List of the Top 11 Digital Marketing Channels for eCommerce in 2020

The very first thing to emphasize is the importance of recognizing where your customers spend most of their time. In most cases, the answer to that is the Internet, and that is where your marketing strategy needs to be targeted at.

It is safe to say that digital marketing remains a crucial component of eCommerce marketing strategies, but which digital marketing channel to choose exactly? This article will make that choice much easier.

Brand awareness -> lead generation -> sales

Your digital marketing strategy needs to include 3 very important components – brand awareness, lead generation, and direct sales. You will also need to make sure that these components reach your leads one after another at the right place and at the right time. That means, and you may have guessed it already, you will need to combine several marketing channels to reach the best results.

Before coming up with the right list of marketing channels for your eCommerce website, consider the following:

• Your target audience (who they are, what parts of the Internet they spend most of their time in, which social media channels they use). Maybe you can reach them while they are scrolling through Instagram, or Googling specific phrases. It is all about who they are.
• Your budget.
• Your competitors (do some research to find out what channels they are using, and if their efforts are successful).

It is crucial to consider these when choosing your digital marketing strategy.

Digital marketing channels

1) Organic traffic

Includes all traffic that comes from search engines (Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc.). Potential customers will discover your site when searching for a specific keyword, phrase or product. You should work on your site’s SEO (Search Engine Optimization) to make sure search engines rank your site as high as possible in the search results.

2) Email

Includes all traffic that comes from emails (email marketing campaigns, order confirmation emails, newsletters, etc.). Be sure to explore these options and come up with a unique way to address and intrigue your potential clients without being obnoxious and spammy.

3) Social media

This digital marketing channel includes all traffic that comes from social media channels, such as Facebook or Twitter. It can be free organic traffic got from regular social media posts, or paid traffic from social media ads.

4) Content marketing

Content marketing also called the Inbound marketing generates traffic that comes from your blog posts, videos, PDFs and other content pieces.

5) Paid search

This channel includes all traffic that comes from paid search ads on search engines. Such campaigns can be launched on Google AdWords and Bing Ads.

6) Referrals

When Google talks about referral traffic, it usually alludes to all traffic that comes from outside Google’s search engine. It’s all the traffic coming from 3rd party sources that aren’t covered in the other 7 channels.

7) Affiliates

This channel includes all traffic that comes from your affiliate partners in exchange for a commission, including influencers, bloggers, etc.

8) Direct

Includes all traffic from users that are brought directly to your website when typing in your web address URL in the browser or clicking on the URL in their bookmarks.

Emerging online marketing channels

Some current trends in the digital marketing world include, but is not limited to:

9) Social media stories

Stories are an increasingly popular way to engage with your followers. On Instagram, the stories are currently close to exceeding the engagement of the actual posts. Since they automatically disappear after 24 hours, they are a great way to show the behind the scenes, and the everyday life of your company.

10) Chatbots

With AI technology improving, the popularity of chatbots is increasing right along with it. Chatbots are software programs that render answering to customer messages much faster, thus helping to increase sales. The bots do the responding to messages, so no real person has to.

11) Voice search

Verbal communication with search engines and virtual assistants has already been introduced by Alexa, Siri, and Google some time ago. As Internet users are relying on it more and more it cannot be ignored.

It also creates a bit of a challenge for digital marketers. Unlike with text search, the voice search often generates only one, the most relevant result that gets shown and read to the user. SEO experts might need to rethink, which keywords to optimize for, as only the one top result will get all the credit.

Mixing digital marketing channels

When you have chosen digital marketing channels for your business:

• Set actionable goals you will be able to measure with specific KPIs;
• Remember to track the expenses and ROI.

Don’t be afraid to experiment and learn from your mistakes! Mix your chosen digital marketing channels to create a unique marketing strategy that works for your business, and introduce new channels and techniques to see how they perform. It’s also important to remember, more new trends might emerge through the years, so always make sure you are up to date.

We’re here to help you ensure excellence and increase revenue from digital marketing efforts. Read more about our Growth marketing services or simply drop us a line at [email protected].

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