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Exploring the Marketing Channels of Today – part III

In our previous articles we explored several marketing or customer acquisition channels and covered Affiliate Programmes, Trade Shows, Search Engine Optimization and Offline Events. We also looked into Viral Marketing,  Public Relations,  Unconventional PR and Search Engine Marketing.

In this article we will continue to explore additional marketing channels whilst discussing some of their pros and cons.

Content Marketing

Content marketing is a commonly used method for generating interest and engagement from the public, which can in turn result in sales growth. Companies using content marketing generate great blog articles that receive a lot of views, shares and comments. One guideline in content marketing is to generate content that is appealing and of interest to your readers. Hence, a company that publishes frequently is initially good, but if the content is not appealing (or boring) then the strategy will yield little to no results at all.

Social and Display Ads

Social and display ads is a paid method of generating traffic and sales for your products. With the advent of the various social media platforms known today, social media ads have become an effective method for reach the right audience for your company’s products and services. Companies today put ads on website that generate a lot of traffic, e.g. blog sites or job boards in order to advertise themselves. This also includes social media platforms which obviously have a large amount of people visiting every day. Although the cost for social media platforms is generally low, the conversion rates are not very high. Moreover, spamming may be a hindrance with most platforms out there.

Speaking Engagements

Speaking engagements are perfect marketing channel for targeting specific audiences which can translate into sales. We know many examples of authors that have written best-sellers, became a guru and speak at events in order to pitch their product and or service. Leveraging speaking gigs can therefore be a great opportunity for your company’s growth. Being able to speak naturally without getting nervous at such events is important. It’s also good to generate new content or new presentations over time as a means to avoid regurgitating the same old pitch – something which may be a challenge.

Offline Ads

Offline advertisements have been widely used in the past to advertise products. It is one of the oldest methods in the books. Companies spend a lot on advertising through billboards, TV, radio, public transport and even regular mail! This channel can be used at any scale (so national or international) and is used mainly by bigger companies as opposed to smaller ones. Some of the downfalls of offline ads are that it may be harder to target the right audience entirely and know the precise results of your campaigns (something which is possible with online advertising).

In our next article we will cover five additional marketing channels, including Existing Platforms, Community Building, Guest Posting on Blogs, Email Marketing and Engineering as Marketing. So stay tuned for more!