marketing is the perfect tool for brands that want to increase awareness and grow their audience. One thing is sure — for a brand to grow using podcast marketing definitely takes time. And yes, simply creating a podcast for the heck of it all does not work either. There is a whole strategy involved in creating a valuable podcast for your brand and marketing it.
Podcasting does not just mean recording an audio episode for your listeners. It also includes a transcription as well as description which should ideally be optimised for SEO. With that in mind, it is important to have a clearly defined brand strategy associated with your podcast. We highly suggest listening to highly successful podcasts to derive inspiration and learn the craft.
So, if you are a content marketing agency that is looking to leave a lasting impression on your target audience, you have the opportunity to leverage podcasts quite extensively. Invite some of the most celebrated content marketers worldwide and have them share their views on topics that may interest your target audience. In the long run, doing so can help you increase awareness as well as establish credibility.
Quick Tips
- Audio descriptions should be transcribed and keywords should be integrated for the podcast
- Focus on leveraging the audience of the guests that you invite on your podcast
- Consider repurposing your podcast as a YouTube video to capture that extra audience
Best for: Brands that have a lot of informative content and want to target Top of the Funnel customers.
By now you must have a deep understanding of all that marketing channels have to offer and the various ways in which you can take your traditional and digital marketing strategies to the next level.
We have also discussed at length, the various different kinds of marketing channels that you can use for your business. Needless to say, not all of them will be the right fit for your business. The ideal marketing channels for your business are more likely to be the ones that fit well with your goals and objectives.
It is important to choose wisely considering you are going to dedicate a great deal of time, money and efforts towards the marketing channels that you decide to utilise. So, make a smart investment and bolster your business to consistently outperform your competition.
If you are confused about which channel you should go ahead with, we are going to help you with just that. But before proceeding further, we want to stress that this criteria does not apply to having a website. Regardless of the kind of brand you have, creating a business website is an absolute must.
That said, here is a list of the most important factors and criteria that you should consider while choosing the right marketing channel for your business.
Define your Marketing Goals
It goes without saying that every major business strategy starts with goal setting. When we are talking about marketing strategy, there are even more factors that you should consider.
Think of your marketing goals as the milestones that you aim to achieve through the marketing strategy or campaigns that you are designing. Be careful to not confuse goals with your objectives. You will need to set both when selecting a marketing channel for your business.
Your goal will be an aim that you want to achieve for your brand which is likely to be broader in scope. On the other hand, objectives will be more measurable and specific and will include the metrics that you will use to measure the success of the selected marketing channel.
For instance, if your goal is to increase brand awareness, your objectives may look something like “increase organic visitors to website by 15%”. Setting these goals and objectives will form the foundation of your strategy make it a crucial part of your marketing channel selection process.
Determine your Marketing Budget
You have set some SMART goals to create a marketing strategy that is sure to take your brand to the next level. But doing that is seldom enough, isn’t it? Even if you have embarked on the journey of strategic implementation, it is the money and resources that you pour into it that will determine its success.
Therein lies the importance of creating and sticking to a marketing budget.
Every brand creates a marketing budget to understand the amount of resources that it can spend towards promotional and marketing activities. This will undoubtedly include the traditional and digital marketing spend. You can see how this affects your choice of marketing channels now, don’t you?
There is a good chance that you will fall back on a combination of affordable and expensive marketing channels for your brand. This combination will result from the marketing budget that you have decided for your brand.
What’s more, you will also need to determine the metrics and goals that you want to set for your marketing channels based on the spend that you are willing to invest. Essentially, the higher the budget you have, the more marketing channels and effectiveness you can target. This of course, does not mean that you generate decent results with the help of lower budgets.
Research your Target Audience
The next major aspect that you should consider while selecting the ideal marketing channels is your target audience.
It is always a good idea for brands to get to know their target audience better. Seek answers to questions pertaining to their demographics, behaviour, interests and their typical day. Doing so will give you more insight into the various touchpoints that you can leverage to stay connected to your target audience.
After all, these touchpoints and your target audience’s preferences will decide the kind of marketing channels that your brand will be able to benefit from.
Investigate your Top Competitors
As a brand, it is important to keep an eye on what your competitors are doing right or wrong. Even if you operate in a highly competitive market, you should at least analyse your top competitors to understand what marketing strategies are working for them.
You want to not just take inspiration from your competitors, you may also want to get a better understanding of the strategies that have not worked out for them. These are the practices that you may want to steer clear of, or do an even better job of implementing.
Your top competitors will also give you a clear understanding of the marketing strategies and channels that are most effective while catering to your target audience. You can get a complete picture of the resources, time and effort required for these marketing strategies so you can assess its viability for your own brand.
Pick Marketing Channels That Matches your Target Audience
This is a no-brainer. Your target audience will of course decide the marketing channels that are most likely to generate results for your brand. So, if your target audience consists of teenagers and young adults, you are most likely to benefit from social media marketing or influencer marketing much more than other channels.
Similarly, you can assess the specific marketing channels that your target audience is most likely going to be active on, and then determine whether you will benefit from investing in them. A mismatch in your target audience’s preferences and your selected marketing channels would most likely result in the loss of efforts and resources that you have invested.
If that is not enough reason to align your marketing channels with the preferences of your target audience, we do not know what is.
Measure Performance & Make Adjustments (If Needed)
Consistency has always been associated with the success of any major undertaking. A marketing strategy is no different. Pick any marketing channel out of this list and it will take you a long time to set up a stable identity on these platforms and then to maintain a strong presence on it.
A few good months of hard work on a specific marketing channel is barely able to produce the kinds of results that you are looking for. To produce consistently stellar results from your marketing channels, you must keep repeating your strategies and marketing channels over a certain period of time and measure your performance.
Define the metrics that will help you evaluate your performance in terms of a specific marketing channel and monitor it over a period of time. Doing so will help you identify the improvements that may be necessary to take your strategy to the next level. Moreover, be willing to make changes and do course corrections if the strategy that you are following at the moment is not working for your brand.
Following us so far? Awesome.
We have covered quite a bit of ground when it comes to understanding all things marketing channels.
What’s more, we have also delved deeper into the various types of marketing channels that you can explore as a brand, it is time to get more specific. In 2022, in the aftermath of a global pandemic the way people related to brands, and engaged with them have changed significantly.
With that in mind, here are some of the most important marketing channels that you should consider including in your strategy in 2024 and beyond.
Search Engine Optimisation
As the world has become more and more digital, you see people relying more on search engines than ever before. So, it is no surprise that over 93% of web traffic goes through search engines. What does this tell you?
You absolutely need to befriend search engines. And the proven way to do so is getting your SEO strategy right.
If you find yourself relying heavily on digital traffic, it is time to take a hard look at how SEO-friendly your website is. That would be your ideal starting point. Is your content optimised? Have you integrated high-performing keywords in your website content? Have you taken care of internal linking?
These are some of the most pertinent questions that you would need to ask while implementing SEO for your brand. But this is just the on-site SEO part of it. You will also need to check at the backend for adherence to technical SEO and ramp up your efforts in terms of off-site SEO. In terms of technical SEO, you might want to carry out a log file analysis to get important insights.
Off-site SEO refers to all the activities that you shall carry out outside of your website to boost your SEO performance. For instance, several brands rely on link building to acquire high quality backlinks to their websites.
What’s more, as per Terakeet SEO can successfully generate ROI as high as 12.2x of your marketing spend. That is too high of a return to ignore.
Hence, in 2024 — do not ignore SEO and finally give it the importance it deserves for establishing a strong presence on search engines.
Social Media Marketing (Organic)
The next major marketing channel that definitely deserves your attention and investment in 2024 is social media marketing. Social media marketing can be a sustainable marketing strategy as long as you decide to build your presence and influence organically.
Social media marketing can bring you the traction that you are looking for as long as you take an organised approach to it. Brands today use social media platforms to increase brand awareness, drive website traffic and even boost their sales.
Social media marketing, when utilised right, can be a great tool for startups and small businesses. Plus, in the past couple of years, customers now expect brands to interact and engage with them a lot more on social media channels than ever before.
Over 93% of internet users log into social media platforms regularly. So, as a brand you have to work hard and create a strong presence on these platforms to attract the relevant audience and users.
Email Marketing
As a brand, you must never underestimate the power of well-designed and creative email marketing campaigns. Emails are still one of the most popular communication channels used by brands, making email marketing quite an important marketing channel.
No wonder, more than 37% of brands are increasing their email budgets.
Furthermore, Statista predicts that email marketing revenue will reach over 11 billion by the end of 2023. It is the right time for brands to invest in creative content and graphics that can be integrated into emails. It is also the right time to consider including newsletters and email blasts to keep your customers updated and engaged.
Email marketing campaigns can be used to address a wide array of marketing goals such as nurturing of leads, and increasing customer engagement with the brand. With over 300 billions emails sent every day, your brand will need to invest in high-quality and creative content to stand out from the rest.
For instance, Drift - a popular chatbot building platform sends out personalised emails from the CEO to every customer who has just been onboarded. It is a simple yet effective way of asserting the importance of the customer for the brand, and reminding them that the team is on standby to help out with any concerns that they may have.
Video Marketing
When we talk about marketing channels that are proving to be effective in 2024, we definitely need to talk about video marketing and all it has to offer for brands. Video marketing is one of the most effective tools for brands today — especially the ones targeting higher engagement among customers.
A video marketing strategy leverages video as a medium to target a wider audience. Brands are free to explore a wide range of different kinds of videos such as reviews, educational content, and videos that simply target a higher entertainment value.
A study by Wyzowl suggests that 92% of marketers already use video marketing to promote their brand either through their website or social media channels. Video marketing has a boon for several new brands who have been able to successfully stand out from competition with the help of creative videos.
Take for example, Dollar Shave Club which was launched in 2012 in a highly competitive market, and reached astronomical levels of popularity with their first ever ad that went viral. What the company pulled off did not require much of an investment, and totally relied on a creative script filled with humour to create a viral advertising campaign.
You can be yet another example of a brand that attained success through a successful video marketing campaign in 2024 as long as you bring something innovative to the table.
PPC Advertising
After discussing the various ways in which four of the above marketing channels organically contribute to your brand in 2024, let us look at a paid channel that may be just as effective. PPC advertising is a necessary marketing channel that brands that want to boost their brand momentum in a short span of time need to invest in.
With the increased competition in the digital space, and increased digital costs if you want to make an impact, brands need to consider a viable paid option to drive sales and conversions. PPC advertising does just that and more for brands that require that extra impetus immediately.
With PPC advertising, you have the added advantage of appearing prominently to your target users so that you can at least get a buzz going for your brand that you can later leverage on.
End Note
So, we have talked quite a bit about marketing channels, the various types of it and all they have to offer for your brand. But remember, marketing channels can be quite useless if they are not the right fit for your brand. Hence, it is important to ensure that the marketing channels you choose are aligned with your brand and its goals so that you can reap the benefits. But if you are confused on where to start and how to benefit from these marketing channels, we get it. Get in touch with us, and we would be happy to know more about your marketing goals and strategy.
FAQs
What are the best marketing channels?
The best marketing channel for your brand would be the ones that are most likely to be used by your target audience and generate the required traction for your business.
It would be difficult to pinpoint some marketing channels as the best ones. In fact, some marketing channels may simply perform better for your brand because they are more aligned with your needs.
How do you decide what marketing channels to use?
When deciding the kind of marketing channel that would be the right fit for your brand, you must rely on a combination of several crucial factors. Some of the factors that you should absolutely consider in this decision include target audience, marketing goals, KPIs and the resources available for the strategy.
Which marketing channel has the highest ROI?
Email marketing and video marketing produce some of the highest ROI for brands when compared to other marketing channels. Some marketing channels due to their sheer popularity can generate a higher ROI than other marketing channels.