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Digital Marketing Channels for growth marketers

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What are digital marketing channels?

Digital marketing channels are simply the platforms or means through which marketing messages are shared with its intended audience. The term likely originated from the world of television and radio broadcasting where the word “channel” is used to depict a specific band of frequencies used for transmitting signals. However, in the online world, these channels are the websites, blogs, social media platforms, email, and apps, for example.

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Evaluating digital marketing channels

Here are some questions to consider when evaluating digital marketing channels for marketing experimentation and growth:

Your digital marketing channel strategy

Don’t diversify yourself in too many channels; it’s like a death sentence. You should be focusing on the single and most efficient one.

Brian Balfour

The Pareto Principle, the 80/20 rule, and the Power Law of Distribution are important theories that can profoundly impact your digital marketing channel strategy. Understanding and implementing these can help maximise your marketing impact while optimising your resources.

The Pareto Principle, also known as the 80/20 rule, suggests that 80% of your outcomes come from 20% of your inputs. In digital marketing, this can mean that a majority of your results (like website traffic, conversions, or social media engagement) might be coming from a smaller portion of your efforts (like certain marketing channels or campaigns).

To apply this principle, start by analysing your marketing data to identify which channels are driving the most results. These might be email marketing, social media campaigns, content marketing, or SEO (search engine optimisation). Focus your resources on these high-performing channels, and consider reducing efforts that aren’t as effective.

The Power Law of Distribution, another important concept, explains that a small number of items often have a disproportionate impact. Here is a representation of the Power Law distribution in the context of marketing acquisition channels:

Power Law of Distribution Representation

In the context of a digital marketing strategy, this may mean that a few marketing channels might be bringing in the majority of your customers or sales. It’s crucial to identify these channels and explore ways to enhance their performance further. This could involve investing more resources in these channels, or optimising your campaign strategies to maximise their potential.

In summary, using the Pareto Principle and the Power Law of Distribution can provide valuable insights for your digital marketing channel strategy. By identifying where you should concentrate your efforts and resources, you can optimise outcomes while saving time and expenditure.

20 digital marketing channels for growth marketers

Here are the various digital marketing channels you should evaluate as potential user and customer acquisition sources.

1. Targeting Blogs

Targeting blogs as a digital marketing channel is a powerful technique that allows businesses to reach out to specific audiences who are interested in their products or services. This approach involves identifying and collaborating with blogs that align with your brand, product or service. By creating guest posts or sponsoring content on these blogs, you can effectively advertise to a captivated and relevant audience. It helps to increase brand awareness, gain traffic, and potentially achieve more sales. Importantly, it allows for a more personalised approach to marketing, appealing to the specific interests and needs of the blog’s readers.

Targeting blogs prospective customers read is one of the most effective ways to get your first wave of customers. Popular startups like Codecademy, Mint, and reddit all got their start by targeting blogs

Gabriel Weinberg, Traction

Here are some examples of how to use Targeting Blogs as a digital marketing channel for your business:

2. Publicity / PR

Publicity or PR (Public Relations) is a vital digital marketing channel used for conveying your company’s messages and brand to your intended audience. It involves creating engaging content and spreading it through various online mediums such as social media platforms, websites, blogs, online news outlets, and email newsletters. The aim is to generate positive coverage about your business or products, improve your online presence and reputation, and ultimately, to boost sales and growth. A successful PR campaign can lead to increased trust, credibility, and customer loyalty.

Publicity is the art of getting your name out there via traditional media outlets like news outlets, newspapers, magazines, TV and blogs. This can be getting featured in an industry magazine or a primetime TV appearance.

Gabriel Weinberg, Traction

Here are some examples of how to use Publicity / PR as a digital marketing channel for your business:

3. Unconventional PR

Unconventional PR is a creative and out-of-the-box way to generate buzz for your business without relying on traditional public relations methods. Instead of sending out press releases or arranging interviews in the media, you might do something surprising or unconventional to attract attention. This could include organising a flash mob, creating a viral video, hosting an attention-grabbing event, or leveraging a trending topic. This strategy can help you stand out in a crowded digital landscape, improve your brand’s visibility, boost your online presence, and potentially bring in new customers. Remember, the goal is not just to do something unusual, but to create something genuinely engaging, relevant, and shareworthy that will resonate with your target audience.

Unconventional PR is anything that is engineered to get media coverage, this includes publicity stunts, customer appreciation, gifts, contests and giveaways.

Gabriel Weinberg, Traction

Here are some examples of how to use Unconventional PR as a digital marketing channel for your business:

4. Search Engine Marketing (SEM)

Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is a digital marketing strategy which aims to increase website visibility on search engine result pages. This technique involves marketers paying search engines like Google or Bing to prominently display their websites or business information when users search for related keywords. SEM differs from SEO (Search Engine Optimisation), another important method, where the focus is more on gaining organic or unpaid traffic. Specifically, SEM works through methods like Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertisements, where businesses are charged each time a user clicks on their sponsored ad. This form of marketing is highly beneficial as it targets users that are actively seeking out specific products or services, thus increasing the likelihood of conversions and sales.

Search engine marketing (SEM) refers to placing advertisments on search engines like Google and DuckDuckGo, where online marketers spend more than $100 million each day.

Gabriel Weinberg, Traction

Here are some examples of how to use Search Engine Marketing (SEM) as a digital marketing channel for your business:

5. Social & Display Advertising

Social and Display Advertising is a powerful digital marketing channel that helps businesses reach their target audience online. This involves creating and publishing adverts on social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram, as well as on various websites and apps via display ad networks like Google Display Network. The ad content can be in text, image, video, or rich media format, and can include compelling call-to-actions. Personalisation is a strong aspect of this method, allowing businesses to target ads based on a user’s online behaviour, demographic, and interests. This approach helps drive brand awareness, increase website traffic, and ultimately conversions or sales. It’s a cost-effective way to reach a wider audience and can result in a high return on investment.

Display ads are the banner ads that you see on Web sites all over the Internet. Social ads are the ads on social sites, like those in our near your Facebook and Twitter timelines.

Gabriel Weinberg, Traction

Here are some examples of how to use Social & Display Advertising as a digital marketing channel for your business:

6. Offline Advertising

Offline advertising, despite not being digital itself, holds a crucial role within the digital marketing mix. Its main purpose is to stimulate consumer interest and engagement through traditional forms of media such as television ads, radio spots, print advertisements in newspapers and magazines, billboards, and direct mail. The unique advantage of offline advertising is its ability to reach demographics that may not be as active online, such as older or rural populations. Moreover, combining this traditional channel with modern digital marketing strategies can lead to a seamless and impressive omnichannel experience. This blending can help a business to build stronger connections with its audience, enhance its brand visibility, and ultimately drive up sales.

Even today, advertisers spend more on offline ads than they do on online. There are many kinds of offline ads — TV, radio, magazines, newspapers, yellow pages, billboards, and direct mail. All of these can utilized at almost any scale, from local campaigns to national ones.

Gabriel Weinberg, Traction

Here are some examples of how to use Offline Advertising as a digital marketing channel for your business:

7. Search Engine Optimisation

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is a powerful and essential digital marketing channel. It involves making adjustments to your website and content to make it more attractive to search engines like Google. The goal is to get your website to rank high on search engine results pages (SERPs) when someone searches for words or phrases related to your business, known as keywords. When your website ranks highly, it can draw more traffic. This traffic is often quite valuable because these are people who are actively searching for what you offer. SEO, therefore, can help you grow your audience, increase your business visibility online, and boost your sales and revenue.

Almost all Internet users turn to search engines for answers. Search engine optimisation (SEO) is the process of improving your ranking in search engines in order to get more people to your site.

Gabriel Weinberg, Traction

Here are some examples of how to use Search Engine Optimisation as a digital marketing channel for your business:

8. Content Marketing

Content marketing is a digital marketing strategy focused on creating, publishing, and distributing useful, engaging, and relevant content to a targeted audience online. It involves crafting and sharing blog posts, social media updates, videos, infographics, podcasts and other types of content to pull in your market, connect and build trust with your audience and encourage customer action. The primary goal of content marketing is not only to attract and inform viewers, but also to inspire them to become loyal customers. It’s a powerful tool that can boost your brand’s visibility, increase customer engagement and drive healthy business growth.

If you invest in content, it gets picked up by Google. People find it, they share it, and it refers customers almost indefinitely.

Rick Perreault, CEO, Unbounce

Here are some examples of how to use Content Marketing as a digital marketing channel for your business:

9. Email Marketing

Email marketing is a digital marketing channel that allows businesses to send messages directly to customers’ or potential customers’ inboxes. This method is a powerful tool to enhance relationships with clients, promote brand awareness, and boost sales. Companies can use it to share updates about their products or services, send personalised offers, or simply stay in touch with their audience. With email marketing, businesses have the ability to reach a large group of people at once, and the recipients can engage with the message at their convenience. It is cost-effective, easy to manage, and provides measurable results, making it a vital part of any successful digital marketing strategy.

Email marketing is one of the best ways to convert prospects while retaining and monetising existing customers. Email marketing is a personal channel. Messages from your company sit next to email updates from friends and family. As such, email marketing works best when it is personalised.

Gabriel Weinberg, Traction

Here are some examples of how to use Email Marketing as a digital marketing channel for your business:

10. Viral marketing

Viral marketing is a digital marketing strategy that aims to spread a message or product quickly and widely among internet users, very much like a biological virus. The main idea is to create content that is appealing and unique so that consumers themselves choose to share it with their friends, family, and wider online social circles. This sharing can be through any digital platform such as emails, social media, YouTube videos, or even mobile apps. What makes viral marketing unique is that it relies on customers to do most of the distribution work. It’s a powerful tool that, when used correctly, can lead to incredible reach and growth in a very short time.

Viral marketing consists of growing your customer base by encouraging your customers to refer other customers, or getting your content, idea or story to spread. ‘Going viral’ means that every user you acquire brings in at least one other user. That new user then invites at least one other user, and so on. This creates true exponential growth

Gabriel Weinberg, Traction

Here are some examples of how to use Viral marketing as a digital marketing channel for your business:

11. Engineering as Marketing

Engineering as Marketing refers to the development and use of tools or software to improve a company’s online presence, generate leads, and ultimately, increase sales. As a digital marketing channel, the aim is to create valuable tools that potential customers can use for free, which in turn promotes the brand, generates trust, and triggers engagement. Examples could include a mortgage calculator offered by a real estate agency, a fitness tracking app from a sporting brand, or a design template platform offered by a digital marketing agency. By providing a useful tool, you attract potential customers to your brand, potentially creating loyal customers and driving business growth.

Your team’s engineering skills can get your startup traction directly by building tools and resources that reach more people. You make useful tools like calculators, widgets, and educational microsites to get your company in front of potential customers. These tools generate leads and expand your customer base.

Gabriel Weinberg, Traction

Here are some examples of how to use Engineering as Marketing as a digital marketing channel for your business:

12. Business Development & Partnerships

Business Development & Partnerships, as a digital marketing channel, involves creating strategic relationships that promote growth and value for a business. Essentially, this strategy works by joining forces with other companies or partners that can help boost your company’s presence online. Partnerships could be with influencers, bloggers, software developers or other businesses in your industry or related industries. This channel can be highly beneficial as it often leads to shared resources and audiences, and it can increase your company’s visibility and credibility. In a nutshell, it’s about connecting and collaborating with the right partners to drive more traffic to your website, increase your online sales, and ultimately, grow your business.

Business development (BD) is the process of creating strategic relationships that benefit both your company and your partner. It’s like sales with one key distinction: With sales, you’re selling directly to a customer. With business development, you’re partnering to reach customers in a way that benefits both parties.

Gabriel Weinberg, Traction

Here are some examples of how to use Business Development & Partnerships as a digital marketing channel for your business:

13. Sales

Sales as a digital marketing channel involves leveraging online resources to sell products or services. It includes methods such as reaching prospects through email marketing, engaging them through social media, showcasing goods through websites or ecommerce platforms, and utilizing search engine optimization (SEO) to boost visibility. It also often involves understanding customer behaviour through analytics, then tailoring offers to individual needs using personalised marketing tactics. Ultimately, this form of digital marketing aims to enhance the sales process, making it more efficient and effective in converting leads into customers.

Sales is focused primarily on creating processes to directly exchange product for dollars. Sometimes hand-holding prospects can be necessary to turn them into real customers This involves creating a refined sales funnel that continually generates leads, qualifies them, and converts them into paying customers.

Gabriel Weinberg, Traction

Here are some examples of how to use Sales as a digital marketing channel for your business:

14. Affiliate Programs

Affiliate programmes are a type of digital marketing channel where businesses, known as merchants, team up with individuals or other companies, called affiliates, to promote their products or services. Here’s how it works: the merchant provides the affiliate with a unique link to their product or service. When someone clicks on that link and makes a purchase, the affiliate earns a commission. In this way, affiliate programmes allow businesses to broaden their reach by having others do part of their marketing for them. This is beneficial for both parties - businesses increase their sales and visibility, while affiliates get the opportunity to earn money in return.

An affiliate program is an arrangement where you pay people or companies for performing certain actions like making a sale or getting a qualified lead. Companies like Amazon, Zappos, eBay, Orbitz, and Netflix use affiliate programs to drive significant portions of their revenue. In fact, affiliate programs are the core traction channel for many e-commerce stores, information products, and membership programs.

Gabriel Weinberg, Traction

Here are some examples of how to use Affiliate Programs as a digital marketing channel for your business:

15. Existing Platforms

Existing Platforms are digital channels where potential customers already spend their time, making them perfect spots for marketing your products or services. These platforms include popular social media sites like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or LinkedIn, as well as search engines such as Google, retail sites like Amazon, and video-sharing platforms such as YouTube. Successful marketing on these platforms often involves creating engaging content that matches the platform’s unique format and style, using targeted ads to reach specific market segments, and actively engaging with your audience to build strong relationships and brand loyalty.

Existing platforms are websites, apps, or networks with huge numbers of users — sometimes in the hundreds of millions — that you can potentially leverage to get traction. Major platforms include the Apple and Android App Stores, Mozilla and Chrome browser extensions, social platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest, as well as newer platforms that are growing rapidly (Tumblr, Snapchat, etc.).

Gabriel Weinberg, Traction

Here are some examples of how to use Existing Platforms as a digital marketing channel for your business:

16. Trade Shows

Trade shows are events where different companies within a specific industry come together to showcase their latest products or services. In terms of digital marketing, trade shows offer a unique opportunity to engage directly with potential clients and customers, collect their contact details, and introduce your brand to them. Digital tools can be employed before, during, and after the trade show to maximise marketing impact. For example, you can utilise social media platforms to create buzz in the run-up to the event, live-stream or share updates during the show, and follow up with email marketing afterwards. Therefore, trade shows are a tangible channel that can support and enhance digital marketing efforts.

Trade shows offer you the opportunity to showcase your products in person. These events are often exclusive to industry insiders, and are designed to foster interactions between vendors and their prospects.

Gabriel Weinberg, Traction

Here are some examples of how to use Trade Shows as a digital marketing channel for your business:

17. Offline Events

Offline events, as a digital marketing channel, are a powerful tool to enhance your brand’s reach and visibility. These could be trade shows, exhibitions, meetups, or conferences that your company organises or participates in. These events offer a golden opportunity to connect directly with your potential customers and industry peers, allowing you to present your products and services in a personal and engaging way. You can then leverage online platforms to promote your offline events, invite attendees, and share updates. Following the events, digital channels could be used to share recap videos or photos, thank attendees, and follow up with interested leads, effectively bridging the gap between offline interaction and online engagement.

Offline events give you the opportunity to engage directly with potential customers about their problems. Such events are especially important when your target customers do not respond well to online advertising and do not have a natural place to congregate online. Attracting these customers to one location or going to a place where they meet in person can be the most effective way to reach them.

Gabriel Weinberg, Traction

Here are some examples of how to use Offline Events as a digital marketing channel for your business:

18. Speaking Engagements

Speaking engagements are a vital digital marketing channel that allows experts to share their knowledge, build a strong reputation, and directly connect with potential customers. They involve live webinars, online lectures, digital seminars or virtual conferences, where marketers present on specific topics, demonstrate products, or discuss industry trends. This platform can help generate leads, gain new contacts, boost brand awareness and position you as an authority in your field. Plus, it’s a perfect opportunity for two-way communication as the audience can engage, ask questions and provide feedback instantly, making it a helpful tool in agile marketing strategies.

Public speaking can help increase the awareness of your business and establish an individual (and your business by extension) as experts in a particular field. This channel works well when there is a group of people in a room that — if you pitched them right — would move the needle for your business.

Gabriel Weinberg, Traction

Here are some examples of how to use Speaking Engagements as a digital marketing channel for your business:

19. Community Building

Community building in digital marketing is all about bringing together a group of people online who share similar interests or values related to your brand or product. Essentially, it’s about creating a virtual home where your customers can engage with you and each other, exchange thoughts and promote discussions. This can be done through social media groups, online forums, or your own branded online spaces. Regularly posting engaging content, answering queries, and facilitating interesting conversations can help your community flourish. It not only fosters customer loyalty and trust but also provides you valuable insights about your customers’ preferences and needs, aiding in better product development and marketing strategies.

Community building involves investing in the connections among your customers, fostering those relationships and helping them bring more people together. You can build this community on different platforms – via email, in the comments of your blog or face-to-face.

Gabriel Weinberg, Traction

Here are some examples of how to use Community Building as a digital marketing channel for your business:

20. Conversion rate optimisation (CRO)

Conversion Rate Optimisation (CRO) is an essential method in digital marketing which focuses on boosting the percentage of website visitors who perform a desired action. This action might involve making a purchase, filling a form, or clicking on a specific link. The primary aim of CRO is to make the most effective use of your website traffic by turning those casual browsers into successful buyers or customers. Strategies and tools such as improved website design, analysis of user behaviour, and A/B testing can play an instrumental role in maximising CRO. In essence, better optimised conversion rates mean more customers, which subsequently leads to increased business growth.

Here are some examples of how to use Conversion rate optimisation (CRO) as a digital marketing channel for your business:

Additional reading

Here are some additional resources and recommended reading:

There’s only a few ways to scale user growth, and here’s the list by Andrew Chen.

The 4 only scalable customer-acquisition channels by Kevin Indig.

How To Choose, Test, and Scale Emerging Acquisition Channels by Adam Grenier & Scott Tousley.

5 Steps To Choose Your Customer Acquisition Channel by Brian Balfour.

Product Channel Fit Will Make or Break Your Growth Strategy by Brian Balfour.

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