We asked our digital marketing experts and they’ve narrowed it down to five essential digital marketing channels that you should focus your efforts on in 2021. Let’s take a closer look at them.

SEO and content marketing
Search engine optimisation (SEO) has been a digital marketing essential for more than twenty years now. SEO has been viewed by some as a bit of a dark art – half chance and half some sort of magic. This is simply not the case.

It’s true that Google and other search engines keep their algorithms close to their chests. However, there are some sure-fire SEO strategies you can use to get results. Foremost among these is sound content marketing. Unless your website/blog contains high quality content that is optimised for search engines (and for your customers!), you simply won’t feature on search engine results pages (SERPs). The technical side of SEO is just as important and is where the science of SEO has a greater role to play. 

SEO and content marketing are essential for directing prospects to your website where they can be converted into customers. Studies indicate a sixfold higher conversion rate among marketers who use content marketing. So, you’re not only getting more leads, but you’re also increasing sales.

Paid search and display ads
Search engine marketing (SEM) or pay per click (PPC) advertising (e.g., Google Ads) involves creating attractive ads that appear during searches for keywords that you have bid on.

This is an effective strategy for placing your brand on the results pages of search engines such as Google and Bing, without relying on ‘organic’ placements.

Paid search and display ads on search engines are particularly helpful to businesses who operate in highly competitive market spaces where getting high rankings through SEO is extremely difficult.

SEM increases brand awareness and visibility. But, more importantly, SEM delivers a notably higher conversion rate than most other digital marketing channels. The average conversion rates for Google Ads is around 4.4%, while for social media ads it is around 0.71%. That’s not to say you should not use social media ads, as they too have their place in your digital marketing strategy, and we’ll take a look at that next.

Facebook Marketing
While some may consider Facebook a bit of a dinosaur amongst the social media platforms, it remains hugely popular with over two billion monthly users making it one of the most effective social media platforms for extending brand reach across a broad spectrum of audiences.

When using Facebook paid advertising as part of your social media campaign, it is vital that your content is targeted specifically to your prospects. Keep your audience and the goals you wish to achieve with your ads (leads, sales or brand awareness) firmly in mind, and this user-friendly platform will pay dividends.

YouTube Marketing
YouTube feels like it’s been around forever, and it’s a channel that’s been somewhat under-utilised by marketers, until more recently. Today, YouTube ranks as the second most visited site in the world after Google and ahead of Facebook.

Coupled with the fact that almost 70% of YouTube users claim that watching videos helped them to make a purchasing decision, it’s no wonder more and more businesses are turning to video marketing. In fact, the number of small-to-medium sized businesses advertising on YouTube has doubled over the past two years. So, it’s well worth looking into video marketing on YouTube.

TikTok Marketing
Keeping an eye on new social media channels is also important. TikTok, a relative newcomer to the scene, already tops both Instagram and Twitter in terms of average engagement rates across all follower levels. 

The most popular ways to use TikTok at the moment are to create your own channel for your brand and to partner with influencers to spread content. Paid advertising on TikTok is emerging and we’ve seen great success for some of our e-commerce clients, however it is still early days. Watch this space for more insights on this powerful medium.