Most businesses today aren’t relying on a single marketing channel, but are combining them in ways that make them work harder. This doesn’t mean that every business puts all channels at full force all the time, but rather makes the best use of a combination that works for their needs and their customers as well.
In a pre-pandemic world, a lot of these channels thrived independently. Now, more recently, businesses have discovered that different channels are complementary and when the right mix is found, the whole performs better than any singular piece could.
Paid Advertising is Still a Great Foundation
For many businesses, paid advertising is a great way to establish a foundation. Google Ads, Facebook Ads, and display ads give you powerful control over who sees what message, when. What’s also great about paid channels is that you can generate traffic pretty quickly if you tailor your targeting appropriately.
However, what’s changed in recent years is that businesses no longer rely on paid channels for success. Instead, they use paid channels to enhance their other efforts. Whether it’s giving paid reach to the content that performs best organically or retargeting those who’ve engaged elsewhere to see your products and services again, businesses are paying attention to which ads get action beyond clicks, and it isn’t based on anecdotal evidence alone.
Costs can run up pretty quickly if you’re not careful, which is why most companies are combining paid advertising with channels that can gain momentum over time.
Social Media Partnerships and Creator Collaborations
For many businesses, a large component of their successful marketing comes through working with others who’ve already established an audience. Whether that’s through an influencer management agency to engage with creators in a reputable space or growing relationships with industry voices to reach communities that trust those individuals.
The benefit of such connections is authenticity. Although they can come in the form of sponsored content or collaborative projects where either party gets equal exposure, either way, if someone in your audience already follows content about your product or service, it carries validity that purchased advertising doesn’t have.
Businesses that leverage creator partnerships are doing so as part of a bigger picture. The content that’s created can be shared on channels you already own. The awareness can be captured through email signups or retargeting ads—a momentous presence that’s easy to keep adding to.
Content Marketing Provides Longevity Value
Content marketing, such as blogs, videos, and podcasts, takes time to build up value, but once it’s published, it works for you for much longer than expected. A great article or helpful video can appeal to new customers for months and years after publishing. This is why so many businesses invest here.
The key is publishing content that answers questions your audience has—not content just for the sake of having content. Those who know how serious this can become are finding content marketing one of their most reliable new channels for customers. It creates trust that merely having advertising cannot do alone.
Email Allows You to Talk to People Who Want to Hear from You
Email may seem like an archaic channel—but it’s one of the highest converting methods. If someone gives you their email address, they’re telling you they want to hear from you.
Businesses use email as a consistent means of communicating with potential customers and existing ones—sharing sales updates and nurturing leads who aren’t quite ready yet. The businesses using email best are treating their lists with respect—valuable information beyond simple sales pitches.
Email works well with content as well; if you’ve written something useful, people want to stay tuned for more information like it down the line. This creates an easy channel through which people want to connect.
SEO Brings You People Who Are Already Searching for What You Offer
Search engine optimization is the practice of ensuring the right keywords and threads work correctly so that people find your website if they’re searching for elements similar to what your business provides. It takes time to scale up, but once the right content is ranking well, it gives you free traffic from people already looking to engage.
The businesses that use SEO best aren’t focusing on keyword stuffing; instead, they’re thinking about the questions their customers truly have and how their page might genuinely help answer them, which is precisely what search engines want to show people.
SEO works best with content marketing—inherently valuable pieces give you a chance to rank. Each great piece compounded over time provides you with various searches that people will hopefully find once they’re searching for those effective little nuggets.
How Do Businesses Decide Which Is Best?
Most businesses assess where their audience spends most and how they’re buying decision-makers. A B2B selling company might emphasize a hybrid approach through LinkedIn and email; a consumer brand might highlight more social partnerships, creator collaborations, or video efforts alongside content marketing.
It’s also best not to do everything all at once. Instead, find two or three channels that make sense for your business, execute them well, then expand; attempting everything all at once will most likely result in half-cocked efforts across the board.
Budget also matters. Paid channels require constant attention and money. Content and SEO require time (or expert allocations). Partnerships might be initially costly, but scale easily. Most are combining monetary efforts with time-and-labor-based endeavors so that the efforts naturally work sustainably over time without overwhelming immediate pressures.
Making Them All Work Together
The best results come when all channels work together. When your great content can be shared across your other social presence, when your email list helps launch another effort, when your PPC efforts can highlight your most effective organically-performing content, and when your partnerships create content you can use down the line elsewhere, this is where the best results come from.
Businesses seeing the best success are thinking about their marketing as a system, not separate tactics, and they’re measuring what’s working well before adjusting what’s failing. This is where growth happens.
