Digital Marketing Channel Comparisons

Which Marketing Channel is Best?

Many companies struggle with the decision of choosing which marketing channel(s) to advertise their brand. There are many variables to consider when deciding on what channel to invest in. Some of these include the goals of a brand, the position in the brand's life cycle, budgeting, company timelines, the buyer's journey, etc. Here are some comparisons of digital marketing channels to assist you in finding which channel(s) will maximize your brand's success.

Display Ads

Display ads are necessary with the increase of online users and buyers. #Displayads help a business build #branding, raise #awareness, engage customers, and encourage direct response (Dodson, 2019). Display ads are primarily used as a branding tool. The process includes defining the ad, formatting, analyzing, and configuring. KPI’s used when tracking the success of display ads include interaction rate, completion/conversion rate, expansion time, and average display time. These KPI’s will have different levels of focus based on #campaign goals.

Benefits:

1. Increases buyer influence

2. Can be integrated into other marketing channels such as TV, social media, radio, and print

3. Greater control over #targeting tools for consumer behavior analysis.

Challenges:

1. Banner blindness

2. Lower CTR than other channels

3. Lower purchase intent than email marketing

Email Marketing

An email advertising campaign is, “a structured, systematic process that is one of the most successful channels for delivering highly relevant marketing communications to targeted #subscribers” (Dodson, 2019). The process includes the gathering of data, design creation, discovery, and delivery. Email marketing is used to generate revenue and manage data gathered from customer response. KPI’s used to measure the success of an #emailcampaign include open rate, total opens, unique opens, click to open rate, unsubscribes, bounce rate, hard bounces, soft bounces, #CTR, unique #clicks, and total clicks.

Benefits:

1. Direct #communication with an audience

2. Affordable

3. Easy to track and optimize data management

Challenges:

1. Must reach the right audience to be effective

2. Extra legal/ethical precautions must be taken to avoid risks

3. Creativity may be limited

Websites

#Websites are necessary for every business to communicate a company’s competitive #differentiators, process, clients, employees, and success stories. Websites create a connection and build confidence for potential clients. Websites are the single most important piece of a brand's digital footprint. A business website is one of the most important marketing investments a company can make (Cox, 2015). The process includes establishing goals and executing page optimization. Depending on the type of website, #KPIs that are used include: unique visits, bounce rate, pages viewed per session, average time on page, top landing pages, top exit pages, goals and event completions, onsite search queries, sales conversion rate, time before purchase, customer satisfaction, average order value, and awareness level.

Benefits:

1. Visual Recognition

2. Builds brand credibility

3. Long term equity

4. #SEO and #PPC opportunities are available

5. Can be integrated into other digital channels

Challenges:

1. Costly

2. Consequences of poor execution (reduced credibility)

3. Out-of-date sites can cost a company business

Social Media

#Socialmedia advertising takes multiple forms. These include paid, earned, and owned media. Social media is used to target markets, reach the public, provide instant communication, and is ongoing in nature. There are many business goals when using social media. These include: lead generation, #sales, cost reduction, product #research, product design and enhancement; build brand personality/reputation, and increase #awareness/#engagement. Each platform is used to target different demographics. KPI’s to measure the success of social media campaigns include total post #reach, organic reach, paid reach, engagement rate, follows, website #clicks, brand #mentions, #impressions, #traffic data, #leads, and acquired #customers.

Benefits:

1. Affordable

2. Analytics provided by platforms

3. Shareable profiles on websites

4. Consumer #feedback opportunities

5. Cross promotional opportunities

Challenges

1. Threat of hackers

2. Time consuming to create and manage

3. Negative comments can tarnish a brand's reputation

4. Slow/not easily measured #ROI

5. Exposure to competitors

Final Thoughts:

The best results are found when a company is able to establish a marketing strategy, distinguish a target market, research consumer behavior, and develop a marketing budget. The use of multiple channels at once will increase the rate of growth. Continuously mixing and matching throughout a brand's life cycle will ensure a well-rounded company voice. Check out my other blog posts for more information on how to establish a marketing strategy and distinguish your brand's target market.

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References:

Cox, H. (2015, March 11). How does a website add value to a business? https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-does-website-add-value-business-heather-cox/?trackingId=pOzuId7WSGu3ViAe0TPNYw==

Dodson, I. The Digital Marketing Playbook. [MBS Direct]. https://mbsdirect.vitalsource.com/#/books/9781119265719/

Equalman. (2019, January 8). https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6k_G_h41ZaQ

Marketers Clearly See Email As The Best Content Distribution Channel. (2018, September 13). https://www.marketingcharts.com/cross-media-and-traditional/content-marketing-1056