Guide to Online marketing: Online Marketing Strategies

3 Critical Questions To Ask Before Online Marketing

Online Marketing Strategies: Online marketing can be extremely beneficial for you if you completely understand how to do it and know exactly what you are dealing with. With millions and millions of people using the Internet all over the world, Internet marketing is like a free ticket to having as big of an audience as you would like, but do you know how to do it?

Am I selling something that people will benefit from?

There are a few things you need to ask yourself before you dive into Internet marketing.  Ask yourself the following: Am I selling something that people will benefit from? Put yourself in your potential audience’s shoes and think, will you buy your own product if you had been the spectator? If no, it’s not only pointless, it’s also a waste of time, money and energy.

Just think about it, piping hot coffee doesn’t really sell in places where there is lots of sun, and ice cream doesn’t always sell in places where it snows.  Make sure that your product is something that people will want to buy if they learn about it.  It doesn’t need to be a complicated product; it can be as simple as a kitchen utensil or a cleaning agent.

Who am I selling this product to? 

Just be sure that it is something that will be worth your customer’s money. Who am I selling this product to? Narrowing down your target audiences will save you a lot of peace of mind and will keep you sane for a longer time.

Targeting the general public as your main audience is madness. So choose – are you targeting teens? Housewives? Children? Senior citizens? Having a specific target audience will also help you more when it comes to improving your product.

You may even eventually be able to think of another product that you may want to try and sell to them.  Remember, people will not buy something just because they  “feel like it”. They want to be able to make the most of what they paid for.

Am I using modern technology and communication to its full potential? 

We now live in a world where computers do almost everything and phones are not the only things that people now use to stay in touch with each other.

Though it may not look like it, social media sites actually hold much power in helping you succeed with your online marketing. Millions of people have their own profiles on Facebook alone and that is already one way of getting word out to them.

If you make a fan page for your product and first inform your acquaintances about it, those people can refer that to their other friends and those friends can do the same. You might have a bigger audience sooner than you expected.

Online marketing is one of the best tools that almost every enterprise uses these days because it effectively helps in getting the word out and it can help you find people that may be looking for the exact same services you offer.

Online marketing does not need to be so complicated. Sometimes it is better to stay simple and target a small audience instead of targeting a really big audience. At least when your product doesn’t end up being successful, you will not have lost so much money and wasted so much effort.

Related reading: How to choose right digital marketing mix

Digital Marketing strategies for startups & new businesses

Here are some bullet points for digital marketing strategies for startups:

• Identify the target audience and develop a brand positioning strategy that appeals to them.
• Create a professional and user-friendly website that is mobile-responsive and optimized for search engines (SEO).
• Develop and execute a content marketing strategy that includes blog posts, videos, infographics, and guides that provide value to the target audience and help establish the brand as a thought leader in the industry.
• Leverage social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram to connect and engage with the target audience and drive traffic to the website.
• Consider using influencer marketing to expand the reach of the brand and connect with new potential customers.
• Experiment with paid advertising channels such as Google Ads, Facebook Ads, and LinkedIn Ads to drive traffic to the website and increase brand awareness.
• Implement email marketing campaigns to nurture leads and stay connected with current customers.
• Utilize analytics tools to track and measure the success of digital marketing initiatives and make data-driven decisions about which tactics to continue pursuing.
• Focus on developing a strong search engine optimization (SEO) strategy that emphasizes building high-quality, relevant content that is optimized for specific keywords and user intent.
• Continually test and innovate to stay ahead of the competition and keep the brand fresh and relevant in the minds of target customers.

In the age of the internet, digital marketing is essential for any business that wants to succeed. However, it can be difficult to create an effective digital marketing strategy, especially for startups with limited resources. There are a few key things to keep in mind when creating a digital marketing strategy for a startup.

First, identify the target audience and create content that appeals to them.

Second, use social media platforms to reach potential customers where they are already spending their time.

Finally, don’t be afraid to experiment with different tactics and track the results to see what works best for the business. By following these steps, startups can create a successful digital marketing campaign and build a strong foundation for long-term success.

Web Marketing & Traditional Marketing

The world of industrialization has rapidly spread its webs all across the globe and the use of internet has also contributed a lot for the promotion of business. Today, the internet acts as the best player in determining whether a business will be able to run smoothly or not. Web marketing services also termed as internet marketing has played the best role in the overall functioning and scenario. Web marketing is just a perfect blend of technique and talent. It enables the success of many sectors in today’s business world.

Search engine

Today more and more are opting for the use of the web for marketing and even selling of their products. Every single company whether operating on a small or a large scale prefers to have their own website. This is done in order to attract more and more customers. Marketing and promotion have become easier with the web marketing services. Many people have the logic that web marketing includes a lot of strategies and techniques but it is not the correct idea. All you need to access web marketing is just internet and marketing skills. Search engine optimization is the main thing that you need to know along with its uses.

Needs of web marketing

You must be known that in order to find the things that people are looking for they need to enter the keywords that are related to their search products and services. Help from any experienced person or professional can be of great convenience to you. When with the help of traditional techniques you are advertising about your business evaluation and analysis of many things dare not required at all. There you simply need to perform a survey and make out the likes of people which include information’s like what your customers want to see and hear about the product that you are offering and so on.

Comparison between web marketing service of today and traditional marketing methods

Web marketing service you will able to collect lots of information’s about the promotion criteria of the web. Through the method of e-technique you can even approach a great number of customers in comparison to the traditional techniques of marketing. Today with the invention of internet people like to collect details about shops and other things from their home sitting at their own desk. They neither need to spend money or travel anywhere.

If you have the perfect expert requirement for your marketing then web marketing services can be proved to be very useful for you. Like when you do something good for your company or offer something then obviously it will be related to your company. Similarly, when you use the web marketing services correctly it can reach out a large database of consumers.

No matter whatever style you prefer to employ if you use the system in the correct direction all your advertisements will get effective results. 

The Importance of Online Marketing and Investing in Online Advertising

Investing in online marketing and advertising is extremely important for any business. In doing so, you will increase your chances of getting website traffic and producing a profit online. If you go with the right company, it’s almost guaranteed that your profit will improve online. Below, you’ll find what online advertising can do for you and why it is essential that you begin considering these types of services.

Establish rankings on search engines through SEO

Search engine optimization is one of the more popular online advertising options. While it is not a guaranteed method, and getting traffic could take a considerable period of time, search engine optimization is highly profitable. The goal is to get your website to rank for targeted keyword phrases that people are searching.

For instance, if you own an automotive business, you may want to rank for targeted keyword phrases like “Seattle automotive repair” or “Chicago automotive repair.” Depending on where you are located, these types of searches could get thousands of searches on a monthly basis on websites like Google. If you were to rank number one for the search phrase, your business could explode with additional profit.

Now is the time to start investing in search engine optimization so that you can get rankings for your website and start making more money as a business. If you are not already doing this, you could be missing out on thousands of dollars a month that your business could be making.

Related reading: Top SEO Tips

Advertise directly on Google, Yahoo, Bing or niche related websites!

Another reason why investing in online marketing is extremely important because you can also advertise directly on websites like Google. If you don’t have time to wait for your website to climb the rankings was search engine optimization, you can pay for direct ads. This is called pay per click advertising and essentially, you use the Google Adwords program to get advertisements on the Google search engine.

After you create your ad, it will be displayed based on targeted keyword phrases that are related to your products and services, much like with SEO. The difference is that every time your listing is clicked, you will have to pay money. This is why it is called pay per click advertising and while it can be expensive, it’s something you should definitely consider.

Online advertising is a great way to improve your profit and make your business more successful. If you are not adapting to new technologies, then you are behind the times and your business is going to suffer.

Online marketing is the future of businesses today. You can see it yourself, whenever somebody wants to find a business anymore, they don’t go to the Yellow Pages or the phone book, they go to online websites like Google and they conduct a search. Google is now on people’s cell phones, it’s on their tablets and it’s on their PCs. People have easy access to search for businesses online and you need to start considering online advertising.

Related reading: Online ads

3 Important Online marketing strategies

The birth of the internet has transformed the business world, over the years as advancement comes to the internet, more systems to aid success in business were born, these systems ranges from online applications, website platforms and the rest. The internet has presented the most effective and cheapest business tools. To be able to utilize these tools, you need to develop some online marketing strategies to rank your business as the leading.

3 online marketing strategies to rank your business in Google

Social Media

This is the first, easiest and the most utilized online marketing strategies. Platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google+, LinkedIn, Pinterest and the rest are now widely utilized to grow business, the system involves creating a Fan page for your brand on these media, and create a social environment where people can get information about your product and services.

The page must be uniquely treated and kept alive for you to get more fans. It is easier for information about your product to go viral within the shortest period of time on social media, and what you get in return is a boom in your business.

Related reading: How social media marketing helps in improving SEO ranking

Use Blog

It is needful to link your social media audience to a location where they can learn more about your business, it is impossible to stuff them with the full information they needed on social medium, your blog is one the main online marketing strategies, you can sell products or add affiliate links to your blog, you are free to insert an online payment system, so that your prospective customers would just pay to you and need not to undergo any other stressful process. Blogging is a important part of online marketing strategies.

Related reading: Guest blogging , How to start a blog, Best types of blog that make money

ORM and SEO

ORM means online reputation management while SEO means search engine optimization, the two goes hand in hand and they are very hot online marketing strategies may sometimes even yield results than the social media.

You may give out a test version of your product to bloggers to review on their blog for their loyal audience to see, this will also help in optimizing your online office for search engines, your links on the other blogs will serve as a backlink and ranks your website high on search engines.

Some bloggers will request for a token to get your product reviewed, while some will do it for you free of charge, but the test copy will be a reward. Sometimes you may pay freelancers to get your links into sites to build your SEO, a process called guest posting. These interwoven methods are very good online marketing strategies.

These are the three hottest online marketing strategies you shouldn’t avoid. There are some others that are great methods, feel free to share them.

Related reading: How to do online reputation management

Online Marketing Ideas for Supposedly Boring Industries [Mostly B2B Segment]

It is not always that you get to write about upwardly mobile products that will be lapped up the second the come to the shelves. There are a number of times, when the product or service that you are writing for, is about an industry that is not a part of the ‘cool’ brigade.

For example, while writing for a kind of PVC pipes, you don’t really expect the social media circuit to go overboard in sharing your content online! The job becomes tougher when you have to write about a product that is not just ‘uncool’, but expensive as well. In other words, the product is for a niche buyer group. How do you tackle such projects in terms of online marketing? Let us look at some ideas.

Online marketing ideas for products that have niche buyer group

Target the Influencers

The first point to keep in mind while developing content marketing strategies for such products or services is that you have to identify the influencers in that particular industry. To borrow from the above example, you can save a lot of time and effort by targeting influencers in the PVC industry instead of common buyers.

You can get in touch with an expert plumber or interior decorator, someone who is known to use quality products. Once you get the approval and endorsement from this particular professional, you will have it easier to persuade common buyers to pick up your products.

Content Marketing Tips

The development of content and its deployment is very crucial while selling such niche products. You will do well if you try to draft content keeping in mind the target group of readers instead of content ideas or SEO. With the help of your marketing team, identify the group of consumers who will buy your product. Develop your content with these readers in mind.

The targeted reader group will give you content ideas on topics that will interest them and ensure that you have the right goal in mind. With your objective very much in sight, it becomes easier to write and promote content. Links and content marketing comes by anyway when you know whom you are selling to and write likewise.

Related reading: How to build backlinks?

Knowing the Audience

The strategizing for online marketing for the so-called boring industry becomes less of a burden when you have a change in thinking. The content is never boring. It is how you present is that makes it seem boring. After all, no matter what you write, the product will be bought by people who need it. It will not be picked up by people who like your writing!

So, instead of writing for people who will not buy it anyway, why not write for people who will? Take their interest into consideration and shed light on their concerns. That will be the best parameter for selecting topics. You may write well-researched pages but it comes to naught if it does not sell products. You can do that with a close eye on who you are selling to. Never lose sight of your audience.

The Amplification Machinery

After you are done with writing, it is now up to the PR team to spread out your work and influence online. For boring industries, it is even more important that the online amplification machinery is well aware of the final destination of a marketing message. Wrap up the marketing motto accordingly. The industry is not what is boring here. It is your outlook. You have to overcome that and innovate on the traditional set pieces.

For the online PR process, you need to look at the local scene as well, if you are selling to locals. The geographical boundaries become important, so does the demographic ones. The promotional machinery must always remember to continue with the process to enable search engines and other online platforms to pick you up as a serious player. It also helps you to get noticed.

The Final Word

The supposedly boring industries need a different approach. Nothing more! You have to think in a way that is innovative, keeping the demands of the industry in mind. It also requires improvisation to a large extent. However, at the most fundamental base, you have to stop thinking of the product as part of a ‘boring’ industry.

Your thinking will make a big difference and help you come up with strategies to make it interesting for potential buyers. Target the right group online and you can develop internet marketing strategies that pay dividends and better ROI.

Related reading: How to generate leads online? & How to increase conversion rate?

Proper research in internet marketing – success key for your online business

Actually there are several key factors that play an important role behind the successful operation of any internet marketing business. A visually attractive website along with enticing and search engine optimised content and proper promotion are considered to be the key elements of a successful internet marketing venture but apart from everything else a comprehensive and in-depth internet marketing research may very well be the most important factor to determine a successful internet marketing policy.

Market Research Gets Social – Infographic

Source: Telligent

With the proper kind of market research you can be well acquainted with the exact demand of the people that would be visiting your website as everyone online has their distinct set of desires and demands that you need to fulfil and it is only after a well conducted research about the market you are going to invest in you may have a chance to make your online business endeavour a smashing success.

Asking to the different forums specifically related to the business you are going to invest in can provide you with a lot of useful information and about the demographic character of the visitors and clients which will prove to be immensely helpful to determine the right business policy for you.

Market Research Infographic About Users Activity Online

Proper research in internet marketing is of immense importance regardless of the size of the business. Both small and large scale online investments and business policies highly depend on the feedbacks from the research in internet marketing in order to achieve the organisational dreams and also to undercut the competition in the specific market in which you are going to put your money.

Related reading: Growth of digital marketing in India

How a proper research in internet marketing can help

A proper research in internet marketing can help you a number of areas regarding your business like

• Deciding on the target market to formulate the right marketing strategies by providing you with an idea about how the customers are going to receive your products. This information may prove helpful before you plan to introduce a new product in the market and reduces the risk of suffering a loss.
• Having a clear idea about the competition that you are going to face will help to prepare yourself better in order to survive the competition in a more efficient way. With an in depth research in internet marketing you will also be able to locate the underserved consumer segments and consumer needs and planning your business marketing policy depending upon it may yield unexpected results for you.
• The most prominent significance of having a thorough research in internet marketing is that it will be easier to design your promotional activities and advertisements according to the preferences of your target market and also to maximize your profit margin by increased sale. Understanding the preferences and choices of your prospective clients is going to prove exceptionally important to draw in more traffic to your website and naturally increase the sales of your online products.

Market research is of immense importance for building authority of your website. For that you need to know the various authority building channels and then you have to research further on each channel that suits your business the most.

Related reading: Step by step guide to do digital marketing

Website Authority Building Infographic

Source: VerticalMeasures

A properly designed research in internet marketing should concentrate in three most important areas of any online business. It should make the website owner to have every detail regarding his target audience along with the type of content that will provide the site with a better search engine ranking and last but not the least is the amount of money you need to invest in your online business.

Infographic about digital marketing budget

Online marketing is dependent on offline Word of mouth as well

The conventions of online marketing have changed drastically in the last couple of years. The number of websites has shot up and people are now more aware of SEO, PPC and social media. As a result, they are savvier about online marketing and internet marketing tools. That is all very good, except for a single and simple hitch: the consumers are savvy too! Because of this little hitch, they spot an internet marketer a mile away and recognize internet marketing approaches even in their dreams! In other words, if you want success as an internet marketer, you have to rethink your marketing strategies.

Let us begin with that age-old advantage that quality business companies have: word of mouth publicity. In the information age, the positive word of mouth publicity is more important than ever. In fact, it is the only credible and authentic way in which customers can be brought into your website or business domain. How do you get a positive word of mouth publicity going? Firstly, improve your service and customer relation. That is the work of your customer care department, online and offline. Customers must be happy about being associated with your business. That is the only way in which they will refer you to other friends and peers.

Related reading: How to make your content viral?

There are various ways in which you can catalyze the word of mouth publicity process. You can ensure that customers who love your brand have the power to share your content or refer you to friends easily. Give them access to share buttons for Facebook and Twitter. Allow them to immediately refer your web page by email to their contacts. In short, facilitate the process of spreading the word in passive ways instead of asking them to do so, like you used to in the good old days! If you do that now, they will simply hit spam and walk away! Referrals work only if the process is organic and the user is willing to share their thoughts.

Build up the trust factor by expression solidarity with your existing customers. Be prompt in sorting out their issues and also make them feel welcome with their queries and questions. This feeling will surely gush out into positive referrals for your business. After all, if the user likes their stay and experience with you, only then will they come back with people they know.

Is your Online Marketing Initiative Mobile-friendly?

This is the question that most internet marketers are concerned about today. More than 45% of internet users check their emails and also search for products and services through mobile devices, especially smartphones. In order to tap this consumer base, you have to make some tweaks in your online marketing plan.

For example, email marketers have to keep some basic mechanics in mind for those consumers who will read their emails on smartphones. They have to get to their marketing message even faster! Smartphone users are not going to scroll down on their mobile devices (small enough as the screen is) to finally locate your core text. In other words, you have to get to the point quickly.

For websites that are planning to target Smartphone or mobile users, small changes are required in their mode of functioning as well. To begin with, get rid of Flash intros that take a lifetime to upload. These were a pain on computers itself, so they are excruciating when it comes to smartphones! Keep the content and designing clutter-free.

Mobile device users must be able to find links to click on immediately and without much of a hassle. Make use of Flickr or Pinterest. Create fresh content and keep updating your website regularly. Do not allow stale material in the form of news and updates to accumulate dust on the website or on your blog, forums, etc. Also, make greater use of social media networks. Smartphone users are more like to check their Facebook and Twitter profiles every now and then.

Related reading: Guide to content marketing

When you create mobile device versions of your website or apps, ensure that you leave prime space for a click-to-call link. You must make room for mobile numbers on the website that Smartphone users can call up while they are surfing through your website.

Do not leave these consumers to hunt around for your business number. That is a self-defeating proposition, to say the least. Just as it was mentioned before, you need to have social media share buttons on every material that you publish for Smartphone users. You can take it that if your content is compelling and worth reading, users will hit the share button (if you provide them with one, that is!). A point to note here is that you must use the smaller names in social media as well, other than the big boys like Facebook and Twitter.

Related reading: Mobile marketing guide

The New Avenues of Online Marketing – User Experience & Relevancy

Online marketing is changing directions fast and furious! What was trending last month is now set on the path of oblivion. The main agent of this change is primarily the search engine giant Google. As far as SEO is concerned, Google has the last word because of its dominant market share. Because SEO is the center of the online marketing world for most businesses, you cannot simply ignore the influence of Google and its policies. Because of the shifts and modifications in this policy, the face of online marketing is rapidly changing color.

The core area where Google has struck a decisive blow is the world of SEO spamming. You can no longer think of sophisticated ways of spamming the search engines to grab better SERPs. In fact, thanks to the spammers, the search engine algorithms of Google are now more user-friendly and anticipatory! Content farming, that delightful way of startups and small business companies to churn out articles and blog posts by the hundreds in a week, is not working so fine anymore. Google now attaches more value on content written with sincerity and passion than just cranked out to meet deadlines.

Social media networks are also bringing in the changes when it comes to online marketing. Studies reveal that more users are now checking up their contacts on social media before buying anything. It means you can no longer have an online marketing department that does not include the role of social media networks like Twitter and Facebook, if not LinkedIn and Instagram or Pinterest. Moreover, social networking data is being reflected in organic results generated by search engines like Google. Some experts feel that in the not-so-distant future, the influence of these social networks will dwarf the role of keywords and SEO.

Related reading: Keyword research guide

Google is now paying more attention to engagement between customers and online users with websites rather than keyword optimization. Packing in keywords or building up links will take not you far if your website is of low quality. Bounce rates, CTR (click-through rate) and various other metrics are being brought in to determine the usability of a website. Google’s innovations, Panda and Penguin, have dealt telling blows on the use of long-tailed keywords for spamming. It is time for the online world to pay more attention to the end user or the customer instead of the back-end SEO parameters.

Online Marketing Strategy: Online Marketing Via WordPress Themes

Online marketing is really no longer optional. In fact, it’s quickly becoming the case that online marketing is the most important form of marketing that businesses do. WordPress themes can provide a valuable tool for online marketing for several different reasons. Even though some of these reasons are technical in nature, they should be easy to understand for anybody with some experience in the world of online marketing.

Compliance

In order for the search engines to pay attention to your site, it has to be compliant with the web authoring standards set forth by the W3C. Commercially produced wordpress themes are validated to make certain that they meet this requirement. The requirement ensures that your website will display correctly in standards compliant browsers, which describes all of the browsers produced by the major manufacturers. If you do not meet the compliance requirement, the value of the rest of your web marketing efforts are likely to be nullified.

SEO

Online marketing is also heavily dependent upon search engine optimization. WordPress is a platform that is already search engine optimized and, provided you are using standards compliant themes, search engine optimization efforts will not be foiled by utilizing a premade theme. In fact, some of these themes have features that enhance this particular marketing strategy.

Where search engine optimization is concerned, it’s all about the details. In many cases, if you check the admin panel on your WordPress theme, you’ll find SEO options built right into that panel. While there is a convenience advantage in this, it’s also advantageous in terms of making certain that you take care of all of the very detailed elements of a successful SEO effort. By placing all of the tags and other items into the form of easy to fill in fields, a WordPress theme ensures that you don’t forget any of the required processes.

Linking

Having links to and from your site is important to online marketing. WordPress is set up to be accommodating to sites that want to involve visitors in what amounts to the creation of a great site. If you’re using the blogging tools on WordPress, you can encourage people to include links that backup their comments or that add extra information to them. This is a great way to generate links for your site and turn into a resource, which can help market your site, as people will come to see it as something truly useful.

Catalogs

If you’re running an eCommerce site, there are WordPress plug-ins available that make it very easy to create catalogs. Not only do they make it easy to create catalogs, these plug-ins ensure that the catalog has a consistent format between one item and the next. This is great for marketing the site itself. The easier it is for people to shop on your site, the more successful it is likely to be as a destination for shopping.

Online marketing can be complex, frustrating and difficult to understand. What’s important to keep in mind is that using the right tools for building your website can make a big difference in how successful your marketing efforts are. This is one of the reasons that WordPress is very popular as a content management system. Because it is standards compliant and because it is easy to add features to it, is easy to design your site to suit your brand and to be an attractive destination for visitors.

When you install a WordPress theme, look for ones that have the plug-ins you need for your marketing efforts or look for ones that are compatible with the plug-ins you want to use on your theme to increase the viability of your marketing.