There are plenty of tried-and-true digital marketing strategies out there that have been used for decades. With every company in your niche using similar strategies, how can you stand out?

You don’t want to completely abandon all the old strategies: they work, after all! But you do want to give them a fresh twist to make sure you’re getting the most from them. That way, your audience won’t feel like they’ve seen it all before.

Here are 5 tips you can use to make old Digital Marketing Strategies feel new again:

1. Pay Attention to Changes in Google’s Algorithms

An important part of any digital marketing strategy is to consider whether it will help your website rank on Google. It’s become increasingly clear over the past couple of decades that Google is by far the most popular search engine out there, so you need to be sure that you’re creating content that will rank well on Google. (Plus, where Google goes, other search engines rapidly follow.)

For instance, writing regular blog content has always been part of a good digital marketing strategy. But if you started writing blog posts ten years ago, you might have been writing 800-word pieces on a daily basis. Today, writing a long-form post once a week might well be more effective – both for Google and with your audience.

2. Use New Technology to Enhance Old Strategies

Some digital marketing strategies have been around so long that they’ve undergone significant transformations. Email marketing, for instance, has been popular for decades. But email software increasingly offers more features like the ability to segment your email list.

Make sure you’re keeping up with how technology is changing and how you could enhance your digital marketing efforts by using new features – or new tools altogether. Even something as simple as using Canva to create professional-looking custom graphics or trying out a different webinar app could make a big difference to your digital marketing results.

3. Always Put Your Audience Members First

Some old digital marketing strategies were effective – but at a cost. For instance, buying email lists and spamming lots of people may have resulted in some sales without much effort, but it was definitely not a good way to market, and could now easily fall foul of anti-spam legislation.

Whatever digital marketing techniques you use, make sure you’re putting your audience members first. Don’t try to use tricks to get more traffic – like keyword stuffing (which might actually harm your site’s rank in Google, these days). By putting your audience first, and creating content that truly serves them, you’ll rank well in Google and build a trustworthy brand.

4. Combine Two Different Digital Marketing Strategies

Bringing together two old digital marketing strategies can make them feel fresh again. By combining two ideas, you can create something that’s more than the sum of its parts – engaging customers who might have become tired of a lot of companies using similar strategies.

One way you might do this is by bringing together social media, particularly a newer site such as TikTok, and blogging. You could create a blog post or even a guest post that brings together a lot of different social media posts, adding commentary on them or links to other material on the same topic. Rather than seeing your digital marketing strategies as individual and separate concepts, look for ways to combine them and get more from them.

5. Use More Automation and Customization

One of the biggest advances in digital marketing technology over the past 10 – 15 years is the increased ability to automate and customize your marketing campaigns. For example, on Facebook, you can very precisely target a specific audience for your ads (such as targeting people who follow a competitor’s page). 

By using automation and customization effectively, you can target the right message to the right person at the right time. That might mean sending out automated emails if a customer abandons their shopping cart, personalized to include a list of the items they had in their cart. It could also include sending automated SMS messages.

Good digital marketing definitely doesn’t mean reinventing the wheel: if there are solid strategies that have stood the test of time, you should definitely be using them.

However, that also doesn’t mean falling back on lazy techniques that don’t get you the return on investment you’d like to see. By constantly seeking to improve on the past, and by bringing together newer and older strategies, you can bring a fresh approach to digital marketing.