Online marketing or digital marketing as you may to call it, has come to stay in the 21st century and it is moving at the speed of light.
This detailed guide will give you everything you need to know about online marketing and most importantly the key categories of digital marketing strategies to boost your online business.
In this article, you’ll understand:
- What exactly is digital marketing
- 4 key reasons why digital marketing is so effective
- 6 digital marketing strategies for your online business (Each will be updated with detailed practical information every week).
What is Online Marketing?
According to Wikipedia Online marketing is any effort to spread the word about your business that uses the internet to reach people.
Online marketing is a set of methodologies put in place to promote products and services through the internet.
In short, online marketing is anything you do on the internet to put yourself or your business right in front of people to see, or anything you do to grab their attention and hopefully, at some point, get them to buy from you.
Online marketing can also be referred to as internet marketing, web marketing, and digital marketing.
But, Why Is Online Marketing So Effective?
Online marketing is multi-dimensional as it includes a wider range of marketing opportunities than local business marketing, due to the extra channels and marketing mechanisms available on the internet.
I need to show you some stats. As of January 2017, here’s the data of the online world:
Reach your target audience
The internet has come to stay and to me, you can reach anyone (your target audience) and present your products and services.
Online marketing enables any online business owner to get close to your target consumers of your products and services, overcoming barriers to distance.
The stats above shows that internet consumers are on the go (on mobile) and people are even staying online for longer periods and this proves that online marketing for your online business is so effective.
Convenience for your business
It is so rare for a traditional offline business to be open 24/7. Most times here in Nigeria, 10:00 pm is the maximum closing time for business (except in the case of some fueling stations).
Internet marketing for your business enables you to be open around the clock without worrying about store opening hours or overtime payments for staff.
Not just for you, your customers find it so convenient when they can get access to your products or service right from the comfort of their home.
Very cost effective
Have you once tried to market or advertise your products or service for just 3 minutes on radio or TV stations? The fees are high.
Marketing online is more cost effective when compared to other medium. For example, using Facebook advertising for your business is cheap, you get started for around $3 to $5 and you’ll start seeing results if you’ve optimized your products for conversion.
As an online business owner, you are able to create, deliver and execute an online marketing campaigns, spending only what’s necessary in order to reap maximum rewards later on.
Relationship building
People tend to buy online from someone they trust. This trust comes from establishing a unique relationship with potential customers as you present your expertise.
The Internet itself provides an important platform for building relationships with customers and increasing customer retention levels.
Online marketing now makes it possible to build a strong relationship with your customers when they have purchased a product from you.
For example, sending them follow up emails with personalized offers, inviting them to review your products or services will help you build this strong relationship.
6 Key Online Marketing Strategies
In my previous article on the real truth behind making money online, I promised to give a detailed explanation of the big areas of online marketing.
First, I’ve give you a description of what each entails, and in series (every week), I’ll give a detailed explanation of each marketing strategy, plus practical steps to follow.
PLEASE NOTE: This article on online marketing will be updated every week, with links to each online marketing strategies. For Now, we’ve done justice to content marketing.
Content Marketing
This will be the first detailed online marketing article series you’ll learn about but first, let me give you an overview.
Content marketing has to do with giving timely, valuable, problem-solving and relevant content to your audience.
It’s the process of engaging and growing your customer base through high quality content. The first step to doing that is knowing your stuff and then you can get rewarded in profit.
Learn Everything About Content Marketing In This Guide
Affiliate Marketing
Ever thought about selling a product you don’t own over and over again and making continuous profit non-stop? That’s affiliate marketing for you.
Here’s a real example: You have a friend who runs a canteen business – forks and fingers, you visited him just once and found his meal to be superb.
You couldn’t help but tell other people about the wonderful meal and restaurant service your friend provides.
In just a week, about 10 people went to your friends canteen and mentioned you, each of them talked about how you recommend the meals at forks and fingers.
You visited your friend a week later and he told you he was amazed, that 10 people came around and told him how you recommended his canteen. He gave you certain commission per each of the 10 new customers.
That is affiliate marketing. Just by talking about what you’ve tried out, you earn.
Offline, there could be limitations but online, there are no limitations. You keep earning and earning and earning. If you have a blog, it gets more interesting because years and years to come you keep making money based on what you’ve tried and recommend.
Learn Everything About Affiliate Marketing In This Guide
Social Media Marketing
You won’t believe how many people use Facebook, Youtube and other social media platforms. Social media marketing is another big industry.
Social media is a a tool for conversation – it requires active participation of your business on social media platforms to present your products and services online.
For more on how to market successfully on social media see:
7 ways to grow any business online with Facebook
5 Facebook marketing do’s and don’ts
How to create a Facebook fan page for your business
Quick step by step guide to Facebook Ads for your business
9 effective ways to advertise on Snap Chat
Le’ts move to the next..
SEO Marketing
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process of optimizing your contents online, for search engines (Google, Yahoo, Bing) to show it as a top result for searches of a certain keyword.
For example, when you type a set of keyword(s) like “loans for corps members” or “current ponzi schemes” or “most translated website” into Google search engine, you’ll find oasdom.com’s content in the top results.
And..
Why is being on the first search results of search engines so important?
When potential customers enter search terms that match your product or services offering offerings, you rank higher than other blogs or platforms.
Online searchers tend to click the first search results compared to the 4th, 5th or 6th results. Being on the first page of Google search result is good but being the first result is great!
It means you’ll get tons of free traffic to your blog without investing a dime in ads. So, how do you get started with search engine optimization and marketing?
This is just an overview, comprehensive details and know-how of seo coming soon.
Everything you need to know about Search Engine Optimization COMING SOON!
Email Marketing
Email marketing is about directly communicating with your target audience and customers.
Emails have come to stay and almost every active internet user has at least 1 email. According to the Radicati Group, there will be over 3.7 billion email users online. That means that nearly 54% of the entire planet is currently using email.
Using emails in your online business is one big marketing strategy. And the best part is, it’s not difficult to setup.
With emails, you can reach your potential customers online, present your products and services, and make huge sales.
This is just an overview of email marketing, comprehensive details coming soon.
Everything You Need to Know About Email Marketing COMING SOON!
Blogging
You actually can’t skip blogging when talking about online marketing. You just can’t! Blogging is one of the biggest internet marketing strategies to make money online.
On their own, blogs alone can help you make huge passive income online. Blogs have proven to be a hub that helps you apply all other online marketing strategies.
If you don’t have a blog for your online business, it’s like you’re missing on a big pie of online real estate earnings.
Blogs help you establish authority in your niche as your contents (videos, articles, magazines, etc.) set’s a tone for your expertise in what you do.
I’ve dedicated many resources here on Oasdom.com to help you succeed in blogging. Some are listed below:
6 insightful reasons to consider starting a blog today
How to start and create a blog all by yourself
4 quick ways to get traffic to your blog
6 Solid ways to make money on your blog
and of course, our free blogging course that takes anyone from scratch in the very basics of blogging.
PLEASE NOTE: This article on online marketing will be updated every week, with links to each online marketing strategies. For Now, we’ve done justice to content marketing.
Learn more about content marketing here…
Why did I let you know about all these?
It’s because I want to be honest with my visitors. In my opinion, the best way to gain trust from your blog visitors is to be 100% transparent and this is exactly what I’m currently doing. Aside from that, I’m also a pretty friendly folk.
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