Digital Marketing Channels that Work in 2016

Digital Marketing is all about Ideas, Creativity, Execution and Engagement.

Following is the recent snapshot showing how we have generated 670 business leads in just 80 days, i.e in less than 3 months period. And it shows different digital marketing channels we have utilized.

Nowadays it’s difficult to survive and generate constant flow of business leads from single marketing channel. We all know that days are gone of relying only on SEO or email campaign. Even it’s tough to rely only on paid search as Google has removed side ads. And top position competition will sought to sky-high.

During my 8 years of experience in Digital marketing, I have seen lots of ups and downs of different marketing channels. In the last 6 months I have carried out a personal research for understanding the user behavior on different marketing channels. I have used following tools during my research;

1. VWO – for user journey and AB testing
2. TestingWhiz – for testing landing page functionalities on cross browser
3. GA – for studying user stats
4. Agilecrm – for detailed user behavior, landing page creation and marketing automation
5. Maventus – for social media management
6. Google AdWords – for paid camapigns on search and display
7. Outbrain – for content marketing

What is the biggest change in the digital marketing sphere?

Years before a few companies used to have their online presence and very few buyers used to buy online. Nowadays digital buying is like going to a local market. So almost all the business owners have their online presence, which has increased the competition and on the same side buyers are hunting for the right sellers as they are not willing to buy from an unfamiliar names. So we need to create a digital Omnipresence, to improve trustworthiness and win the buyers.

List of digital marketing channels:

As per GA, there are 9 marketing categories, following is the snapshot of the same.

Out of above channels, majority of traffic will be attributed to search and direct traffic, which will include branding of your website. Even it’s difficult to track the source keywords in search traffic and source medium in direct traffic.

Selecting the right digital marketing channels:

It’s always difficult for majority of the marketers as well as business owners to select the right marketing channels. It’s advised to prepare the budget you have on hands for spending behind the marketing activities. Also it’s important to know the capabilities of team who are going to spend your marketing budget. Each marketing channels will work as per the nature of the business and ultimately it will improve your branding, which will result in more traffic from search and direct sources.

• Direct Channel: Here we can’t do anything directly, it will keep boosting automatically during promotion. It should be always tracked with advance tracking tools and marketing automation tool for attributing its source. Following is the snapshot of lead journey from direct traffic and shows that client has visited website 7 days before from Google search.

• Search Channel: As said earlier, it’s difficult to say which keywords are working, but we may get some ideas from webmaster tools. It’s advised to strictly adhere webmaster guidelines for long-term output.
• Social: Importance of different social media profiles will vary from business to business and as per their nature of business. Its should be used constantly to engage and improve branding. Always share good content for better result.
• Email and Marketing Automation: It plays an important role in lead nurturing and direct engagement. Never neglect it. Marketing automation will require lots of preparation and brainstorming for nurturing leads.
• Affiliates are good for many businesses and event it’s tough to find the right affiliate network.
• Referral: This source plays an important role in improving branding and search results.
• Paid search, 8. Display ads and 9. Other advertisement: This medium plays a crucial role in generating traffic leads, traffic and brand improvement in very short time. Even it costs a lot, so it’s always advised to get it done from experts else you will drain your money without sufficient output. Even it’s important to track the traffic and leads from these source, as many a times its traffic will be displayed in referral or direct. It’s important to see the improvement of search traffic from brand words during campaign period and thereafter, so you would not judge the output based the obvious stats displayed in GA.

Following are ideal suggestions for different size of the companies, and it should not be considered as it is. As the final selection can vary from company to company based their budgets, their sales conversion ratios and nature of business.

• For Small companies: Search Traffic + Social Media Optimization + Email Marketing + Paid with small budget
• For Medium size companies: Search + SMO + Marketing Automation + Referral + Paid with medium budget on social, search and display
• For Enterprises with large budget: Marketing Automation + Paid on Content delivery networks, Marketing automation + Paid referral Featuring on news sites + Paid on Display network, Social networks and search with large budget

For the final selection of marketing channels always consult digital marketing expert. And don’t put all your eggs in one basket. Please share your thoughts, insights queries if any, I will be happy to connect with you.