How to choose the right marketing channel for your business
We have been making websites since 1996, and since then we have seen the internet grow and evolve to become what it is today. Back in the late 90’s and early 2000’s options for marketing were limited, but today in 2024 there are many routes you can take and it can often be overwhelming trying to find the right starting point for your business or brand.
We have put this article together to help you understand the different channels, which should hopefully help you decide where your marketing investment is best placed.
SEO – Search Engine Optimisation
I think by this point, most website/business owners have heard the term SEO (Pronounced Ess-E-Oh) which stands for Search Engine Optimisation. It is the process of optimising your website in various ways to make Google see it as a safe, relevant website that they are happy to send their users to.
For example, if your website sells Woodworking Machines, or you provide Asbestos Management Services, then your SEO agency would optimise your content to include words that are relevant to your industry or products. They should also optimise the website speed and other elements to ensure the website was fast and reliable.
There are many, many ranking factors that Google take into account when deciding where to rank a website, and a good SEO agency would ensure as many boxes were ticked as possible.
SEO should be seen as along-term investment though, as changes can take a while to kick in and if you are a new business and need quick sales or enquiries then you can find yourself frustrated that your monthly investment doesn’t seem to be achieving anything. After 3 to 6 months you should see significant improvements though, so make sure you enter into any SEO contract with this in mind.
PPC – Pay-Per-Click
The term PPC is also something that many people have now come across, as it covers paid advertising on Google and other search platforms. PPC, or Pay-Per-Click, involves building ads that get placed in search engine results pages amongst the organic results, and it is essentially a bidding system. The higher you bid “per click” the higher your ad appears on the page.
Your website also has to be optimised – the same as with SEO – as ads/campaigns are given a “quality score” which is Google’s way of ensuring the users that click on the ads are likely to be sent to a page that actually contains what they were looking for. For example, if you wanted to run ads for “Commercial Flooring” but your landing page was about iPhone Cases, then your quality score would be low and your ad visibility and conversion rate would be poor.
PPC is a much quicker way of getting leads or sales, but brand new ad campaigns can take a month or two to fully gain traction. Also, ad campaigns are much more effective when they are managed on an ongoing basis.
For example if you run ads for “Roofing Services” you would build in any keywords relevant to that, however your ad may also be triggered for keywords such as “Caravan Roof” or “Fix my own roof” which would be a wasted click, and therefore wasted investment. These incorrect keywords should be added to the negative keyword list, meaning they wont trigger your ads in future. This should be worked on constantly, as over time it maximises your monthly investment and ensures you are only getting traffic from people actually looking for what you offer.
SMM – Social Media Marketing
Whether you use Social Media personally or not, its importance when it comes to digital marketing cannot be ignored. Social Media platforms allow people to build free business pages and groups that can then be “boosted” and shown to people who may be interested in what you are selling or providing.
The cost to boost your page or group depends on a few factors, such as who you and where you want your ad to show. The targeting can be fine tuned to target very specific demographics, making Social Media Marketing one of the better platforms to use to launch new products or brands that have been created for a specific niche.
However, not every business/niche will find success with a social media marketing campaign. B2B companies or technical products and services sometimes find SMM campaigns to be a poor investment, as their client base dont always hang out on social media – and if they do, they are not in “work mode” when browsing, so the ads can be unsuccessful. That said, other businesses can thrive solely off a good SMM campaign. Consumer products, clothing and personal tech products tend to do very well – as do home services businesses, such as Roofing or TV Aerial repairs.
Other Digital Marketing
We’ve covered the main three above, but there are also many other forms of digital marketing that can help you reach your intended audience.
Influencer Marketing
This ties in with SMM, but this is the process of recruiting “ambassadors” for your business. These are people that put out content related to your industry and who can promote your products to their followers. This method can be effective as the people viewing the videos that contain your products or services trust the social media personality, so will often buy things based on their reccomendations.
Display Advertising
There are a few platforms that allow you to run banner advertising on other peoples websites. The model is similar to PPC but the adverts show around the web as opposed to in search results pages. This method can be great for businesses that sell products or provide services that fall in the “high risk” category. These businesses are often prohibited from advertising on Google and other mainstream platforms, so the only other paid option is often display advertising.
Email Marketing
One of the OG’s of online marketing, email marketing has been used since email was invented. The rules and restrictions around sending mass emails has evolved a lot over the years though, and its no longer as easy as collecting a load of emails and blasting an email over to them.
Building email lists properly can take time, and can be slow progress – but once you have a decent audience, sending them emails about your business, products or services can help keep your brand relevant and can result in increased sales or enquiries.
However, there are many people that still use email marketing incorrectly, and harvest email accounts manually or buy email lists – this can work for a short while, but the emails are eventually classified as Spam and then they never reach users inboxes.
There are other ways of getting your products or services seen by the right people, and most are related to one of the core services listed above.
If you would like to explore the best options for you, then reach out to us for a free initial discovery session with our director.