Digital marketing has come a long way, even since social media first arrived on the scene. Tactics like pay-per-click advertising are vastly different from their first inception. Tactics that seemingly worked marketing magic just a few years ago may fall flat today.
Think about how much search engine optimization (SEO) has changed in a few short years. For years, marketers focused on creating keyword-rich content and used techniques like article distribution – only to backtrack after Google’s algorithm updates and frantically attempt to have all their duplicate content removed. 
It’s up to marketers to keep pace with the ever-changing digital media landscape. Those who fail to keep up with the emerging channels and strategies will inevitably fall behind. To bring you up to speed, here are five digital advertising strategies you should be using in the modern marketing landscape.
- Try your hand at video marketing. YouTube may have started the video revolution, but today, YouTube is just one piece of the video marketing puzzle. Social networking apps like Vine and Instagram (and even Snapchat) have made short video clips – just six to 15 seconds in length – massively popular in a very short period of time. YouTube is now the second largest search engine thanks to the growing consumption of video content for everything from entertainment to pre-purchase research, tutorials, and more. How to do it? You don’t have to hire a production studio. Tap into your creativity and make use of readily-available tools to make professional-quality videos on a budget.
- Take advantage of sponsored poolfunding. Digital media has armed consumers with the ability to conduct in-depth pre-purchase research, evaluating several products and services before making a purchase decision. Companies like Great Agencies use sponsored poolfunding to make comparison shopping simple, by listing the top vendors in a category on a single page with independent ratings of key performance indicators (KPIs). Companies like yours benefit from sponsored poolfunding by contributing to an advertising fund with the other vendors in your space, which is then used to purchase strategic advertising. The pooled funding model means that participating vendors generate multiple times the amount of exposure than they’d generate with the same dollar investment in a stand-alone campaign.
- Go mobile. Is your website optimized for mobile devices? If you heard about Mobilegeddon, you already know that being mobile-friendly is now a ranking factor for Google’s search algorithm. But a mobile-friendly website isn’t the only thing you need to succeed in the mobile world. Everything is going mobile, from consuming content to watching videos and opening emails. Everything you do should be carried out with the mobile audience in mind.
- Dip into paid advertising. Nothing in life is free. You can spend 40 hours every week working your organic social media campaigns, but the tide is quickly turning to the point at which getting real results means spending real cash. That’s not to say you can’t generate good results with organic marketing methods, but being open to investing in smart digital strategies and doing so strategically can produce substantially better ROI compared to the time investment you’re committing to those organic initiatives. Paid advertising isn’t just limited to advertising in the Google SERPs. There’s the Google Display Network, AdWords for Video, and of course Bing Ads and paid social media advertising on platforms like Facebook, which offers sophisticated audience targeting options for producing exceptional ROI.
- Offer an online course or create an ultimate guide. Content still rules the day, but it’s all about tapping into alternative delivery methods to reach a wider audience. You want to educate, entertain, and inspire your audience. Offering an online course is one way to repurpose and deliver your content (and your expertise) in another format. Udemy is one of the most popular platforms for delivering online courses, among many others. Focus on offering value and giving your audience something they can use.
Of course, there are many digital marketing strategies companies are employing with great success, and your overall strategy shouldn’t be limited to the five strategies above. Organic social media, blogging, email marketing, and SEO are all strategies that should continue to be a piece of your larger digital marketing pie. But incorporating these must-have strategies to your comprehensive marketing campaigns will help you reach and engage a larger audience.
This article was syndicated from Business 2 Community: 5 Digital Advertising Strategies You Should Be Using
More Digital & Social articles from Business 2 Community:
- Top 7 Social Media Management Tools
- Marketing Automation: The ROI Reality [Infographic]
- 3 Trends That Will Change the Future of Online Advertising
- How To Be A Digital Marketing Superstar
- 2015 Guide to Responsive Web Design
