7 Marketing Channels to Focus On In 2021

Unfortunately, while Field of Dreams is one of my favorite films, the saying “If you build it, they’ll come” doesn’t apply to content marketing. Too often we forget that content marketing is made up of two separate words – content and marketing. Content creation is usually the most fulfilling and fun part of a marketer’s job. However, disseminating this content is just as important.

If no one sees your content, it definitely won’t come.

Because of this, it is important to understand which marketing channels you should be using to capitalize on your content marketing goals. In short, marketing channels are the different tools and platforms that you use to communicate with your target audience. The decision to use certain channels should come from your audience’s insights. However, it is important to understand the value of different channels.

In this post, we’re going to discuss different marketing channels that are considered to increase your reach, response, and sales while prioritizing what matters most: your customers.

1. Word of mouth marketing

70% of consumers say that brand trust is more important today than ever before. Unfortunately, consumers also trust brands and the paid content they create less than ever before. What can a marketer do when the very people he is trying to convince don’t trust them? You need to rely on their customers’ recommendations about their brand to inspire other customers to make purchases, also known as word-of-mouth marketing.

People trust other consumers over marketers because marketers have an agenda. They promote their products and services to generate sales, but customers will only rave about a product or service if it really benefits them. If you’re skeptical, consider the following research:

• Consumers report that a person like them (another consumer) is 14% more credible than a brand employee.
• 39% of consumers build trust in a brand through peer-to-peer conversations, 23% through paid advertising of a brand.
• 9 out of 10 consumers read reviews when making purchasing decisions.

However, word of mouth marketing doesn’t have to be just a face-to-face conversation. Happy customers will post about you online, let their roommates like your service and leave positive reviews on your product pages. Only one of these examples involves an actual face-to-face conversation, but all of them involve consumers vouching for the credibility and authenticity of your brand to inspire others to buy your products.

You can encourage this type of marketing by creating a customer experience that suits your audience’s needs and providing world-class customer service. In other words, you must meet your customers’ needs before your own.

2. Podcast Marketing

55% of the US population 12 and older listened to podcasts and 37% listened to an average of six hours a week for the past month. The demand for audio content has exploded. It is therefore worth considering podcasts to meet your audience where they are already.

Recommended Resource: How to Start a Podcast for Your Business

Not only is demand high, but podcasts and their presenters can also help you build a unique relationship with your audience as episodes entertain and share a more human side of your business.

Podcasts also provide more interaction, as customers don’t just have to listen to their phone screens. For example, your ideal listener could play an episode in their car during the morning commute, while walking their dog, and while cleaning their house.

According to researchers in the neuroscience field, storytelling is one of the best ways to grab attention and resonate with consumers’ emotions. The human brain is programmed to crave, seek, and respond to a well-crafted narrative – that will never change.

3. Email Marketing

Shouldn’t email die this year? And last year? And the year before? As much as marketing gurus claim the final nail in the email coffin is at hand, the data says otherwise. 91% of American internet users used email in 2019, and Statista predicts that global email usage will grow to 4.48 billion users in 2024, an increase of 580 million from 2018.

Encouraging users to subscribe to your online publications will help keep them updated with your latest news and stories. And since it takes an average of six to eight touchpoints to generate a qualified sales lead, encouraging people to subscribe to your emails will generate more leads and revenue for your business.

While you might only associate email marketing with newsletters, you can use it to send personalized messages to your target audience, promote time-sensitive content like product launches and sales, and drive leads. Plus, email is its own media channel – no one dictates when, how, or why you can contact your prospects (just remember, customers opt out of oversaturation).

Selected Resource: Email Marketing Planning Template

4. Social Media Marketing

Globally, 3.6 billion people used social media in 2020, and Statista predicts that number will climb to 4.41 billion in 2025. So your customers are likely already on social media, which means this is an essential channel for your marketing efforts.

Consumers report using social media to get away from it all, chat, connect with friends, and interact with the companies they enjoy. Marketers use social media to generate brand awareness, cultivate relationships with their audiences, and promote their products.

A large number of social media platforms can make it a daunting channel to use. However, the great thing about social media is that each platform offers different, unique audiences who are ready and able to interact with your content.

As mentioned above, these users also use social media for various purposes that are likely in line with your marketing goals, such as: B. to research brands and products of interest. Admittedly, using many platforms requires a considerable amount of daily effort, but it undoubtedly pays off:

All in all, if you take the time to create a social media strategy that is tailored for each of the platforms you use, you will likely succeed on the channel and meet your audience where they are.

Selected resource: Social Media Marketing Course

5. Marketing for search engine optimization (SEO)

Search engines are arguably the best marketing channel for getting attention. In fact, search engines are the main source of discovery for new products and services for all Internet users. This has a big impact on companies that use the advertising channel, especially since there are 89,144 searches performed per second on Google.

Search engines are also one of the highest converting marketing channels. Since people are actively searching Google for answers to their questions and solutions to their problems, they’ll likely download your listing or sign up for a free trial if you can give them what they’re looking for.

This means that optimizing all of your company’s existing channels is likely to bring in traffic and increase conversions. While a website can be your first thought in optimizing for SEO, so too can your YouTube channel, Google Maps Google My Business profile, blog, and even your podcast episodes.

To build a thriving organic online presence, implement the pillar cluster model on your blog. With this strategy, you create a single column page that provides a high-level overview of a topic and hyperlinks to cluster pages that deal with the topic’s subtopics. This signals to Google that your columnar page is an authority on the matter.

Linking all of the cluster pages to the column page also distributes domain authority in the cluster, so your cluster pages get an organic boost if your column page ranks higher, and your cluster pages can even help your column page rank higher if it is ranked for the specific Keyword they are targeting.

6. Influencer Marketing

Influencer marketing is when a business partner works with a relevant, popular developer in their industry to deliver advertising or specific content. It’s a valuable marketing channel, and 71% of marketers say the quality of the traffic generated by influencer marketing is better than other ad formats.

Leveraging influencers to achieve your marketing goals can have a positive impact on brand awareness and increase social evidence.

As already mentioned, consumers trust marketers less and less and shy away from content of the type “sales-to-drive leads”. They trust influencers more because they see them as a person like themselves, especially when they share common interests. The content that influencers create is a form of user-generated content also known as word-of-mouth marketing.

Additionally, 93% of marketers are already using influencer marketing. Your competitors are already sharing this trusted, high-yielding content with their audience, and so should you. An added bonus is the return on investment (ROI) on influencer marketing, with every dollar spent giving a total ROI of $ 5.78.

Recommended Resource: The Ultimate Guide to Influencer Marketing

7. Video Marketing

If you haven’t thought about video marketing before, now is the time to do it. Videos can increase conversions, improve ROI, and help you build relationships with viewers. Additionally, 69% of consumers would prefer to see what a brand offers through video.

Video is also a non-limiting form of content advertising. Some channels may only allow you to include text, some only allow images, and others prioritize audio, but video can be all three. You can also create product promotion videos, how-to videos, or even live videos to answer customer questions and resolve customer questions.

The videos you create can be used for various channels that you may already be using, such as: B. Social media and email. In a way, you create video content for one channel and reuse it to meet the needs of your other channels.

Selected Resource: The Ultimate Video Marketing Starter Pack

Consider using a multi-channel approach

Different marketing channels bring different benefits, but most companies can find a way to use different channels in their marketing strategies to achieve business goals.

After all, your audience is likely to be diverse and dispersed. So, using different channels creates multiple points of contact, which in turn drive leads and increases conversions.