Top 3 Underrated Marketing Channels That Can Drive Massive Growth To Your Business

A lot of people start a business with the idea that a great product will do the marketing itself.

They spend months, even years, building away, trying to perfect the product that they've imagined.

"If only we can get this feature, and that feature, oh... and this one too, then this will surely be a success!"

Long after, they're finally ready to launch, the product is going to be a hit right out the gate.

They press the button and it's official!

One day in, there were 12 visitors, it was the owner looking over the site 12 times throughout the day.

A week later, there was nothing but crickets.

How could this be? How could no one want a great product?  

Unfortunately, life rarely ever rewards people with a blessing so powerful.

I made this same mistake when I started my first ever business.

As soon as I learnt about dropshipping, I immediately went on to perfect everything and it took me months to build a store and launch the products.

A great product is never a solution to bad marketing.

In many instances, actually, a mediocre product can be revived through great marketing.

Therefore, it's no secret that platforms like Google, YouTube, and even Facebook, make billions in profits from advertisers all around the world.

Marketing is extremely powerful and will only grow ever more effective as technology and innovation advance.

Simply put, the only way people will buy your product is if they know about it.

Building a product that's better than the competition is a great advantage, in fact, it's the whole point of business. 

Entrepreneurs are rewarded with riches and status in order to keep innovating and make the world a better place.

However, when no one knows that you've created something great, no one's going to be able to buy it.

That's why marketing is very important.

As it becomes easier to start a business, entrepreneurship becomes more popular, the internet and advertising platforms get more competitive, it can get harder and harder to be seen.

We've covered starting a business before, picking a super-profitable niche, but now it's time to think about how you can actually start driving traffic to your business.

All of the marketing channels discussed today will be underrated channels that not many businesses explore.

Let's begin!

Podcasts

Podcasts are constantly growing in popularity and so it's important to join in whilst we're still on the way up.

Personally, I love listening to podcasts whilst traveling, and sometimes, I even spend a little extra taking a longer way home in order to get a little more listening time.

Previously, I would have nothing but music playing in my ears until I realised that traveling was taking up a large majority of my days.

Although that time has decreased, I still spend a few hours a week, at least, traveling and so it's beneficial to listen to a podcast whilst I'm commuting.

This is also true for a massive segment of our population, lot's of people travel to work, whether it's public transport, driving, or even walking.

That means that you're able to capture people's attention when they're at their most vulnerable.

Listening to podcasts, I've noticed myself pay a lot more attention to what's being said than when I'm just sitting down and watching things on YouTube, for example.

With that said, I also tend to notice and show more interest in the sponsors or adverts when they're coming directly from the podcast hosts themselves.

Podcasts are conversational and feel like you're partaking in a chat with the hosts.

This brings a better, more human, less salesy side of your business out to the audience.

On top of the higher attentiveness, people are a lot less likely to skip podcast ads since it's such a hands-free experience.

Bing advertising

Before you get confused or click off, I know that Bing is an ant compared to Google.

Google owns over 90% of the search engine market share making them the single most effective way to advertise your business.

With that said, however, it's also the single most expensive and most competitive way to find your audience.

Through simple supply and demand, when the demand for google ads goes up, the price also increases too.

The reality is that Google's popularity and the number of advertisers will only increase.

This is a good thing for us as small business owners or businesses in general.

When the sheep are all flocking to one thing, you should be the wolf who goes the other way.

The world is run by FOMO and a herd mentality - whatever the crowd does, we should follow, right?

Going back to supply and demand, when Google's demand for ad space increases, the advertising space for other platforms like Bing decreases.

This also leads to a price decrease for Bing ads meaning you're paying less per click on Bing than on Google.

Bing actually works too, there have been many businesses who found some great success using Bing ads.

Keep an eye out for an article in the coming months where I discuss the most effective channels I've used for marketing my SaaS business - Hawk Prospecting.

Although I'm currently using similar strategies to the ones discusses in this article here, paid ads will be a big engine of growth for Hawk Prospecting in the future.

This stands true for any other search engine other than Google, or social media too.

Microsoft Edge is another option.

Alternatives to Facebook could be Reddit ads, Quora ads, etc.

Find hidden gems and test them out to see if your business finds success with those platforms.

You never know, you might find something that skyrockets your business' growth.

Influencers

Finally, influencers have quickly become a massive rave.

With platforms like TikTok, it's easier than ever to grow an audience of thousands, or even millions of followers.

This has led to an uprise in influencers and entertainers on platforms like TikTok or Instagram.

You probably already know my opinion on social media - spoiler alert: I hate it.

However, when we're talking about social media as a means of growing your business, as an advertising resource, then social media is a gem.

Social media is where everyone's attention is at.

With this said, it can be a very great asset to your business if you have relationships with influencers.

The great thing about this method is that if you're able to network with these influencers and nurture relationships with them, you might be able to get advertising for free.

On the other hand, if you're looking to adopt some of these techniques immediately, you'd be able to leverage micro-influencers.

Micro-influencers are not your regular influencers, the ones with millions of followers.

Micro-influencers are the smaller set of influencers with 1000s or tens of thousands of followers.

These people will usually have a targetted list of followers in a specific niche, beauty, business, gaming, etc.

You'd be able to partner with micro-influencers to get cheap promotions to a large audience.

In my case, I owned a marketing agency for a long time.

Therefore, I know and have even spoken to some of the influencers in the space of digital marketing.

Therefore, when I want help getting the word out about Hawk Prospecting, it's easy to just go to the influencers in the digital marketing space and ask.

When it comes to influencer marketing, make sure that you do a bit of due diligence first before you make a decision on the influencer.

Talk to them, ask about previous campaigns and their results.

Check their post engagement and make sure that their audience is somewhat attentive to what they share.

That's it! Those are the three (or more) underrates marketing channels that can drive massive growth to your business.

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Till next time,

Mohamad