Today, you're going to learn about eight marketing channels that can get visitors to your site.
In fact, these are some of the exact channels we've used to grow our business to over 33 million monthly visitors.
We’ll go over some different marketing channels in detail. So you can determine which ones make the most sense for your business.
Let’s start with some basics first.
What Is a Marketing Channel?
A marketing channel is a way businesses reach their customers to promote products or services.
Think of them as paths that connect a company to potential buyers.
Some common marketing channels include:
- Social media
- Direct email
- Organic search
- Digital advertising
Those are all examples of digital marketing. But there’s another type of marketing channel: traditional marketing (ways of marketing that aren’t online like in-person events and billboards).
In short, marketing channels help companies connect with prospects and drive sales.
8 Marketing Channels to Consider
While many of the most effective channels in marketing are digital, we’ve also included a (sometimes) traditional channel that can be quite effective.
Social Media
Social media can be a powerful way to connect with your customers. Because they naturally hang out on those platforms in their free time.
On social media, you can post content, respond to your followers, and even manage customer service issues. Plus, it’s free to post content.
One popular brand that uses social media effectively is Nike. They regularly post high-quality photos and videos on Instagram showcasing their products, athletes, and inspirational quotes and stories.
It's important to choose the right platforms. Because your target audience likely uses some but not others.
To find out where your audience spends their time, enter a competitor’s domain in One2Target and visit the “Behavior” report.
How to Get Started
Here’s how to start using social media marketing:
- Choose the right platforms for your business. Pick ones where your customers are most active.
- Create business accounts on these platforms. Fill out your profile with complete and accurate information.
- Plan your content. Decide what types of posts you'll share and how often.
- Start posting regularly. Share a mix of informative, entertaining, and promotional content.
- Engage with your followers. And respond to comments and messages promptly.
- Use analytics tools to track your performance and see what works best. So you can adjust over time.
Try Semrush Social’s Social Analytics tool to get insights into your social media performance.
The tool tracks engagement, reach, and audience growth across your social media platforms.
Email enables you to reach prospects directly in their inboxes. And it’s one of the best-performing channels—generating $36 for every $1 spent.
Using emails, you can:
- Keep your subscribers informed about new products or services
- Share valuable content that answers your audience’s questions
- Offer special deals or promotions
- Reach out to past customers to encourage future purchases
Take the example of beauty brand Sephora. They send regular emails with product recommendations, beauty tips, and exclusive offers.
Image Source: ReallyGoodEmails
Messages like this keep Sephora top of mind and can encourage recipients to make purchases.
One of the main perks of using email is that you can personalize your messages based on what you know about your customers. Which may improve performance.
How to Get Started
To begin with email marketing:
- Choose an email service provider that fits your needs and budget. Mailchimp is a popular choice among beginners.
- Create ways for people to sign up for your emails. You can use pop-up forms or embedded sign-up fields on your website.
- Grow your email list by offering something valuable in exchange for email addresses. You can provide a free ebook, a discount code, etc.
- Plan what types of emails you'll send—newsletters, promotions, updates, etc.
- Design email templates that match your brand. Most email service providers (including Mailchimp) offer pre-designed templates that you can edit to fit your needs.
- Write clear and engaging content for your emails
- Send emails regularly, but don't overdo it. Once a week or once every two weeks is often enough.
- Use the analytics your email service provides to see what works best
- Always include an easy way for people to unsubscribe if they want to
You can use the AI Writing Assistant to craft compelling email content quickly and easily.
Aside from the email body copy, the tool also helps you generate good subject lines and calls to action (CTAs) to improve the effectiveness of your email campaigns.
Organic Search
Organic search refers to the non-paid search results on search engines like Google and Bing. And it can put you directly in front of users searching topics relevant to your niche—without having to pay for ads.
To appear in these results, you’ll need to focus on search engine optimization (SEO). Which involves improving your website for search engines and users.
Bellroy (a company that sells accessories like wallets, bags, and phone cases) is seeing great results through SEO.
They appear in the top 100 search engine results for almost 74,000 keywords. Which brings around 370,000 monthly visits to their website, according to Domain Overview.
Organic search is also valuable in that once your site begins to rank well, you can get traffic for a long time.
How to Get Started
To attract traffic from organic search:
- Do keyword research to find out what words people use when searching for topics related to your products or services
- Create high-quality content on your website that uses these keywords naturally
- Make sure your website is free of technical SEO issues
- Get other trusted websites to link to your site. In other words, get backlinks.
- Use tools like Google Search Console and Position Tracking to understand your website’s organic search performance
- Regularly update your content to keep it fresh and relevant
- Be patient—it can take time to see results from SEO efforts
Use Semrush’s Keyword Magic Tool to find relevant keywords for your business.
It provides tons of keyword ideas based on a single, broad term you enter.
Digital Advertising
Digital advertising involves showing ads across the web. And it can start driving traffic, leads, and sales almost immediately.
There are many types of digital ads you can run. For example, you can:
- Run text ads to be shown to Google searchers
- Display image ads on websites
- Show video ads before, during, and after YouTube videos
- Show sponsored posts on social media platforms like Facebook or Instagram.
Take Airbnb as an example. They often use colorful, eye-catching ads on social media to show off interesting places to stay.
Just keep in mind that there are costs.
Many ads use a pay-per-click (PPC) model, meaning you pay for every click on one of your ads. And it can get expensive if you don’t carefully manage your campaigns.
How to Get Started
To run digital advertising campaigns:
- Choose where you want to show your ads (Google, LinkedIn, Instagram, etc.) and create your accounts. These platforms have ad management capabilities.
- Decide what you want to achieve with your ads (e.g., more sales)
- Set a budget for how much you want to spend
- Create your ad content, which can include ad copy and eye-catching images or videos. You might also want to research your competitors’ ads for inspiration.
- Choose who you want to show your ads to based characteristics like age, location, and interests
- Monitor performance and adjust as needed
Wondering how to study your rivals’ ads?
Use the AdClarity – Advertising Intelligence app.
You can track their ad placements, expenditures, performance, and more to gain valuable insights for your own campaigns.
Influencer Marketing
Influencer marketing involves working with experts and individuals who have large followings to promote your products or services. Which puts your brand in front of their audiences.
Influencers can talk about your products or services, show how to use them, or share why they like them. Which can feel more natural and trustworthy to followers than traditional ads.
For example, many beauty brands work with influencers on social media. These influencers might show how they use the brand's products in their routines.
How to Get Started
To do influencer marketing:
- Look for influencers who have relevant audiences you want to reach
- Contact them and discuss the goals you want to achieve with your campaign (like increasing brand awareness or boosting sales)
- Discuss what you want them to do (like write a post or create a video)
- Agree on payment or other compensation (e.g., free products)
- Give the influencer creative freedom while ensuring they follow any important guidelines
- Track results to see how successful they’ve been
Use Influencer Analytics to find potential influencers for your brand.
It provides valuable information about each potential influencer. Like their total follower count, estimated fees for collaborations, etc.
Podcasts
Podcasts are audio shows that people listen to online. And can be a great way to connect with an entirely new audience to generate brand awareness and loyalty.
You have three main options:
- Start your own podcast
- Be a guest on someone else’s podcast
- Advertise on other people's podcasts
Starting your own podcast and being featured on someone else’s both let you talk about topics related to your business. Which can add value for listeners and build trust with them
For example, Basecamp has a podcast called “REWORK” where they discuss entrepreneurship, productivity, and other niche-relevant topics.
Advertising on other people’s podcasts can also be an effective strategy. Because you can tap into a potentially engaged listener base.
How to Get Started
Assuming you want to produce your own podcast, here’s what to do:
- Choose what topics you want to cover. Ideally, your topics should relate to your business in some way.
- Get basic recording equipment like a good microphone and editing software. Audacity is an excellent choice for beginners.
- Plan out your first few episodes and start recording
- Upload your podcast on hosting platforms like Apple Podcasts and Spotify in addition to your website
Video Marketing
Video marketing involves creating and sharing video content to promote your brand, products, or services. And works especially well when you upload to YouTube.
Why?
Because people use YouTube as a search engine. Meaning, you can show in the search results when they try to find videos on topics related to your business.
There are many ways to approach video content:
- Give helpful tips related to your industry
- Showcase behind-the-scenes footage of your business
- Make clips that your audience is likely to find funny or interesting
For example, Blendtec created a series of "Will It Blend?" videos where they tried to blend unusual items to show how strong their blenders are. And uploaded them to YouTube.
These fun videos greatly increased their brand awareness.
How to Get Started
To get started with video content:
- Decide what types of videos would be most interesting to your audience
- Start with a simple setup—even a smartphone can work well
- Create short, engaging videos
- Use editing software to put your videos together
- Choose where to share your videos (like YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram)
- Add captions to your videos for accessibility
- Track your performance to see what resonates
Events
Events are online or in-person gatherings where you can connect with prospects. Often in real time—making them great for building relationships.
There are many types of events you can use for marketing:
- Trade shows where you can set up a booth
- Workshops where you teach people something valuable
- Launch parties for new products
- Online certificate courses
For example, Apple holds annual events to launch new products. To generate excitement and media coverage for their latest devices.
How to Get Started
To begin using events as a marketing tool:
- Decide what type of event fits your business and goals
- Choose a date and venue (or online platform for virtual events)
- Plan your content (e.g., choose speakers, create presentation slides, etc.)
- Promote your event through your website, social media accounts, and email lists
- Engage with attendees and collect contact information
- After the event, follow up with attendees to gather feedback and use what you learn to improve future events
Use Semrush Social's Social Poster tool to promote your events across different social platforms.
This tool can help you efficiently schedule and manage your event-related posts.
Get the Most Out of Your Marketing Channels
As you've seen, there are many marketing channels you can use to reach your customers and grow your business.
And Semrush offers a comprehensive suite of tools to help you maximize your efforts across these channels.
Sign up today.