the most underrated digital marketing strategies

 some of the most underrated digital marketing strategies that businesses should consider:

**1. Video Content Marketing**

One of the most underrated digital marketing strategies is video content marketing. While many businesses have started to incorporate more video into their content, it is still an underutilized channel compared to the massive growth and potential of video platforms like YouTube, TikTok, Instagram Reels, and others.

Video content offers several key advantages for businesses:

- **Increased Engagement:** Video content typically sees much higher engagement rates compared to static text or image content. Videos capture attention and keep viewers engaged for longer periods of time.

- **Improved SEO:** Search engines like Google are prioritizing video content more and more in their search results. Having a robust video content strategy can significantly boost a website's search engine visibility and rankings.

- **Stronger Brand Awareness:** Videos are an incredibly effective medium for building brand awareness and affinity. They allow businesses to showcase their personality, values, and expertise in a more immersive and memorable way.

- **Versatile Content Format:** Videos can be repurposed and distributed across multiple channels - from social media to email marketing to your website. This makes video content an efficient and scalable part of your overall content strategy.

Some of the most effective types of video content for businesses include:

- Explainer/tutorial videos

- Product demos 

- Interview/Q&A videos

- Behind-the-scenes/company culture videos

- Webinars and live streams

The key is to create videos that provide genuine value to your target audience, whether that's educating them, entertaining them, or inspiring them. Investing in a quality video content strategy can pay major dividends for businesses.

**2. Influencer Marketing** 

Influencer marketing is another underutilized digital marketing strategy, despite its proven effectiveness. By partnering with relevant influencers in your industry, you can tap into their engaged audiences and build more authentic connections with potential customers.

The benefits of influencer marketing include:

- **Increased Brand Awareness:** Influencers help expand the reach of your brand to new audiences that may not have discovered you otherwise.

- **Higher Engagement Rates:** Content and recommendations from influencers tend to see much higher engagement rates compared to typical brand-produced content.

- **Greater Trust and Credibility:** Consumers are more likely to trust and be influenced by the recommendations of industry experts and thought leaders (i.e. influencers) compared to traditional advertising.

- **More Authentic Connections:** Influencer partnerships allow you to forge more genuine, personal connections with potential customers in a way that traditional marketing cannot.

When executing an influencer marketing strategy, it's important to carefully vet and select influencers that align with your brand values and have an audience that matches your target customer. You'll also want to establish clear partnership guidelines and create content that provides value to the influencer's audience, not just promotes your products or services.

Micro-influencers (those with 10,000 to 100,000 followers) can be especially effective, as they often have more engaged, niche-focused audiences compared to mega-influencers. However, a mix of micro, mid-tier, and even celebrity influencers may be optimal depending on your goals and resources.

**3. Personalized Email Marketing**

While email marketing is a relatively established digital marketing channel, it is still an underrated strategy for many businesses. The key is to go beyond batch-and-blast email blasts and instead focus on highly personalized, segmented email campaigns.

Personalized email marketing offers several key benefits:

- **Higher Open and Click-Through Rates:** Emails that are personalized and tailored to individual subscribers tend to see much higher engagement compared to generic mass emails.

- **Stronger Customer Relationships:** Personalized emails make customers feel valued and understood, helping to build deeper, more loyal relationships.

- **Increased Conversions:** Personalized email content that is relevant and useful to the recipient is more likely to drive the desired action, whether that's making a purchase, signing up for a service, or engaging with your brand.

Some strategies for implementing more personalized email marketing include:

- **Audience Segmentation:** Divide your email list into specific segments based on factors like demographics, interests, behaviors, and purchase history. This allows you to craft more relevant messaging for each group.

- **Dynamic Content:** Leverage dynamic content capabilities to personalize elements of your emails like the subject line, images, product recommendations, and calls-to-action based on each subscriber's profile and behaviors.

- **Triggered/Automated Emails:** Set up automated email workflows that are triggered by specific user actions, like abandoning a shopping cart or signing up for a free trial. These timely, personalized messages can be incredibly effective.

- **Personalized Product Recommendations:** Use data and machine learning to provide each subscriber with personalized product or content recommendations based on their interests and past engagements.

- **Hyper-Customization:** Take personalization to the next level by creating highly tailored email content for individual subscribers, such as sending a happy birthday message with a special offer.

The more you can leverage data, segmentation, and personalization in your email marketing, the more you'll be able to drive meaningful results and build stronger customer relationships.

**4. Conversational Marketing**

Conversational marketing is another underrated digital strategy that businesses should consider. This approach involves using real-time, one-on-one conversations to engage with customers and prospects, typically through the use of chatbots or live chat.

The benefits of conversational marketing include:

- **Improved Customer Experience:** Conversational interactions provide a more personalized, immediate, and helpful experience for customers compared to traditional static forms or self-service options.

- **Higher Conversion Rates:** The ability to have a live dialogue and guide customers through the buying process in real-time can lead to higher conversion rates.

- **Increased Lead Generation:** Chatbots and live chat can be effective lead generation tools, allowing you to capture contact information and qualify leads.

- **Valuable Customer Insights:** Conversational data provides valuable insights into customer behaviors, pain points, and preferences that can inform your overall marketing and product strategies.

Some of the key conversational marketing tactics to consider include:

- **Chatbots:** AI-powered chatbots can handle a wide range of customer service and sales tasks, from answering FAQs to booking appointments to making product recommendations.

- **Live Chat:** Enabling live chat on your website allows you to have real-time dialogues with customers and prospects, providing a more personal touch.

- **Messaging Apps:** Leveraging popular messaging apps like WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and SMS to have contextual, two-way conversations with customers.

- **Conversational Ads:** Incorporating conversational elements into your digital ad creative, such as interactive quizzes or polls, can boost engagement and lead generation.

When implementing conversational marketing, it's important to ensure the experience is seamless, helpful, and on-brand. You'll also want to have the right processes and tools in place to efficiently manage and scale these real-time customer interactions.

**5. Podcasting**

Podcasting is another underrated digital marketing strategy that businesses should strongly consider. Podcasts have seen exponential growth in recent years, with over 2 million active podcasts and over 100 million podcast listeners in the US alone.

The benefits of using podcasting as part of your digital marketing mix include:

- **Increased Brand Awareness:** Appearing as a guest on relevant industry podcasts or hosting your own show can significantly increase your brand's visibility and credibility.

- **Deeper Audience Engagement:** The intimate, audio-based nature of podcasts allows you to form stronger, more personal connections with your target audience.

- **Improved Thought Leadership:** Hosting your own podcast gives you a powerful platform to showcase your expertise, build authority, and position yourself as a thought leader in your industry.

- **Versatile Content Format:** Podcast episodes can be repurposed and distributed across multiple digital channels, from social media to your website to email marketing.

When getting started with a podcast strategy, consider the following approaches:

- **Guest Appearances:** Seek out opportunities to be interviewed as a guest on relevant industry podcasts. This allows you to tap into new audiences and share your expertise.

- **Collaborative Podcasts:** Partner with complementary businesses or industry influencers to co-host a collaborative podcast series. This can help you access new audiences and share content creation responsibilities.

- **Branded Podcasts:** Launch your own branded podcast focused on topics that are relevant and valuable to your target customers. This gives you full control over the content and branding.

Regardless of the approach, it's important to produce high-quality, consistently valuable content that provides a great listening experience for your audience. With the right strategy and execution, podcasting can be a powerful way to elevate your brand and drive meaningful business results.

**6. Augmented Reality (AR) Marketing**

Augmented reality (AR) marketing is a relatively new and underutilized digital strategy, but one that holds immense potential for forward-thinking brands. AR allows businesses to integrate digital elements and experiences directly into the physical world, creating more immersive and interactive touchpoints with customers.

Some of the key benefits of AR marketing include:

- **Increased Customer Engagement:** AR experiences are inherently more engaging and memorable compared to traditional digital content, as they allow customers to actively interact with your brand in unique ways.

- **Improved Conversion Rates:** AR features like virtual product try-ons have been shown to significantly boost conversion rates by allowing customers to visualize products in their own environment before making a purchase.

- **Enhanced Brand Experiences:** AR enables brands to create novel, innovative experiences that delight customers and strengthen brand affinity.

- **Valuable Customer Data:** Implementing AR features provides businesses with important customer behavior data and insights that can inform future marketing and product strategies.

There are a variety of ways that businesses can leverage AR marketing, such as:

- **Virtual Product Demos/Try-Ons:** Allow customers to visualize and interact with your products in augmented reality before making a purchase.

- **Interactive In-Store Experiences:** Create AR-powered experiences within your physical retail locations to drive foot traffic and engagement.

- **Gamified AR Campaigns:** Develop AR-based games, scavenger hunts, or interactive filters that encourage customers to engage with your brand.

- **AR-Enabled Packaging/Print Materials:** Integrate AR features into your physical marketing assets like product packaging, direct mail pieces, or print ads.

While the implementation of AR marketing may require more technical expertise and resources compared to some other digital strategies, the immersive, innovative experiences it can create make it a worthwhile investment for many businesses.

**7. Personalized Direct Mail**

In an increasingly digital world, personalized direct mail is an underrated and underutilized marketing tactic that can deliver impressive results. When done effectively, direct mail can cut through the noise of digital channels and create a more tangible, memorable brand experience for customers.

The key benefits of personalized direct mail include:

- **Increased Response Rates:** Customized direct mail pieces that are relevant and valuable to the recipient tend to see much higher response rates compared to generic mass mailings.

- **Stronger Brand Recall:** Physical mail pieces that are creatively designed and personalized are more likely to be remembered by the recipient compared to digital touchpoints.

- **Enhanced Customer Relationships:** Direct mail allows you to create a more personal, tactile connection with customers that can help build stronger brand loyalty.

- **Valuable Customer Data:** Tracking the response and engagement data from your direct mail campaigns provides valuable customer insights.

Some effective strategies for incorporating personalized direct mail into your marketing mix include:

- **Hyper-Targeted Mailing Lists:** Use customer data and segmentation to create highly targeted mailing lists that ensure your direct mail pieces are reaching the right audience.

- **Variable Print Personalization:** Leverage variable data printing to customize elements of your direct mail pieces like the recipient's name, location, purchase history, and more.

- **Dimensional Mailers:** Create unique, interactive direct mail pieces that incorporate physical components like samples, promotional items, or 3D elements.

- **Triggered Direct Mail:** Set up automated direct mail workflows that are triggered by specific customer actions, like a recent purchase or cart abandonment.

- **Multichannel Campaigns:** Integrate your personalized direct mail pieces with your broader digital marketing efforts for a cohesive, cross-channel customer experience.

While direct mail does require more upfront planning and investment compared to digital channels, the unique engagement and retention benefits it can provide make it a worthwhile strategy for many businesses.

In conclusion, there are numerous underrated digital marketing strategies that businesses should strongly consider incorporating into their overall marketing mix. From video content and influencer marketing to personalized email and direct mail, these tactics can help brands cut through the digital clutter, build stronger customer relationships, and drive meaningful business results. The key is to approach these strategies thoughtfully, leveraging data and creativity to deliver genuinely valuable experiences for your target audience.