Digital marketing channels are systems based on the internet that can construct, fast-track and transmit the product value from producer to consumer terminal, through digital networks. As an advertiser, one’s fundamental intention should be to find channels which result in maximum two-way communication and a better ROI (Return on Investment) for the brand. Brand awareness takes brand recognition a step further by making the customer not only recognize the product but recall the general feeling of the business and other experiential specifics. Brand awareness is the mind state your clients enter when they see or hear your company’s name. This particular aspect of business allows the consumers to come to trust the brand, and help set the product apart from all the other businesses.
In today’s business domain, every business will have to decide on digital schemes and whether to go in-house or out-source. This decision will depend on a number of factors. Some of these factors include expertise, reliability of the digital service provider either in-house or otherwise, accountability, flexibility and scalability. However, it is particularly important to make a choice that is more viable with your business strategy. Some of the online methods used to build brand awareness are listed below;
Search engine optimization
This technique is used to improve the visibility of business websites and brand relates content for common industry related search queries. For example, it is important to name the website a short and precise name so that when people are searching for your services, your company’s name pops up first. The more sites and social media pages your company has, the better.
Search engine marketing
Also known as pay per click (PPC) advertising. This involves the purchase of ad space in prominent, visible positions atop search result pages and websites. These search ads have a positive impact on brand recognition, awareness and conversions. 33% of searchers who respond or click on paid ads do so because they directly respond to their particular search query.
Social media marketing
A 70% increase of marketers list has currently been registered on brand awareness through ads on social media platforms. Social media ads will quickly drive traffic to your site, through attached links generating leads and leaving along a traceable customer based for future references. Facebook, Instagram, twitter and YouTube are some of the social media platforms people have turned to for advertising. Even these social media apps have embraced digital marketing, that their updates are created to better accommodate business interactions between the marketer and the consumer. The introduction of contests on social media platforms also helps increase brand awareness when a lot of people share posts from your business page.
Content marketing
56% of marketing rely on personalized content-brand-centered blogs, articles, social updates, videos, landing pages that improve brand recollection and engagement. This helps the business owner steer away from guesswork but act on with a more direct approach, and give an accurate insight to the consumer. A more active and dependable content strategy that combines components of interactive content construction, social posting, and guest blogging can increase brand awareness and trustworthiness by 88%.
Influencer marketing.
This mode of marketing is common in most parts of the world but in a few parts of Africa. This is when a celebrity/ public figure, or someone with a larger audience uses their social media presence to represent the brand. The publicity from the influencer exposes the brand or product to the rest of the world. This strategy of marketing has proven effective with clothing brands, song popularity from celebrity reposts and retweets, live videos and sharing link invites. It is possible to reach influencers via paid advertising such as Facebook advertising or google AdWords campaigns or through social customer relationship management (sCRM) software.
Online behavior marketing
This is the practice of collecting information about a user’s online activity over time. This type of advertisement is customized to that user’s interests and preferences. Data on patterns like response time to ads, most visited sites help the marketer classify the user according to the “likes” and predictions can easily be made when delivering the next advertisement.
Data driven advertising
This marketing strategy is similar to online behavior marketing. This form of marketing is based on retracing the steps users have taken on their customer journey and brands use that data to activate their known audience with data driven programmatic media buying. This is also known as people-based marketing. Data driven advertising is empowering brands to find their loyal customers amid the audience and deliver in real time a much more personal communication, highly relevant to each customer’s moment and actions.
Despite the many digital marketing channels the business industry is currently practicing, some of the channels seem to be ineffective. Some of the ineffective channels are listed below:
Prioritizing clicks.
Although it may seem advantageous by being “simple, fast and cheap” this method has proven to be barely productive to some advertiser since one in a thousand clicks is relevant hence has little effect. Companies should not rely on this strategy alone to evaluate the effectiveness of display advertisement.
Affiliate marketing
This based on agreements with another business that is not your own, to help in bringing new clients. It could be a business that has been established and been around for a while to help you navigate or a fellow start up for maximum brand value. It is this co-dependency and lack of reliability in terms of affiliates that makes this form of advertisement ineffective. Exposure to affiliates leaves the brand prone to exploitation in terms of claiming commission that isn’t honestly earned. Some affiliates end up poaching clients that weren’t theirs in the first place reducing your revenue.
Game advertisement.
These are ads that exist within computer or video games. Apps provide a big opportunity for marketers to achieve commercial advertisements because there are numerous applications one can advertise on. Despite this, applications have limited reach since the user needs to be able to download and use the app to be able to see the ad. It is also very rare for such ads to be clicked on hence ineffective.
In conclusion, the number of marketing channels continue to expand. This means the advertiser needs to be more specific on the selection of the business channel they want to use to get maximum output. Digital marketing strategies may include the use of one or more online channels and techniques (Omni channel) to increase brand awareness among consumers. A cross-platform view must be used to unify audiences. Not all consumers are active online or on social media but rather turn to television and radios. Television and radio industries are the electronics media, which competes with digital and other technological advertising media. Cross platform ensures that there is no friction between the two platforms but rather have them complement each other towards a common goal. Marketing researchers need to understand how the Omni-channels positively affects consumer’s behavior since they both help persuade and affect the audience.
