It is very hard to deny that marketing your business in the digital realm has gradually transformed from the way to outmaneuver the competition to absolute prerequisite you need to address to even get a fighting chance. This development was entirely expected. The world is rapidly moving online – the battle for the hearts of the customers has to follow.
This digital exodus carries with it a lot of problems, at least for the marketers. Namely, the digital world is evolving, and it’s evolving fast. With tons on new buzzwords and trusted technologies becoming obsolete, knowing where to allocate your marketing assets is becoming harder with each passing day. That is why we will break down the marketing channels that show the most promise in 2019, based on their recent performance.
Facebook has, many times by now been proclaimed a dead platform. And to be quite honest, its organic reach is slowly declining ever since 2014. But, with its vast base of 2.27 billion monthly active users, it’s Facebook still represent the absolute champion in social relevance, so investing a part of your funds to raise the profile on this medium makes a lot of sense. Furthermore, Facebook ads are affordable, feature great analytics and don’t require the use of keywords.
However, due to the problems we addressed above, your social marketing strategy will need some adjustments. First, you will need to conduct an effective social media budgeting. Second, your posts may need additional optimization to become more relevant.
Video content
Ever since the dawn of humanity, people have used visual language to convey their ideas and aspirations – even before they learned to talk. It is no wonder then that, to this date, video content has remained by far the most effective marketing channel. Speaking in cold numbers, including a video on the website landing page can increase conversion by 80%, while brands that use video marketing grow their annual revenue 49% faster than the ones who don’t.
If done well, video content can be interesting, instantly appealing (just think Alibaba’s The Greatness of the Small campaign) and speak to the audience that doesn’t necessarily understand the words that are being spoken.
CRM software
Google CEO Eric Schmidt once famously declared that every 48 hours mankind produces as much information as we did from the dawn of civilization up until 2003. And that was nearly a decade ago. The sheer volume of information modern buyers are exposed to over the course of the day is staggering. In such circumstances, approaching the targeted base with “one size fits all” philosophy simply isn’t sustainable.
Speaking in these terms, various CRM platforms like HubSpot and Salesforce, offer entrepreneurs a very streamlined way to improve their marketing campaigns by focusing their targeting, segmenting the customer base, and personalizing content for the more prospective clients.
Email marketing
Much like Facebook, this communication channel has many times been proclaimed dead. Ironically, once even by Zuckerberg himself. So, the question naturally arises, is it smart put money in email marketing when emails themselves are starting to feel ancient. Well, in spite of its mileage, email has shown a tremendous staying power.
What’s even more impressive, the email attention span is on a steady rise, and three out of four companies agree email marketing produces “excellent” ROI. Still, all these perks come with a glaring asterisk. If your email campaign is ever to be successful it has to show the same level of creativity and commitment as video ads. Hopefully, emails should be personalized and offer customers some value. Any other approach is on a short way to the spam list.
Content marketing and SEO
Although from the technical standpoint they are vastly different, content marketing and SEO are both slow burners, share the same infrastructure and have a similar general purpose – generating the leads and converting them into customers. What’s most important, they continue to be a pair of sharp marketing tools.
Just take a moment to remember how wildly successful was the “Batkid” campaign by Make-A-Wish. By putting the brand backseat and offering the audience a compelling story of how humane acts can change a person’s life, Make-A-Wish did a much better job to raise the profile of the foundation than by aggressively promoting through commercials.
Honorable mentions
Of course, the story doesn’t end here, and this list could be expanded, but some of the mentions are simply redundant. For instance, the Google AdWords offers a similar set of benefits as Facebook ads, and similar to them, they are very cost-effective. Either one of these tools is completely viable.
Furthermore, the list of HubSpot products is very well segmented (Sales, Enterprise Growth, etc.) and deserves further exploration. Finally, we have to mention that although Facebook still makes the most viable social marketing platform, Twitter, LinkedIn, and to some extent, even Snapchat all present very solid marketing channels.
For the very end, it is good to remember that all these channels and assets are very efficient, but they don’t grant success. The key to great marketing, as always, lies in thorough research, good analytics, and most importantly original approach.
