The only way to keep up with the latest about digital marketing is to constantly stay on the lookout for new information. If you read everything you can possibly find about the various digital marketing channels, it won’t take long for you to feel on top of your game.
If you’re seriously interested in knowing everything you can about digital marketing, then you need to think beyond the basics. In this article, we will discuss why it is important to not hedge all your bets on one of the main digital marketing channels. You should, however, spread them across a few.
Here are some recommended digital marketing channels for you to use when you are looking for diversification.
Social Media
Social media marketing has been hot for a decade now and Google has come out and said that social media mentions will and is impacting on search engine optimisation. More importantly it will keep you connected to your community. Social media campaigns will be measured in real time, allowing you to learn, adapt and capitalise on how your social media circles react to a tweet, blog post or YouTube Video.
Campaign tracking (this is the part that I am happy about) will be able to be implemented and tested to see if it is correctly implemented within minutes. This will allow you to roll out your campaigns in full swing quickly while knowing the data is being collected.
Video Marketing
One of the most engaging digital marketing channels is video. YouTube.com is the second largest search engine in the world and people do go here looking for valuable content. It is not all just videos of fails and giggles.
There are videos about SEO, business coaching, marketing, accounting and plenty more. Take a look at some YouTube.com user demographics.
Google Adwords
The obvious answer is Google Adwords! Text based and/or banner ads can drive very targeted traffic to your site that is highly trackable. However you are still relying on Google and PPC prices are being driven up all the time so it can not be the start and end of your diversification.
Email Marketing
Email marketing is one of those traffic generation channels that has been around since the creation of the wheel and will continue to be around for a lot longer.
Micro Sites
One of my favourite digital marketing channels is micro sites. Building smaller sites based around a set of keyword phrases is great for holding another chunk of real estate in the search results. It is also a good way to build some specific links back to pages within your main site.
If your main site gets dropped by Google, chances are your micro sites will still be ranking well for valuable keywords. Buy, or take your own stock photos, write some engaging, keyword rich text. Set up a separate domain or subdomain, and away you go!
Offline Marketing
Offline marketing does still exist and it does still have its place in your overall marketing strategy! However, after the amount of articles about people leaving Yellow Pages Advertising. I would not recommend spending a great deal on the Yellow dust collectors.
Brand Building
Building a brand within your community or target markets will keep the traffic flowing to your site.
Guest post writing
Writing guest posts for other websites is one of the key methods to help with your link building. However remember there are a lot of blogs and article directories that you can utilise. For example, some people make a business out of selling guest posts. You are better off spending that effort into outreach instead.
Even some national and local news websites will also take user generated content, this can accomplish brand building, link building and therefore traffic to your website from the one article.
Blogging
Every business should have their own blog, it is a fantastic way to position yourself as an expert and for content to generate lots of great traffic and improved SEO metrics. Read lots of articles on how to write your first business blog post and before you know it, you will be writing posts every week and be an expert in the space.
If you do it right, you can add to your industry and create a genuine conversation with peers and customers. This really provides some unique content to someone’s reading list.
This of course can also drive traffic to your website and also builds links in some circumstances.
In Summary: Digital Marketing Channels
There are alternative digital marketing strategies, and many digital marketing channels and even offline to help you drive traffic to your website. Ideally, you are not entirely reliant on one channel for your digital marketing. The important thing to take away from this article is that diversification is absolutely paramount.
