Have you every thought about open your own business and yet still do not know how to start people to know about you? A marketing channel is a way to get your message to your target audience (Duncan, 2013).

However, with so many online advertising channels available, how do you go about picking the best channel for your business? Considering a fine balancing act between your advertising budget and the costs of using a particular channel is a must before you make any decision.

1. Email

For some reasons, emails have been neglected as an advertising channel because everyone assumes it is outdated yet it is quite opposite (Morphy, 2015). It is the lowest cost method and should be a digital channel you should take advantage of.

From the survey by Radicati Group (2013), by 2017 there will be more than 1.1 billion business email accounts and 77% of worldwide email accounts would be consumer’s. So this channel is not dead but very much alive!

A good example is Amazon knows their lead sources and does email follow-up well with “Hey, these other books are similar to what you just purchased” emails. It seems simple, but many companies have been doing that for years and be successful.

Entrepreneurs who do not want to tap the power of email as a digital advertising channel are surely making the mistake. It helps to foster your brand engagement as well as strengthen at multiple levels. In order to increase your email value:

• Relevant messaging that encourages recipients to act on the email.
• The email should create a timeframe within which recipients need to act (urgency).
• Use consumer intelligence for targeted and more personalized messaging.

A well designed email has a huge potential to deliver the returns you are looking for so DO NOT ignore this channel at any cost!

2. Social Media

This is a top Internet activity and people despite their age are spending a large amount of time on social media. You will have a better chance to catch their attention through this approach of advertising. It is estimated that social media advertising revenue in 2015 will be close to $8.5 billion and much more in the next few years.

Here are few things you should keep in mind to boost social media ads ROI:

• Whether it’s Facebook Ads, LinkedIn Ads or Promoted Tweets, you’ll need to optimize the use of their targeted features. You can actually drill deep down in terms of customer profiling, so that your ads reach users who’ve better chances of converting into customers.
• Your ads will appear directly in the users’ news feeds, so avoid repeat messaging. Rotate your ads.
• Many users access their social media accounts with their smartphones, so make sure your ads are mobile friendly.

3. Google AdWords

There are quite some business owners tend to stay away from PPC (Pay per click) by Google AdWords because it costs their marketing budget. Unfortunately, that is a very big mistake. AdWords delivers measurable results and is worth the investment. Your ads get viewed right when your target audience is searching for the products/services you are selling and the results are faster than SEO (Search Engine Optimization) that you can also set a budget for your campaign to control advertising costs.

PPC helps plenty of businesses to drive attention to their site, promote their products/services and increase sales. The great thing is there are plenty of tools you can use to optimize your returns from Google AdWords.

These are the three digital channels will definitely drive your marketing efforts in the right direction for your business.

References

Duncan, L. (2013). How to Double Your Business: How to unlock the potential of your business and achieve remarkable success. 1st ed. [ebook] Pearson UK. Available at: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=nincpiovU9AC&pg=PT103&dq=how+to+be+successful+in+advertising+marketing+channel&hl=en&sa=X&ei=pZ0-Vb-zLYfvarX9gLgI&ved=0CCYQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=how%20to%20be%20successful%20in%20advertising%20marketing%20channel&f=false [Accessed 27 Apr. 2015].

Morphy, E. (2015). Email Marketing Is Dead? Long Live Email Marketing?. [online] CMSWire.com. Available at: http://www.cmswire.com/cms/customer-experience/email-marketing-is-dead-long-live-email-marketing-028984.php [Accessed 27 Apr. 2015].

THE RADICATI GROUP, (2013). Email Statistics Report, 2013-2017. 1st ed. [ebook] Available at: http://www.radicati.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Email-Statistics-Report-2013-2017-Executive-Summary.pdf [Accessed 27 Apr. 2015].