Growth, Strategy
5 digital marketing channels that maximize your resources
We all understand the idea of scarcity, that gap between limited resources and unlimited wants, regarding economics or natural resources. But scarcity also applies to digital marketing – budgets, expertise, time, etc. Your marketing team likely deals with these issues every day when trying to create content, reach your audience, and build sales.
So if you’re limited on resources, you need to maximize every ounce of whatever that resource may be. In doing so, you should turn to specific channels that are efficient, low-cost, or relatively easy to maintain. Conveniently for you, we’ve outlined a few top digital marketing channels that can help maximize your resources.
Email Marketing
It is challenging to live in today’s world without an email address – school, work, personal. We all have one to conduct business, connect with family and do pretty much anything online. So email marketing is one of the most efficient ways to reach a large segment of your audience.
Email takes minimal resources to get started. It starts with the top platforms offering free or low-cost plans: MailChimp (free to $10 per month), ActiveCampaign ($17 per month), Campaign Monitor ($9 per month), etc. Along with those plans, they offer templates to build any email you may need – newsletters, onboarding, transactional, and more.
These platforms offer a great way to get started and connect with your audience. And if their ease-of-use is not enough, email marketing provides one of the best ROIs compared to other digital channels.
Google My Business
Are you a local brick & mortar business or offer services to customers at their location? If so, the most critical channel to maximize your local marketing reach is going to be your Google My Business (GMB) listing. Local search results are prominently focused on a map with these listings. And they are free to set up.
But it’s essential that you don’t stop with merely claiming your listing. It’s crucial that your product, service, or brand is strong enough to generate reviews to maximize your results and engage with that positive or negative feedback quickly. GMB listings also provide easy booking widget integrations, a Q & A feature to answer questions from customers, build 360 degree virtual tours, and post updates with the aptly name Posts feature.
AdWords Express
If you have a budget for pay-per-click campaigns but are limited on time for keyword research, writing ad copy, and day-to-day account management, AdWords Express (AE) is an excellent channel to maximize your time.
AE requires that you write a short description of your offer, select a business category and set your budget. That’s it. Google manages when and where to show your ad within your budget to generate calls, store visits or sales. This makes it easy for the one-person marketing team, those on limited time, or those that don’t need all of the features of the full AdWords experience to appear in the paid results.
Facebook and LinkedIn
With an advertising budget that you want to maximize and reach the largest number of people with, Facebook and LinkedIn are your best options. They represent the major platforms for B2C and B2B users, with over 2.2 billion people on Facebook and 500 million on LinkedIn. Both have highly engaged users and offer ad formats to reach your audience.
It takes a minimal amount to get started with Facebook or LinkedIn advertising, but what makes these channels truly effective are their powerful targeting features:
- Demographics: age, gender, location, education
- Interests & Behaviors (Facebook)
- Industry, Job Function/Position, Seniority (LinkedIn)
It’s the combination of minimal investment and targeting features that let you precisely hone in on the right audience that make these channels the best bang for your buck.
Your Website
If you don’t have the time to focus on these channels, then the best return for your limited focus is going to be through your own website. It is the digital foundation for your company, the destination to which almost all traffic will end. So it makes sense to use every ounce of focus on improving your website.
There are plenty of ways to do so. Basic elements like title tags and meta descriptions can instantly improve your snippet in search results to earn more clicks. Even Google says those are easy wins for SEO. Or focus on creating content that is the most authoritative resource for the searcher’s query.
And once you’ve focused on strong, keyword-optimized content that genuinely helps the user’s query, that audience is going to be primed for turning into customers. Ensure your website has elements that make it easy for the user to take action – clearly labeled contact information, forms that are simple and intuitive for the user to fill out, a shopping cart that streamlines the purchase process.
Time To Get Focused
So there you have it. When your resources are limited, it makes sense to focus on channels that will give you the best bang for your buck. When you want to reach your audience, build an email list and utilize low-cost email platforms. To maximize your local reach, focus on Google My Business. When you want to maximize your time, turn to AdWords Express. To maximize your paid advertising budget, turn to Facebook or LinkedIn. Or above all others, focus on your website to improve SEO, the user experience, and conversion optimization.
Just in case you don’t know where to start, or even have an understanding of resources, then here are 10 things to consider.
A Bonus!
All the channels listed above are ways to share content. But what about the content itself? What formats generate the best return? Well in many ways the best format today might be video. Almost every platform today is adopting video in some fashion and “sub-formats” vary – live, short stories, ads, long form.
YouTube is one of the original platforms and the second largest search engine by shear keyword volume. B2B companies can get in on the act through LinkedIn, which offered videos first through personal profiles and most recently for Company pages and ads. With Facebook making it harder for “boring” old text and link posts from brands to be seen, video has emerged as the best format to get NewsFeed visibility and engagement. Even Google My Business listings are experimenting with video.
It’s easier than ever to create videos as well. Smartphones can capture high resolution, 4K quality video right from your hand and even simple accessories like a tripod help stabilize picture quality. You don’t need a dedicated studio or production team to shoot video.