The digital marketing strategy choices small business owners have are overwhelming. The owner (or small, in-house team) is stretched thin trying to “be everywhere”. Their dabbling with several strategies never allows those showing promising returns to truly shine.
Ask: Would I rather have one, or two, great marketing campaigns? Or, a dozen I can barely manage?
We think you know the answer.
Let’s explore…
Ranked Digital Marketing Strategies: The Best Bang for Your Buck
What we’ve done is rank digital marketing strategies based on ease-of-use, popularity, and ROI. The list varies by industry. But, the following gives you a stellar hierarchy of where to place your time.
1. Content Marketing
Content Marketing is ranked #1 because of its longevity and marketing trend. Posts indexed by search engines create an opportunity to gain organic traffic. This growth continues throughout the site’s existence.
Content Marketing scales, too, through repurposing. A content piece is repurposable as an eBook, turned into an infographic, used as a video script, or snippets for social media shares. Big, “evergreen” posts are ideal — 1,500+ words, forever-type topics.
Content Marketing sets the stage for all other marketing efforts. It’s the content that’ll greatly improve later link building and social media efforts. Get the content right, and you’ll likely get the rest.
2. Link Building
Link Building is your #3 option with digital marketing since it remains one of the primary factors in search ranking. HigherVisibility.com recommends this tactic for diverse opportunities:
- Leverage higher rankings to build brand authority
- Optimize an outreach to complement the content and social participation
- “Own” the immediate area through local SEO and listings
- Understand and improve market research for free and paid campaigns
Great offers and content do great on their own if you’re well-known. But, small businesses need support to reach their markets. Link building is this support. A great link building campaign can push your site closer to (or at) the #1 positions for its keywords — resulting in huge traffic spikes.
3. Email Marketing
Email Marketing ranks 3rd because it builds a list. This list is owned by your business giving you leverage if you decide to shift focus or find your site shook by search engine listings. An email list gives direct access to followers and offers further segmentation creating higher conversion possibilities.
The list is easy-to-setup and inexpensive. Once subscribed, step-by-step instructions will have a list created and opt-in form added to your site within minutes. From there, you can use this list to share new product releases, funnel followers to new posts, and more.
Coincidentally, email marketing perfectly aligns with link building efforts. A strong email campaign could connect with the right influencers (who blog). This could land your page(s) a referring link!
Honorable Mentions
We recommend finding learning resources for the following digital marketing strategies not making the full list. These are ones you’ll want to include with our main selection as they support (or build on) prior efforts with content, link building, and email.
- Video Marketing— Try reworking content/emails in video format for YouTube
- Print Marketing — Convert online content into brochures, book(s), or pamphlets
- Audio Marketing — Launch a podcast covering main topics or partner with an industry leader
What About Social Media Marketing?
Social Media Marketing has its place among all those digital strategies mentioned. Yet, SMM benefits when you have somewhere to send followers. This should at least include a landing page to gather sign-ups and create a buzz before launch.
Engagement for the sake of engagement doesn’t generate profits. You’ll want to build a hub (with content), accent it with sales pages, and capture the market (email) to really see SMM work its wonders.
Final Thoughts and Next Steps
Call it a bias with how the digital marketing strategies are ranked. Yet, you can’t deny their importance and long-term impact on improving search/social placement. Yes, there are dozens of amazing ways to market a business — you’ve probably heard them all — but focus on doing one or two exceptionally well.
Here’s your challenge:
- Discover everything you can about one particular strategy
- Learn by doing by starting a marketing campaign with the strategy
- Gather as much feedback from peers, participants, and experts
- Refine your efforts, track everything, and double-down if it shows promise
Do so and you’ll nail it… and eventually move onto (and dominate) the next.