Digital Marketing for Business – A Comprehensive Guide to Choose the Right Channel

Are you thinking about starting digital marketing campaigns for your online or offline business but don’t know which channel makes the most sense to start?

In this case, you have come to the right place. This article comprehensively introduces the present popular digital marketing channels and tells you what to consider when choosing a channel. The channel selection is significantly influenced by whether it is a B2B or B2C company and the company’s target group, the customer’s purchase path, and the purpose of advertising.

Organic Visibility vs. Paid Digital Marketing

Let’s start with the basics, i.e., how to divide digital marketing. Digital marketing refers to all marketing activities that advertise on digital channels. Digital marketing can be divided into paid advertising and non-paid or organic visibility.

Organic visibility can be achieved, for example, by posting to various social media channels such as Instagram, Facebook, or LinkedIn. Blog writing and Search Engine Optimization are also considered under organic visibility.

Posting on social media, in particular, can engage existing customers, but getting new customers interested in your business through some email alone is very difficult. Acquiring new customers requires paid visibility.

When we talk about digital marketing, we often mean paid visibility. Paid visibility can be gained, for example, on various media channels, Google, email, applications, and anywhere on the Internet.

The absolute advantage of digital marketing is that it allows you to track and limit the amount spent on advertising. The data allows you to estimate how many results a single ad group has brought to your business. It makes digital marketing a popular and growing form of marketing for small and large businesses.

But which channel in digital marketing should you start with?

Multi-Channel Digital Marketing and Its Importance

When choosing a digital marketing channel, it is important to understand the importance of multi-channel digital marketing. Ideally, the company’s message should be visible on more than just one channel. It is because the customer’s purchase path is often multi-step.

Customer Purchase Path

The customer’s purchase path is not unambiguous, and rarely is a single ad message enough to make a purchase.

First, it’s a good idea to warm up the customer with a company brand message, so they learn about the company’s existence and what it does. It can be done, for example, with videos, images, and advertising messages aimed at brand awareness.

Next, it would be good to get the visit to the company’s website. The customer may be offered a discount code or other incentive to get them to visit the site and consider purchasing a product or service. For example, he or she may be offered a discount code against an email address. We can use the collected email address in marketing campaigns.

In the third step, we can show the site visitor remarketing ads aimed at making the actual purchase. In remarketing, the most effective thing is to display images of exactly the products and services that the visitor has browsed or that they have added to the shopping cart. Conversion rates for remarketing campaigns are therefore often higher because the customer is already familiar with the product or service you are offering and may already have considered purchasing it.

Multi-Channel Digital Marketing Keeps Your Business in the Customer’s Mind

Especially for more expensive products and services, the customer’s buying path is not always so unambiguous, and purchase may require more interactions with the company’s advertising. The customer mustn’t have time to forget about your business before making a purchase decision.

The more channels you use to make visible your business messages, the better your business stays in the minds of your customers. For this reason, it would be important to combine paid advertising in different channels, as well as to make use of organic postings on different channels.

Different digital marketing channels are suitable for different stages of the buying path, and by combining the channels we can achieve a very effective marketing strategy.

Different Channels Operate At Different Stages Of The Buying Path

Facebook and Instagram advertising, YouTube advertising, LinkedIn advertising, Google Discovery ads, and Google Display Ads are suitable for increasing awareness. We can use them to bring the brand to the awareness of new visitors visually.

In addition to the channels mentioned above, Google Ads can also use keyword advertising, Google Shopping, and content marketing to reach customers on a company’s website.

As remarketing channels, Facebook and Instagram advertising, as well as Display Ads, are often unbeatable. We can use them to reach a customer almost anywhere on the Internet and entice to purchase in an online store.

If, on the other hand, you want to engage existing customers, you can take advantage of, for example, organic social media postings, email marketing, content marketing, and some paid remarketing channels to reach the desired target group.

Thus, some channels are best suited only for a certain stage of the buying path, while, for example, we can use Facebook and Instagram advertising to reach the customer at almost every stage of the buying path. Of course, the problem may be that not all internet users are on Facebook and Instagram. Therefore, using multiple channels increases the chances of reaching a larger audience, and we can use different ad platforms to support each other.

The Many Benefits of Social Media Advertising

The advantage of paid advertising is that it makes it possible to gain more visibility than organic posting. It is because social media channels have limited organic visibility. Nowadays, if you want to show to more than a handful of followers, you must spend money on advertising.

Social media is a great advertising platform because it can reach many people. There are countless social media platforms, so it’s a good idea to use logic in your advertising and choose the platform your target audience prefers.

Another advantage of social media advertising is that it allows you to target your advertising very precisely to the platform users.

For example, you can:

• Shows ads as remarketing to your site visitors (which often leads to a better conversion rate).
• Target by interests.
• Advertise to different similar audiences – for example, people who are similar to people who previously bought from your online store.
• Use demographic targeting (targeting by age or gender, for example).
• Advertise social media to people who like your site or are committed to your publication.

In addition, social media advertising, like other digital advertising, is measurable.

Facebook and Instagram Advertising

Facebook and Instagram advertising is managed through Facebook Business Manager. So you can advertise from the same platform to both Facebook and Instagram users.

Advertising on Facebook, and Instagram in particular, should be very visual. Authentic, visitor-driven content on these platforms usually works well. So instead of stock images, you should invest in authentic images and content where people are happy to be involved.

In principle, Instagram’s user base is slightly younger than Facebook’s, so when advertising through Business Manager, you can reach many users on both Facebook and Instagram.

Facebook and Instagram advertising are especially suitable for brand messages and product presentations. We can use Facebook to create awareness, and purchase campaigns and build highly effective remarketing campaigns.

LinkedIn Advertising

LinkedIn advertising is especially effective in the B2B business.

People mainly come to LinkedIn to network and train. Because they work through their expert profile, they are more interested in things related to work and education than, for example, when they browse Facebook in their spare time. LinkedIn is more likely to make purchase decisions related to work and company operations.

Therefore, a properly executed LinkedIn advertising campaign can produce very good results in the B2B field. We can use it to increase awareness, engage customers.

YouTube Advertising

YouTube is the second most used search engine in the world after Google. YouTube offers cost-effective advertising because you pay for it when a user clicks on your ad or watches it for 30 seconds. If the user skips the ad, the ad will not cost you.

YouTube is a platform offered by Google, so YouTube advertising is managed through Google’s advertising tools. YouTube is a great advertising channel, especially for promoting a brand message, and it is worth using as a channel for the company’s video advertising. On YouTube, you will find users of all ages.

Other Social Media Advertising Channels

Depending on the target group, it is also worth trying advertising in other channels. Other potential platforms for social media advertising include Twitter, Tiktok, Snapchat, and Pinterest.

You can get good results by boldly experimenting with different channels and running several tests between ads. In addition to ad images, it’s a good idea to test for audiences, campaign goals, CTA, text, and time.

Google Ads and Its Benefits

Google Ads is a very popular digital advertising platform. All Google ads are created and managed through the same Google platform.

Google Search Ads

Google Adwords is one of Google’s most popular forms of advertising. If a person searches on a keyword and likes the product you offer, they may buy it. Google Adwords is great for almost any business, but it’s especially effective when advertising to people doing accurate Google search.

Google Display Advertising

Display ads are image ads that appear on various websites, Gmail, YouTube as image ads, mobile apps, videos, online games, and other platforms with a partnership with Google.

According to Google’s own words, Google Display advertising reaches 90% of Internet users worldwide. Display advertising can be used as a powerful remarketing tool (you can advertise to people who have visited your website) as well as to reach a cold audience (you can advertise to people who don’t yet know your business).

So with display advertising, you can do visual and targeted advertising. You can control which pages and contexts show your ads to people. We can use display advertising to increase any business’s online visibility and sales.

Google Shopping Advertising

Google Shopping ads are visual ads that display an image of the product being advertised, as well as product information such as price, brand, and store name. Ads will appear at the top of the page and on the Google Shopping tab when searching on Google.

When Google Shopping runs, it automatically retrieves and updates product information from the online store, making it easy to maintain advertising.

Google Shopping is a great addition to an online merchant’s advertising channel.

Google Discovery Ads

Google Discovery Ads is a relatively new form of advertising. It allows you to display ads on the Google Discover platform in news articles, YouTube feeds, and Gmail Offers and Social Network tabs.

Discovery ads appear to users before they do a Google search, so it’s a great channel for growing your business awareness and branding.

The publishers have not yet developed the same advertising blindness to Discovery Ads as to banner advertising, for example. Therefore, if the ad looks interesting and eye-catching, the user is more likely to click on the ad.

Email Marketing to Engage Your Audience

Email marketing is a very cost-effective way to engage your audience. It is cheaper to get an old customer to make new purchase than to get a new customer for the company. Email marketing allows you to engage and reach your old customers when it suits your business best.

Email marketing should focus on relevant and targeted content. Constant spamming of customers does not delight anyone, while carefully thought-out newsletters and promotional emails can encourage customers to stay loyal to the brand.

In email marketing, it is important to remember that customers should join the email list voluntarily. Customers can be encouraged to join the list, for example, by offering a discount or an expert guide against joining.

You should target your audience – if you send every message to every customer, marketing will not be as effective. Therefore, defining mailing lists in their categories would be a good idea. Email marketing is suitable for B2C and B2B businesses and is worth trying.

Content Marketing Brings Value to Your Audience

Content marketing is a form of marketing in which the sharing of relevant content aims to entertain, engage and take customers forward on the buying path. Content marketing aims to build an expert image, acquire customers, and retain existing customers.

Content marketing can be implemented, for example, by creating blog posts, webinars, e-books, images, infographics, or podcasts. We can use content to attract new customers to a company’s reputation and later move towards buying a product or service. After the purchase, the purpose of content marketing is to keep the customer satisfied and within the scope of the company’s services.

Content marketing takes time as results are less likely to happen overnight. On the other hand, content can serve as a source of customer acquisition for years, so long-term content marketing should be seen as an investment for the future.

You Should Not Underestimate the Importance of the Landing Page

The Landing page’s importance should be considered when building digital marketing campaigns. The landing page refers to the page where the ad clicks are directed. If the click is redirected to an unclear page with many distractions, such as extra navigation, it is more likely that the click will not lead to a purchase.

The click should ideally be directed to a specially designed separate campaign page where the customer can perform the desired action as straightforwardly as possible.

If the purpose is to collect leads, you should only have a presentation, company name and logo, presentation text and offer, lead form, CTA, and possibly pictures or videos. No navigation, just straightforward guidance to fill out a lead form. In this case, the conversion rate is much higher than if the visitor is directed to a regular web page.

How Do You Choose The Right Digital Marketing Channels For Your Business?

When thinking about the right digital marketing channel for your business, you should consider the following:

• Which people belong to your target group?
• What is your business goal, and what kind of products or services are you trying to offer?
• What is your advertisement budget?

In addition, the channel choice is influenced by whether your company is a B2B or B2C operator.

The Best Channels for B2B Businesses

A B2B company should start with LinkedIn or Facebook advertising. Especially through LinkedIn, it is easiest to reach your right target group, i.e., the people responsible for decision-making in companies. Therefore, LinkedIn should be the preferred choice of a B2B company as an advertising channel. We can also use Facebook advertising to find the right people, as long as the campaigns are targeted correctly.

Google search ads can also be worth a try – by using keywords that searchers use to find information; you can get your services in front of the right people. However, it needs to use the idea of ​​finding just the right keywords and not end up paying for unnecessary clicks.

Because Purchasing processes are lengthy on the B2B side, content marketing can also be a valuable tool for B2B players. We can use content marketing to build awareness, trust, and value for the consumer of content.

Channels Suitable For a B2C Online Businesses

Depending on the product, common choices for B2C advertising channels include Facebook advertising, Google Shopping advertising, Google search ads, and Google Display advertising.

If your business has video material or a passion for filming it, YouTube or Tiktok advertising may be worth a try. Tiktok can be especially suitable for products whose target group is people aged 18-30.

Other forms of social media advertising are also worth a try – Twitter, Snapchat, and Pinterest do not have as much competition between advertisers as many of the other popular advertising channels.

It is good to start with Facebook advertising, especially with a slightly lesser-known brand – We can use it to increase awareness and get sales. Google Shopping advertising is also a good addition to an online retailer’s advertising palette. It is a good idea for the B2C businesses to choose, for example, two channels to start with.

Starting Advertising in a New Digital Marketing Channel

Remember that digital marketing results take time when you start advertising on a new channel. Don’t assume that you will achieve explosive results in just a few weeks (although this is possible in certain situations).

It’s a good idea to give one channel at least 2-3 months, as it takes time to find the right audience, ad format, bid, and campaign goal. Then, when the settings are in place, and the testing has been done extensively enough, you can start waiting for the results.

Therefore, if you are advertising yourself, focus on one channel at a time rather than five different channels. If, on the other hand, you order advertising from a digital agency, be patient, as results are less likely to happen overnight. Truly profitable growth requires long-term doing and testing.