9 Digital Marketing Channels to Focus on in 2025

Looking for the best digital marketing channels to help you grow your business?

Today, businesses must have a strong online presence to effectively reach and engage with their target audience. But with so many digital marketing channels available, knowing where to focus your efforts can be overwhelming. 

In this article, we’ll explore some essential digital marketing channels you can consider to boost your online presence.

What are Digital Marketing Channels?

Digital marketing channels are online platforms and tactics used to connect with potential and existing customers. They allow you to build brand awareness, generate leads, and ultimately drive sales. Examples can include search engine optimization (SEO), social media marketing, email marketing and more.

The Importance of Leveraging Digital Marketing Channels

The benefits of utilizing a strategic mix of digital marketing channels are numerous:

• Increased brand awareness: Reach a wider audience and establish your brand in the marketplace.
• Improved lead generation: Attract potential customers and convert them into paying customers.
• Enhanced customer engagement: Build relationships with your audience and foster brand loyalty.
• Measurable results: Track the performance of your campaigns and adjust your strategies for optimal results.
• Cost-effective marketing: Digital marketing channels offer various options to fit any budget.
• Scalable marketing: Digital marketing channels make it easy to scale your marketing efforts. As a result, you can easily grow your customer base and business. 

Discovering the best digital marketing channels for your business is crucial to outperforming your competitors and growing your business.

9 Types of Digital Marketing Channels to Focus On

Now that you know what digital marketing channels are, let’s dive into those you should leverage.

1. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

SEO is the practice of optimizing your site and its content to rank higher on search engine results pages (SERPs) for relevant keywords and phrases. Improving your site’s visibility on search engines like Google has 2 main benefits:

• Increase organic traffic (unpaid traffic), thereby reducing your marketing and customer acquisition costs
• Reach more potential customers who are actively searching for your products or services.

SEO is the most powerful digital marketing channel because it helps you attract people who are already interested in your content, product, or services. 

Another benefit of SEO is that it’s a great way to build credibility. When people find you in organic searches, it instills a sense of trust in your brand. Studies have found that users prefer organic results to paid ads on SERPs.

But for them to find you, your site and content must outrank your competitors. To do this, you need to use website optimization tools. If your site is built on WordPress, consider using a good WordPress SEO plugin. A great example is All In One SEO (AIOSEO), a plugin over 3 million marketers and bloggers trust.

The plugin is so popular because it has many powerful features designed to help you properly configure your SEO settings. Examples include:

• Cornerstone Content: Easily build topic clusters and enhance your topical authority and semantic SEO strategy.
• Search Statistics: This powerful Google Search Console integration lets you track your keyword rankings and see important SEO metrics with 1-click, and more.
• SEO Revisions: Track any changes you make to your site and see their impact on your SEO. Plus, you get to see on a timeline how Google updates affect your site.
• Advanced Robots.txt Generator: Easily generate and customize your robots.txt file for better crawling and indexing. 
• TruSEO Highlighter: Makes it easy to spot on-page SEO issues and gives recommendations for fixing them.
• Next-gen Schema generator: This no-code schema generator enables users to generate and output any schema markup on your site.
• Link Assistant: Powerful internal linking tool that automates building links between pages on your site. It also gives you an audit of outbound links.
• And more.

The best part is that all these features don’t require any coding or technical knowledge for you to use. Plus, if you’re a local business, AIOSEO has many other features to help boost your local SEO. It even has a tailor-made WooCommerce SEO module to help you rank your online store higher in search rankings.

For step-by-step instructions on how to install AIOSEO, check our detailed installation guide.

SEO Tools to Consider

Other SEO tools you can include in your digital marketing toolbox include:

• Broken Link Checker: Find and fix broken links that hamper search engines from properly crawling and indexing your content.
• SEO Analyzer: A free SEO audit tool that helps you check your site’s SEO implementation and identifies areas that need improvement.
• Semrush: is a powerful digital marketing tool with various functions, such as keyword research, content analysis, competitor analysis, and more.

For more tools, check out our comprehensive list of the best SEO marketing tools. 

With organic search results accounting for 45.1% of all clicks on search results, SEO is definitely the best digital marketing channel for growing your business. 

2. Social Media Marketing

With over 5 billion active users across various platforms, social media is one of the most effective digital marketing channels you can rely on.

Social media marketing involves using platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn to spread the word about your brand and products. Social media sites provide microblogging capabilities, perfect for sharing brief but impactful content in a bite-sized manner. This is especially impactful for users who don’t like reading blog posts.

One of social media’s biggest advantages is that it offers a powerful way to connect with your target audience, build brand awareness, and engage with customers. By creating valuable content and fostering a strong community, social media can be a game-changer for driving brand loyalty and sales.

Besides organic reach, you can also run paid ads on social media. These can give you more reach, resulting in an uptick in leads and sales.

Social Media Marketing Tools to Consider

Some tools to consider for your social media marketing include:

• Smash Balloon: This suite of plugins enables you to display social media feeds on your site. The Instagram feed plugin also makes integrating Instagram Shopping on your site easy.
• Click Social: This social media management platform allows you to manage multiple social media accounts from your WordPress dashboard.
• Buffer: Buffer is a powerful social media management tool that can help you automate publishing content on social media. This helps with consistent posting.

We’ve put social media high on the list because it works well with SEO. Check out our guide on SEO vs. social media for more information.

3. Content Marketing

Content marketing involves creating and distributing valuable, relevant, consistent content to attract and retain a clearly defined audience. This can include blog posts, videos, podcasts, infographics, and more. By providing high-quality content that educates and informs your target audience, you can establish your brand as an authority in your industry and nurture leads through your sales funnel.

One way to boost the authority and impact of your content is to meet Google’s E-E-A-T content guidelines. AIOSEO makes this easier thanks to its Author SEO module.

The core premise of content marketing is to establish your brand as a trusted authority in your industry. This is done by consistently delivering high-quality content that resonates with your target audience. Doing so can build strong relationships, increase brand awareness, and drive profitable customer action.

Content marketing can take various forms, including:

• Blog posts: Creating informative and engaging blog articles on topics relevant to your industry or audience interests can establish your brand as a thought leader and drive organic traffic to your website.
• Videos: Video content, such as product demonstrations, educational tutorials, or behind-the-scenes glimpses, can effectively communicate complex ideas and connect with audiences on a more personal level.
• Podcasts: Audio content, like podcasts, can provide in-depth insights, interviews, or discussions on industry-specific topics, allowing listeners to consume content on the go.
• Infographics and visual content: Visually appealing content, such as infographics, images, and interactive elements, can effectively convey complex information in an easily digestible format, increasing engagement and shareability.
• Whitepapers and guides: Comprehensive resources, like whitepapers and guides, can position your brand as an expert by providing detailed, research-backed information on topics relevant to your industry.
• Case studies and success stories: Showcasing real-life examples of how your products or services have helped customers can help build trust and credibility with potential leads.

As with social media marketing, content marketing is closely linked with SEO as they feed into each other. Remember, high-quality, relevant content can improve your site’s search engine rankings, driving organic traffic and increasing online visibility.

Content Marketing Tools to Consider

Which tools can help you run impactful content marketing campaigns?

• SEOBoost: SEOBoost is a full-suite content management platform that can help with everything from topic research to creating content briefs to content audits and everything in-between.
• Ahrefs: Ahrefs is a comprehensive digital marketing toolkit with many features. Some of its most common tools include Site Explorer and Keyword Explorer, which are great for competitor research and developing comprehensive SEO content strategies.
• Exploding Topics: Exploding topics is a powerful digital marketing tool that can help you identify and capitalize on emerging trends and topics in your niche.
• ChatGPT: ChatGPT is a powerful AI tool that can help with various content marketing tasks. Examples include content ideation, outlining, and first drafts. Alternatives include Claude, Copy.ai, and Scalenut, among others.

To maximize the impact of content marketing, it’s essential to develop a well-planned content strategy, consistently produce high-quality content, and promote it through various channels 

4. Email Marketing

At its core, email marketing involves building a targeted email list of subscribers who have opted-in to receive communications from your business. Because they volunteered, it’s easier to drive engagement and sales. Your email list can be segmented based on various factors, such as demographics, interests, purchase history, or engagement levels, allowing for highly personalized and relevant messaging.

Key benefits of email marketing include:

• Direct line of communication: Email provides a direct line of communication between your business and your audience, enabling you to share valuable information, promotions, and updates directly in their inboxes.
• Cost-effective: Compared to many other marketing channels, email marketing is relatively low-cost, making it accessible for businesses with limited marketing budgets.
• Measurable results: Email marketing platforms offer robust analytics and tracking capabilities, allowing you to monitor open rates, click-through rates, conversion rates, and other key performance indicators (KPIs), enabling data-driven optimization.
• Automation and personalization: Email platforms make setting up automated email campaigns triggered by specific user actions or behaviors easy. You can even personalize content based on individual preferences and data.

The biggest disadvantage of email marketing is that building an engaging email list takes time. But once that is done, you have a ready-made customer base you can tap into for life.

Email Marketing Tools to Consider 

• WP Mail SMTP: WP Mail SMTP is a WordPress plugin that enables you to send emails directly from your site. The plugin is so effective that over 3 million websites use it to send different types of emails.
• Constant Contact: This is one of the best email marketing platforms for digital marketers, particularly one-person teams. One reason is that it’s easy to use despite having unparalleled functionality compared to other eCommerce email marketing solutions.
• Omnisend: Omnisend is another email and marketing automation platform that ranks high on many digital marketing tool lists. It’s an all-in-one email and SMS marketing solution that helps you run personalized marketing and sales campaigns.

Email marketing can be a powerful tool for building lasting relationships with your audience, driving conversions, and achieving long-term business growth. For more details, check out our guide to combining email with SEO.

5. Push Notifications

Push notifications are a powerful way to engage with users via their web browsers and a fantastic way to drive engagement. These real-time, personalized messages can be sent directly to users, providing a direct line of communication between you and your target audience. 

You can use push notifications to remind users about promotions, new products or services and encourage them to take desired actions.

Push notifications offer several advantages over traditional marketing channels. Top examples include:

• Immediate delivery: Push notifications are delivered instantly to users’ devices, ensuring that time-sensitive messages, updates, or offers are seen promptly.
• Personalization: Push notifications can be tailored and segmented based on user preferences, behavior, location, and other factors, allowing for highly personalized and relevant messaging.
• Increased engagement and retention: By delivering timely and valuable content or offers, push notifications can significantly boost user engagement and retention as well as customer loyalty.
• Increased sales: Push notifications are a great way to boost your sales by sharing time-sensitive deals, personalized offers, or upsell and cross-sell opportunities.

When implemented thoughtfully and with user experience in mind, push notifications can be a powerful marketing channel that can help foster stronger connections with your audience.

Push Notification Tools to Consider

• PushEngage: PushEngage is one of the best push notification software on the market. The plugin sends popup notifications straight to users’ desktop and mobile browsers, making it a must-have digital marketing tool for every serious marketer.
• OneSignal: OneSignal is a popular push notification tool with features similar to PushEngage’s. You can use it to create automatic push notifications, announcements, abandoned cart notifications, and more.
• VWO Engage: VWO Engage has a web push notifications tool that works on both desktop and mobile. It’s designed to let you create push notification campaigns with entry and exit triggers. That means the campaign can automatically start based on the user’s actions, such as clicking a particular link.

Strike the right balance with your push notifications is crucial to avoid overwhelming or irritating users. Test which cadence is best. Otherwise, you’ll end up with many unsubscribes.

6. Video Marketing

Video marketing is another digital marketing channel you should leverage for business growth. It has emerged as a powerful and highly effective way for businesses to connect with their audience, convey their brand messaging, and drive engagement and conversions. 

The exploding popularity of video content across various platforms, including social media platforms like YouTube and TikTok, has made video marketing an essential component of any comprehensive digital marketing strategy. Video also goes beyond social media and can be used on websites, streaming services, webinars, and much more.

Some key benefits of video marketing include:

• Increased engagement: Videos are highly engaging and captivating, making capturing and holding viewers’ attention easier than text-based content. Well-crafted videos can evoke emotional responses, foster brand connections, and leave lasting impressions.
• Improved brand storytelling: Video provides a powerful medium for telling your brand story, showcasing your products or services, and communicating your unique value proposition in a visually compelling and memorable way.
• Boosts SEO: Optimized video content can significantly improve your brand’s visibility on search engines. As a result, you can attract website visitors who prefer video content.
• Increased conversions: Video can be highly effective in guiding viewers through your sales funnel, showcasing products in action, addressing common objections, and ultimately driving conversions and sales.

To maximize the impact of video marketing, it’s essential to develop a cohesive video strategy aligned with your overall marketing goals. You should also design an impactful video SEO strategy to ensure your videos get seen on SERPs.

Video Marketing Tools to Consider

Video marketing has become easier thanks to the power of AI. Anyone can create professional-looking videos. Some AI-powered video creation and marketing tools include:

• Lumen5: This tool uses AI to automatically transform text, images, and data into engaging video content. It can analyze your content and create visually appealing videos without the need for extensive editing.
• Pictory: Pictory uses AI to analyze video content and automatically generate metadata, tags, and transcripts, making it easier to search, organize, and optimize video assets.
• ElevenLabs: This is an AI platform that allows you to create realistic and natural-sounding synthetic voices for various applications, including video content.

With tools like these, video marketing is less daunting. So go ahead and get started today.  

7. Search Engine Marketing (SEM)

Search Engine Marketing (SEM) refers to the practice of using paid advertising on search engines to drive traffic to your site or product. This digital marketing channel involves bidding on relevant keywords and creating ads that appear at the top of SERPs. Examples of SEM include:

• Search Ads: These are text-based ads that appear at the top or side of SERPs on platforms like Google, Bing, etc. They also include text and display ads on websites and apps. 
• Social media advertising: This includes all types of ads displayed on social networks like Facebook, LinkedIn, X, TikTok, etc.
• Retargeting/Remarketing: This strategy involves tracking visitors on your site wherever they go on the internet and showing them relevant ads.

The key for small businesses is to experiment with different SEM tactics. Monitor performance and focus on the channels and strategies that deliver the best return on investment (ROI) for your specific business goals and target audience.

SEM Tools to Consider

• Google Keyword Planner: Google Keyword Planner is a powerful digital marketing tool provided by Google. It’s free and is intended to help marketers discover keywords for their PPC campaigns.
• SpyFu: This tool allows you to uncover your competitor’s paid advertising strategies, including the keywords they’re bidding on and the ad copy they’re using.
• Answer the Public:  Answer the Public is a great brainstorming tool that helps you generate content ideas based on real user search queries.
• WPBeginner’s Keyword Generator Tool: WPBeginner’s Keyword Generator Tool is a great tool for finding over 300+ keyword ideas for your SEM campaigns.

By leveraging the right SEM tools alongside a strategic digital marketing plan, you can significantly improve your search engine visibility, attract more qualified traffic to your website, and ultimately achieve your business objectives.

8. Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is a performance-based marketing strategy in which businesses reward third-party publishers, known as affiliates, for driving traffic or sales to their products or services. It involves partnering with influencers, bloggers, content creators, or other businesses with a strong online presence and an engaged audience.

The core premise of affiliate marketing is to leverage the reach and influence of these affiliates to promote your brand, products, or services to their audience. Affiliates are incentivized to promote your offerings through a commission structure, where they earn a percentage of the revenue generated from each sale or lead they refer.

Here are some key aspects of affiliate marketing as a digital marketing channel:

• Affiliate tracking and attribution: Affiliate marketing relies on tracking mechanisms, such as unique affiliate links or coupon codes, to attribute sales or leads to specific affiliates and calculate their commissions accordingly.
• Commission structures: Commission rates and payment models can vary widely, ranging from a fixed amount per sale to a percentage of the sale price. Some businesses also offer recurring commissions for subscription-based products or services.
• Affiliate recruitment and management: You must actively identify and recruit potential affiliates that align with their brand and target audience. Effective affiliate management involves providing resources, creative assets, and support to ensure affiliates can effectively promote their offerings.

Affiliate marketing can benefit businesses of all sizes. It allows you to tap into new audiences and leverage the trust and credibility of your affiliates. However, it’s crucial to establish clear guidelines, monitor affiliate activities, and ensure compliance with relevant laws and regulations, such as disclosure requirements for sponsored content. Automation tools make this easier.

Affiliate Marketing Tools to Consider

• AffiliateWP: AffiliateWP is the best affiliate management plugin for WordPress. It helps you transform your WordPress site (or WooCommerce store) into a thriving business by making it easier to build an army of marketers to help sell your products.
• Easy Affiliate: Easy Affiliate is another WordPress plugin to consider when looking to leverage affiliate marketing as a digital marketing channel. The plugin enables you to create a self-hosted affiliate program on your WordPress site. 
• Pretty Links: Pretty Links is a WordPress plugin you should install on your site if affiliate marketing is a part of your business model. It’s one of the best link management plugins for WordPress, allowing you to manage affiliate links easily. 

By carefully selecting and nurturing affiliate partnerships, you can expand your reach, drive targeted traffic, and potentially increase sales and revenue through a performance-based marketing model.

9. Word of Mouth/Referral Marketing

While word-of-mouth marketing (WOMM) and referral marketing have been longstanding marketing tactics, they have taken on new significance in the digital age. With the rise of social media, online communities, and the increasing reliance on peer recommendations, businesses can leverage the power of word-of-mouth and referrals to drive growth and acquisition in powerful new ways.

Some key aspects of word-of-mouth marketing include:

• Social media amplification: This is where you encourage your followers on social media to help promote your product or share their reviews or testimonials.
• Online reviews and ratings: Online review platforms, such as Google Reviews, Yelp, or industry-specific sites, have become crucial sources of social proof for potential customers. Actively encouraging satisfied customers to leave positive reviews and addressing negative feedback can significantly influence purchasing decisions.
• Referral programs and incentives: Implement referral programs to incentivize existing customers to refer friends, family, or colleagues. You can do this through unique referral codes or links. Incentives can range from discounts or rewards to cash bonuses, creating a win-win situation for both the business and the referring customer.
• Influencer marketing: Partner with influential individuals or content creators with a strong following and credibility within your target audience. This can amplify word-of-mouth marketing efforts. Influencers can share authentic experiences, recommendations, or sponsored content that resonates with their followers.
• User-generated content (UGC): Encourage customers to create and share user-generated content, such as photos, videos, or personal stories featuring your products or services, which can serve as powerful social proof and foster a sense of community around your brand.
• Employee advocacy: Empower and encourage your employees to share their experiences, insights, and recommendations about your brand and its offerings. This helps you tap into their personal networks and leverage the trust and credibility they hold with their connections.

To effectively leverage word of mouth and referral marketing in the digital age, you must focus on delivering exceptional customer experiences (CX. You should also encourage and incentivize customers to share their positive experiences, thereby fostering a strong online presence and engagement with your target audience.

Word of Mouth Marketing Tools

• TrustPulse: TrustPulse is a WordPress plugin that can help you nail WOMM. It’s a FOMO (fear of missing out) and social proof plugin that shows notifications to your visitors as they browse your website. These include user engagement, purchases, popular products, and signups.
• RafflePress: RafflePress is the best WordPress giveaway plugin on the market. The plugin allows you to create giveaways and contests that encourage participants to spread the word about your brand. 
• Thrive Ovation: Thrive Ovation is an excellent testimonial management plugin that helps you leverage social proof to attract customers.
• Referral Candy: Referral Candy is a plugin that helps you run referral programs on your site. The plugin lets you set up a rewards system for customers who refer their friends and family.

Additionally, monitoring and responding to online conversations, reviews, and feedback is crucial. This is because negative word of mouth can spread quickly in the digital realm and potentially damage a brand’s reputation.

Choosing the Best Digital Marketing Channel for Your Brand

Choosing the right digital marketing channel can feel overwhelming, but fret not! You can tailor your approach to make the most impact by understanding your brand and target audience. Here’s a simple roadmap to guide you:

Know Your Audience

Start by identifying your target audience, including their demographics, interests, behaviors, and online habits. Different digital channels are better suited for reaching specific audience segments.

Consider Your Marketing Goals

Determine your primary marketing objectives, whether it’s increasing brand awareness, driving website traffic, generating leads, or boosting sales. Different channels excel at different goals.

Analyze Your Resources

Assess your available resources, including budget, time, and skillsets. Some channels require more investment (e.g., paid advertising) than others (e.g., SEO, organic social media).

Analyze Your Competitors

Check out your competitors and see what’s working for them. This will help you maximize your marketing budget and get a good return on investment (ROI).

Digital Marketing Channels: Your FAQs Answered

Digital marketing channels are your online platforms and tactics to connect with potential and existing customers. They allow you to build brand awareness, generate leads, and ultimately drive sales. Examples can include SEO, social media marketing, email marketing and more.

The best channel selection hinges on understanding your target audience and your marketing goals. Consider your ideal customer’s demographics, online behavior, and content preferences. Align your brand voice and personality with the chosen channel. Finally, analyze your competitors and see where there might be opportunities to differentiate yourself.

SEO is the best digital marketing channel, mainly because it is low-cost and produces lasting results. Plus, with SEO plugins like AIOSEO, running impactful campaigns is super easy.

We hope this post helped you know the main digital marketing channels you can leverage to grow your business. You may also want to check out other articles on our blog, like our tutorial on SEO for membership sites increasing organic traffic or our list of the best free SEO tools.

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Kato Nkhoma
Content Writer

Kato is one of those rare unicorns born with a pen in his hand—so the legend says. He’s authored 2 books and produced content for hundreds of brands. When he’s not creating content for AIOSEO, you’ll find him either watching tech videos on YouTube or playing with his kids. And if you can’t find him, he’s probably gone camping.