THESE Are The Online Marketing Channels That Can SKYROCKET Your Business

there are so many online marketing
channels to choose from that you as a
business owner may feel overwhelmed
about you might not know where to start
or it's possible that there are some you
hadn't even thought about before or
didn't even know existed so today I'm
covering the top 15 online marketing
channels for small business
[Music]
what's up everybody welcome back to the
channel I'm Brandi with Life Marketing
the digital marketing agency with a
mission to help small businesses grow
real quick like subscribe and ring the
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any of the marketing videos we put out
every week that can help you grow your
business alright so we've got a longer
style video for you today so be sure and
check out the time stamps if there's a
section that you want to jump to
specifically otherwise let's start by
answering the question what is an online
marketing channel an online marketing
channel is a digital platform you can
use to reach and connect with your
target audience an online marketing
channel is synonymous with a digital
marketing channel and different online
marketing channels serve different
purposes for instance social media is
conducive to a friendly sometimes
communicative and engaging environment
whereas Google is a place where people
go to get information and questions
answered small business owners need to
determine which online marketing channel
their target audience spends the most
time on or which platform could benefit
them the most and invest their efforts
there so let's start breaking down the
top 15 online marketing channels to help
you figure out which channels are best
for you starting with number one social
media social media is a term that
encompasses several different individual
platforms this can include Facebook
Instagram Tick Tock LinkedIn Twitter
Snapchat and more again each platform
has its different nuances and primary
demographic but social media is as a
whole a place where users gather to
interact with friends family Brands and
influencers it gives customers direct
access to Brands and vice versa social
media has facilitated brand consumer
communication and relationships like
nothing else has before organic social
media marketing meaning unpaid social
media marketing is a great tool to
Garner brand awareness and stir up
conversations in the comments with your
audience you'll want to perform research
to determine which of the social media
platforms for business makes the most
sense given your specific target market
and plug into that platform this can
look like going live on that platform
posting stories responding to comments
Etc if you need help choosing the right
social media platform you can check out
Sherman's video link will be below but
the goal of any social media channel
should be to foster a positive and
ongoing relationship between your brand
and your target audience number two
social media advertising social media
advertising is the paid side of social
media marketing every social media
platform has its own advertising
platform built in Facebook and Instagram
have Facebook ads manager Twitter has
Twitter ads Tick Tock has Tick Tock ads
and so on while most social media
advertising channels are similar it's
important to note that they're not the
same they have different targeting
capabilities different campaign
objective options and so on as a result
they have different pros and cons you'll
need to weigh the benefits of the
varying platforms as they relate to your
ultimate goal and determine if they will
help you reach your desired outcome from
social media marketing overall social
media advertising lets you put your
content directly in front of your
audience to nudge them towards your call
to action social media advertising is
great for driving website traffic leads
and sales that you often can't get from
organic social media marketing the
downside is that it requires an ad
budget to fuel these efforts unlike
organic social media marketing that's
why you'll want to perform the research
up front to determine which social media
channel is going to be the most fruitful
for you to advertise on because you
don't want to waste your ad budget or
time on a platform that doesn't hold
much of your target audience number
three email marketing if all the social
media giants like Facebook and Instagram
were to crash and go down today would
you still have a customer base to Market
to a lot of small business owners make
the mistake of relying on their
following on external platforms to have
access to their potential customers you
need to own your customer list so that
if push comes to shove you still have
access to your customers email marketing
is the best way to do that email
marketing is the process of sending
emails to your leads and customers
regularly to move them further down your
sales funnel whether you need to turn a
follower into a lead or a lead into a
customer email marketing is the bridge
that fills that Gap there are two main
types of email marketing you can perform
manual weekly newsletters and automated
drip campaigns manual weekly newsletters
are exactly what they sound like they're
relevant topical emails that you type up
and send to your email list every week
automated drip campaigns are emails that
you set up in advance with conditions in
place so that the email marketing
software can continue to send those
emails for you on its own after that for
instance you don't want to sit down and
manually send out an order confirmation
email every time you get a purchase
right of course not an automated email
sequence can take care of that for you
it's important to note however that the
beauty of automated emails goes Way
Beyond Simple logistic emails like
confirmation emails the real magic in
email marketing is when you set
conditions that say if a customer opens
email a send them email B if not send
them email C and so on you're creating a
smart personalized and strategic email
sequence that sends on its own it can
work while you're sleeping email
marketing is still one of the best
online marketing channels available to
help nurture leads and invert prospects
into customers number four is SEO is the
product or service you offer something
that your audience searches for on
Google if so SEO is for you SEO or
search engine optimization is a great
online marketing channel for businesses
whose nature is to be searched SEO is
the organic process of helping your
website rank in the Google search
results or technically any search engine
results you can perform SEO on any
search engine including Bing or
DuckDuckGo but Google is the most
popular search engine and therefore is
where most business owners start if
someone types in a search query or
keyword into the Google search bar that
is related to the product or service you
offer you want your website to be the
first result that appears at the top of
page one SEO is the process that helps
you accomplish that there are hundreds
of ranking factors that Google looks at
and considers when deciding which
websites are going to rank in which
order as a result there are hundreds of
things you can do to optimize your
website for SEO including on-site SEO
versus off-site SEO and more if you want
more insight into the world of SEO check
out our SEO playlist there are a lot of
helpful videos in there number five sem
sem or search engine marketing is the
paid version of SEO sem is also
sometimes referred to as PPC which
stands for pay per click sem is the
process of ranking in the top paid spots
in the search engine results take a look
at this photo again to see the
difference you pay Google for the top
spot in the search results giving you
tons of exposure and relevant clicks the
difference between sem versus SEO is
that sem only works for as long as
you're feeding it an advertising budget
as soon as the budget is cut off you
will no longer rank in that top spot SEO
takes a lot more time and work to rank
but the results last longer and don't
depend on an unlimited ad Budget on
average the first five results on a
search engine results page get more than
67 percent of all clicks for any given
search query that means you'll want your
business to appear in those top five
results let alone on page one sem and
SEO are both great methods to achieve
achieve that goal so if you want to
learn more about the two online
marketing channels to determine which
will be better suited for your business
specifically you'll want to check out
our video on SEO versus sem number six
display ads display ads are a type of
Google ad that are visual instead of
having a text ad at the top of the
search results you have a Graphic
without separate text or a caption
attached that appears across Google's
Display Network display as can appear
across millions of websites apps and
other google-owned properties like Gmail
and YouTube the idea would display as is
that you retarget your website visitors
and follow them all across the web
putting your brand in front of them
again and again until they convert most
people do not purchase upon the first
click or the second or the third the
average person needs to be retargeted
seven times before they're compelled to
take action and this is especially true
when they're seeing advertisements from
small businesses they've never heard of
before display ads give you the reach
and opportunity to retarget your website
traffic across the world wide web as
opposed to just any one platform number
seven Google shopping ads Google
shopping ads are a great online
marketing channel for e-commerce store
owners in particular shopping ads are
where people see product listings in the
search results for certain search
queries unlike Google search campaigns
sem where you as the business owner and
put the keywords you want to rank for
the keywords for shopping campaigns are
pulled by Google Google sources the
keywords by automatically pulling from
the words listed in the product title
and description so you'll want to make
sure you set up your product catalog
thoroughly and accurately in order for
Google shopping campaigns to work well
number eight SMS marketing SMS marketing
otherwise known as text message
marketing is a great retargeting tool
for small business owners many
businesses are familiar with the process
of obtaining a customer's name and email
address so as to follow up with them via
email but businesses today are not
stopping there they're asking for name
email and phone numbers so that they can
follow up via email and via text message
some consider SMS marketing to be an
extension of email marketing as email
marketing softwares offer SMS marketing
alongside email plus if you already have
an email marketing campaign up and
running it's easy to make a shortened
version of it to fuel your SMS marketing
campaign however often people check
their email every day people check their
text messages a lot more an SMS campaign
helps keep your brand quite literally in
front of your customers face every
single day number nine is short form
video short form videos have taken the
World by storm in the last three years
whether we're talking about tick tocks
Instagram reels Facebook reels or
YouTube shorts collectively there are
billions of people scrolling through
their phones watching these every day in
order to stay relevant online your brand
needs to be producing videos to some
degree the great thing about short form
videos is that they're easy and cheap or
free to make you don't need a Hollywood
budget or a professional production to
create effective viral short form videos
all you need is a smartphone and a good
idea so if you need to jumpstart your
creative juices check out our Tick Tock
ideas for businesses video ideas for
Instagram reels and YouTube shorts ideas
to get you started link will be below
number 10 influencer marketing
influencer marketing has become a
multi-billion dollar industry in recent
years influencers are social media
personalities with large followings this
can range from someone with a couple
thousand followers all the way up to
celebrities with Millions Brands then
pay those influencers to promote their
product to their large following which
if done well results in a lot of sales
for the brand the trick to making
influencer marketing work for you is to
find multiple influencers to partner
with whose followers align with your
target market if your product or service
is for women and you partner with
influencers whose followers are mostly
men that partnership probably isn't
going to work if you can find
influencers that share your target
audience and can work within your budget
you're likely to see a profitable
Partnership if you need help creating
your influencer marketing strategy check
out that video as well as this one for
five influencer marketing mistakes to
avoid number 11 affiliate marketing
affiliate marketing is in its simplest
form when someone gets paid a percentage
of the sale for selling your product
influencers make money via affiliate
marketing often one route in influencer
marketing is for you the brand to pay
them a flat rate for promoting your
product giving them their own affiliate
link is another common option instead of
paying them a flat rate you pay them
commission for every sale they bring in
this can level the playing field a
little bit and make influencer marketing
more accessible for small businesses on
a budget small businesses often take
advantage of affiliate marketing by
giving influencers their own customized
link to their website via utms or by
giving them a discount code doing one or
both of these two things will help you
accurately attribute sales to the
influencer number 12 content marketing
content marketing is the process of
publishing online content that is
relevant to your target audience this
can technically take many forms be it
social media content videos Etc but
today we're talking about long-form blog
content regularly maintaining a Blog
helps you establish Authority both in
Google's eyes for SEO purposes as well
as in your customers eyes as an expert
as a result you'll want to make sure
you're thinking about both what Google
wants to see and what your customers
want to see when picking your blog
topics and writing them if you need help
putting together a Content marketing
strategy check out this video or if you
just need a list of content marketing
ideas to get you started check out this
video both will be linked below number
13 YouTube marketing around 250 million
hours of videos are watched every single
day on YouTube publishing YouTube videos
is a great way to build brand consumer
trust overcome any objections to
purchase and establish yourself as an
expert in your industry your videos will
convert viewers into customers I can
vouch for this we're currently bringing
in about 50 leads a month on average
right now from YouTube but what's more
is you can also monetize your channel
and make money from YouTube just for
posting the videos to begin with so it's
a win-win people used to say video
marketing was the way of the future but
at this point it's the way of the
present video marketing is here and it's
effective and YouTube specifically is
the second largest search engine behind
Google making it a great place to start
with video marketing number 14 podcasts
more than 400 million people listen to
podcasts including over half of the
adults in the United States whether
you're hosting your own podcast or
you're promoting an ad on someone else's
podcast they're a great way to get in
front of attentive listeners if you have
a YouTube channel and publish videos
regularly you can convert those into
mp3s and create a podcast with those
audios it can be that simple just make
sure you're providing value to your
listeners and speaking directly to their
goals or pain points as it relates to
your industry if you want to learn how
to start a podcast check out this video
next and last but not least number 15
website marketing what better of a
digital platform to promote than your
own website earlier we discussed the
importance of owning your own email list
so that you always have access to your
customers owning your own space on the
Internet is equally important you want
to own and promote your own domain and
website don't park your website under a
domain that's owned by someone else like
an Amazon store or blogger.com you want
to have full ownership and control of
your website so that you can change it
as needed over the years and have full
access to your website visitors all of
the time your website is today's brick
and mortar it's the face of your
business and the main source of
information for your customers so make
sure it's updated clear designed well
and value packed your website is one of
the most important online marketing
channels to upkeep so make sure you
maintain it well now before we wrap up I
want to say if you feel overwhelmed or
just want a professional to come in and
handle your marketing for you from top
to bottom we do that for small
businesses every single day so I will
put our contact link below otherwise
please like subscribe and ring the
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the next episode