On-line marketing is the set of strategic powerful tools and methodologies used for promoting products and services through the internet using various methods and techniques. It includes a wide range of marketing elements than traditional business marketing lacked and create better conversion and engagement opportunity. With the boom of social media, mobile application and web platform, online marketing is considered to be highly efficient and effective. From facebook to twitter to Instagram to any other form of online media the precision and the reach of online marketing is phenomenal and accurate.
A key benefit of using online channels for marketing a business or product is the ability to measure the impact of any given channel, as well as how visitors acquired through different channels interact with a website or landing page experience. Of the visitors that convert into paying customers, further analysis can be done to determine which channels are most effective at acquiring valuable customers.
Online marketing can deliver benefits such as:
- Growth in potential
- Reduced expenses
- Elegant communications
- Better control
- Improved customer service
- Competitive advantage
Online marketing is also known as internet marketing, web marketing, digital marketing and search engine marketing (SEM). It can be described in many ways but it has one thing that makes it common is the internet. You can use various application and technique to reach to millions with just a touch of a button creating a viral trend. There are hundreds of different methods and tactics involved with Internet Marketing. With all the options, the hardest part of Internet Marketing is figuring out what tactic will work. And, what tactic will work best for your business.
The ultimate goal for Internet Marketing is reach, engagement and conversion.
The main objectives are
-Drive traffic to your website
-Capture leads
-Convert those leads into customers
-Create repeat and referral business from those customers
Basically online marketing works in alignment with various aspect of technical and no technical elements, where some of the most important elements are given below:
1. Design Matters:
It is said that what appeals is what sells so designing is such an aspect that requires to understand the customer’s choices and preferences. A user focused campaign is the most important element in internet marketing. The more the user friendly the interface or the design the more the chances of engagement and conversion. The goal of your campaign should be to convert visitors into paying customers. The first step in doing this is building trust. A nicely designed campaign suggests to visitors that you take pride in the way your product looks.
The design of your campaign is super important, its colors, its use should targeted to the right costumer at the right place and at right time. It’s an overall collaboration of everything.
2. Strategic Content:
A strategic content is appropriate, accurate, well-written, and timely written content with better resources and optimization technique. Strategic content is organized and discoverable. Strategic content is managed. If your content isn’t, Strategic Content is here to help. Check out our service offerings and contact us today to see how we can help put your content first. It means creating content that drives the user to a specific goal. Each and content should have one goal or desired task you want users to take your goals and desired tasks for conversion it may be:
-Purchase a Product
-Sign Up for Email Updates
-Download a Document
-Watch a Video
-Click a Link
Getting the visitors to complete these desired tasks is the job of your content. Your content tells people what to do with your website. And, more importantly, how they can do business with you.
The main idea is to make your content easy to read and understand. Make your paragraphs short. Long content doesn’t get read.
3. Create urgency or sense of giving:
Always have this in mind that when you do business people are not interested in giving their time and efforts for free. They need something of value which should entice them. People love free stuff and having received something in return for the people who gave their time increases the trust and credibility factors. When you give people free content that solves their problems, you also help them understand your company and position clearly which ultimately leads to the conversion. Try to create urgency giving offers and discount so that people have very less time to think and process the information. It always should create a sense of excitement and surprise for the client so that it proves to be interesting and creative.
4. Make It Simple:
The overall understanding and processing of the campaign is in seconds, one has to be very smart and prompt about the knowing the current trends and selling points. If your campaign is not processed well by the end-user, the main reason is your content and your marketing materials are not working together. They are actually confusing your customers. When your customer is confused they faced with too many decisions and too much information and they do nothing. The best way is to simplify creating clarity in the overall campaign’s look, presence and understanding so that it can be easily interpreted in the desired way. Simplifying helps to connect to end-users creating better opportunity of reach engagement and conversion.
5. Teach Your Visitors:
If you actually want to sell your products and services, concentrate on delivering value to your visitors. Teach them what you know. Education is what works online. Make it easy for your prospect to see herself using your product. Selling online is about education and clear communication. Make sure your prospect knows exactly what you want them to do. Sell your benefits and big ideas. What are you really selling?
6. Search Engine Optimization (SEO):
SEO is the simple technique of tweaking the campaign as per the standards of the search engine depending upon the standards. SEO encompasses both the technical and creative elements required to improve rankings, drive traffic, and increase awareness in search engines. It is the process of getting traffic from the “free,” “organic,” “editorial” or “natural” search results on search engines. All major search engines such as Google, Bing and Yahoo have primary search results, where web pages and other content such as videos or local listings are shown and ranked based on what the search engine considers most relevant to users.
There are many aspects to SEO, from the words on your page to the way other sites link to you on the web. Sometimes SEO is simply a matter of making sure your site is structured in a way that search engines understand. SEO isn’t just about building search engine-friendly websites. It’s about making your site better for people too.
In addition to making content available to search engines, SEO also helps boost rankings so that content will be placed where searchers will more readily find it. The Internet is becoming increasingly competitive, and those companies who perform SEO will have a decided advantage in visitors and customers.
7. Use Google Optimization:
Google rules the web and if you want more traffic and sales, you need to rank better on Google’s search page. Make sure you are using Google Webmaster tools and Google Analytics to further optimize your context and web page. This includes SEO and keyword optimization, but there’s more you can do to improve the quality of your website on Google. Improve your page load times. Google has made several announcements related to page load times. To improve your page load times, write good HTML code, compress or resize image files and take advantage of caching plugins if you are running your site on a content management system.
If you don’t have a Google Local listing, make one. Pay attention to Google and do the things required to expand your Google reach.
8. Engage in Social Media:
Social media is an important part of today’s online world. The entire goal of your social media strategy should be to get people to your website by expanding your sphere of influence. You want to use social media to get the word out so you can get new visitors back to your website.
The number one mistake I see business owners make is spending too much time on social media. If you are spending all day on Twitter and Facebook how much time are you spending on your website?
Your time should be spent writing blog posts, creating videos and strategic content for your business website. Use social media to spread the word. The updates to your Twitter, Facebook and other accounts should be done through an application so you can save time. Focus on your business, let social media spread your communications.
9. Email Marketing: Once you have built a subscriber email list of potential customers who may be interested in your products or services, email marketing is a very effective way to get the message out. You can keep them up to date with company news, upcoming events, and special offerings. You can send out newsletters and customized product or service offerings specific to the customer’s needs.
10. Tracking the Results of Internet Marketing: Whether your marketing strategies cost money or not, they all take time and other resources. You don’t want to waste time or money on tactics that aren’t delivering results, which means you need to track what’s working. There are many ways to determine what efforts are producing and those that aren’t. You can study your website’s analytics through your web host or by using Google Analytics. Most social media sites provide analytics (although you might need to use its paid options to get them) or you can use tools such as HootSuite to get your social media analytics. Your email list will provide you with information on the number of opens and clicks to your emails. When you find something that isn’t working, take some time to find out why before ditching it.
11. Competition:
Although online marketing creates many opportunities for businesses to grow their presence via the Internet and build their audiences, there are also inherent challenges with these methods of marketing. First, the marketing can become impersonal, due to the virtual nature of message and content delivery to a desired audience. Marketers must inform their strategy for online marketing with a strong understanding of their customer’s needs and preferences. Techniques like surveys, user testing, and in-person conversations can be used for this purpose. Online marketing can also be crowded and competitive. Although the opportunities to provide goods and services in both local and far-reaching markets is empowering, the competition can be significant. Companies investing in online marketing may find visitors’ attention is difficult to capture due to the number of business also marketing their products and services online. Marketers must develop a balance of building a unique value proposition and brand voice as they test and build marketing campaigns on various channels.
Online marketing is increasingly growing in its popularity in all types of businesses. In the past, internet marketing was something that was limited with in the technical companies and their associates, but now things have changes and it’s available to everyone. Now with increasing local search and people’s new habit of searching on the internet first, it matters. Widespread adoption of the Internet for business and personal use has generated many new channels for advertising and marketing engagement, including those mentioned above. There are also many benefits and challenges inherent with online marketing, which uses primarily digital mediums to attract, engage, and convert virtual visitors to customers.
Online marketing differs from traditional marketing, which has historically included mediums like print, billboard, television and radio advertisements. Before online marketing channels emerged, the cost to market products or services was often prohibitively expensive, and traditionally difficult to measure. Think of national television ad campaigns, which are measured through consumer focus groups to determine levels of brand awareness. These methods are also not well-suited to controlled experimentation. Today, anyone with an online business (as well as most offline businesses) can participate in online marketing by creating a website and building customer acquisition campaigns at little to no cost. Those marketing products and services also have the ability to experiment with optimization to fine-tune their campaigns’ efficiency and ROI.
