There are distinct advantages that internet marketing provides, which cannot be found in other forms of marketing like television or print. These advantages include the ability to reach a wide audience, the option to tailor content for individual users, and the potential to establish extensive customer relationships.
Internet marketing utilizes various digital platforms such as email, social media, websites, and search engines to effectively target your desired audience. In this article, we will explore marketing tactics and provide practical instances to guarantee that your business successfully reaches a portion of the global population of four billion people looking for your products or services.
What is Internet/Online Marketing?
Online marketing, referred to as internet marketing or web advertising, employs the internet as a medium to transmit promotional messages to customers via digital platforms like search engines, email, websites, and social media.
Web design, SEO, email, social media, PPC, and various other internet-related methods are encompassed within online marketing strategies.
What’s the role of internet marketing?
To put it simply, the purpose of internet marketing is to assist your business in reaching, attracting, and converting audiences online.
We will now explore two distinct objectives you will aim to accomplish through internet marketing, along with the essential strategies you should employ to attain these goals.
Internet Marketing to Attract New Customers
To attract new customers, you can utilize online marketing tactics such as paid advertisements on social media platforms, search engine optimization, and effective web design.
One way to reach a target audience similar to your main demographic is by utilizing Facebook’s Lookalike Audiences feature. Alternatively, you can compensate a social media influencer to promote your products to their existing and engaged followers.
Before investing too heavily in a particular social media channel, it is advisable to carry out market research and A/B testing as paid social media has the potential to lure fresh customers to your brand or product.
In order to acquire new customers, it is essential to uphold a strong SEO presence. Since 81% of consumers rely on the internet for research prior to making any buying choices, it is crucial for your business to be prominently visible in search results for relevant keywords.
In addition, a robust SEO presence can lead to increased purchases made at physical stores, with 78% of local mobile searches ultimately resulting in offline transactions.
Spending time and resources on your business’s website design is of utmost importance.
If these mentioned customers come across your website and find it confusing or unhelpful, they are likely to be discouraged from trusting your brand and making a purchase. Therefore, it is crucial that you dedicate time to develop a website that is user-friendly and compatible with mobile devices.
Internet Marketing to Cultivate Brand Loyalists
Internet marketing is essential not only for attracting new customers, but also for the upkeep of a loyal, long-term customer base.
To enhance brand awareness, foster a robust online community, and uphold customer loyalty, it is advisable to adopt email, blogging, and social media strategies.
One way to impress or motivate past customers is by sending them personalized emails. These emails could include special discounts tailored to their previous purchases, birthday wishes, or reminders about upcoming events.
In order to effectively utilize email campaigns, it is necessary to possess an email list.
Furthermore, social media can be utilized to display your brand’s character and receive direct feedback from customers. You can contemplate organizing a Twitter chat, sharing surveys on Instagram, or designing engaging contests on Facebook.
If you feel overwhelmed by producing all social media content yourself, you can opt for a third-party service such as UpContent. This service provides you with high-quality, curated content that you can share with your audience to enhance engagement.
Types of Internet Marketing
1. SEO Marketing
SEO, also known as search engine optimization, aids companies in broadening their presence within organic search outcomes. In essence, effective SEO guarantees that your website can be discovered by individuals when they search for your product or service on Google.
2. Social Media Marketing
If you’re not utilizing social media for marketing, you’re losing out, considering there are 4.5 billion users worldwide. It’s highly likely that you’ll discover your target audience on platforms like TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, or any other platform.
You have the option to choose, based on your marketing goals and budget.
- Organic: With organic social media marketing, you can take advantage of free marketing opportunities like creating posts and reels on Instagram.
- Paid: With paid advertising on social media, you can create promoted posts targeted towards a specific audience.
3. Content Marketing
Content marketing encompasses the development and dissemination of branded digital content that enables you to captivate and allure potential and current customers. This comprises various channels such as social media, a corporate blog, educational resources, video content, real-life examples, or content pertaining to the industry.
4. Email Marketing
The process of email marketing involves targeting your audience and customers via email, with the aim of enhancing conversions and revenue. It entails delivering valuable information to subscribers and customers, which aids in the achievement of their objectives.
You can utilize customers’ email that they provide to your brand in order to:
- Send welcome emails to new customers
- Promote new blog content
- Introduce new products or services
- Send promotions and discounts
- Solicit feedback from customers about their experience with your brand
- Send abandoned cart notifications to boost sales
5. Pay-Per-Click Marketing
PPC, short for pay-per-click, refers to a type of advertising where a fee is paid to ensure that your website appears on the search engine result page (SERP) when certain keywords or phrases are searched. By creating ads, the SERP showcases them to drive visitors to your site, and the cost is determined by the number of ad clicks.
6. Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is a marketing strategy that operates on a performance-based model, typically used by online retailers. It involves providing a commission to a website or affiliate for every customer that they refer through their promotional efforts. The website or affiliate will only receive compensation when their promotion leads to a purchase. Although similar to influencer marketing, the payment structure distinguishes it.
7. Influencer Marketing
Influencer marketing leverages popular, niche content creators to enhance brand recognition, drive traffic, and direct targeted messaging to a brand’s audience. Influencers can be utilized across various platforms such as social media, blogs, digital and print advertisements, as well as television. This marketing approach proves effective as it taps into the power of word-of-mouth marketing and social proof, which are vital elements for any prosperous marketing strategy nowadays.
Influencers have become important in shaping our shopping decisions as the internet has greatly impacted every aspect of our lives. Previously, people would simply conduct a brief Google search to determine a product’s value, whereas now they often seek validation from reputable individuals who possess expertise in the field. This is where influencers play an influential role.
While it may not be universally accurate, a significant number of internet users regard influencers as authorities within particular online communities. These convictions can influence the choices of others when influencers advertise or endorse a product. It’s possible that you possess that face serum in your bathroom cabinet, the one whose usage instructions you’re unfamiliar with, solely because it was recommended by your friend, who themselves purchased it due to observing a skincare influencer using it.
When you eventually choose to invest in influencer marketing, there are various factors to take into account when partnering with an influencer. Now, let us discuss the essential guidelines and pitfalls of influencer marketing that you should be aware of.
Do Your Research
If you do not work with the right influencer, you may not experience the benefits of influencer marketing. It may seem straightforward to only consider the influencer’s number of followers, but it is crucial to also assess whether their content aligns with what you are selling. For example, if you aim to advertise a vegan cookbook, finding a food influencer with a large audience is not sufficient because you cannot determine how many vegans are among their followers. The collaboration with a vegan food influencer will provide a clearer understanding of the number of potential customers you can reach.
Take the time to thoroughly review an influencer’s content, including their previous and recent posts, before making any judgments about their suitability for your campaign.
Don’t Go Too Big
While searching for methods to grow your audience for your vegan cookbook, you might be tempted to target influencers with a massive number of followers or individuals who are famous for reasons unrelated to your product. Take Natalie Portman, for instance. She is a vegan and has an Instagram following of 7.4 million. However, she may not be a suitable fit for your brand due to various reasons. Despite her immense popularity, it stems from her successful career as an acclaimed actress, rather than her vegan lifestyle. Consequently, it is impossible to determine how many of her 7.4 million followers are actually vegans.
It is crucial to understand that fame alone does not grant someone the status of an online influencer. Therefore, having Portman on your team might not necessarily lead to a boost in sales, as her presence may not have a significant impact on potential buyers.
Furthermore, as the number of followers increases, the level of engagement and genuine connections with those followers decreases. It is simply impossible for someone to attend to numerous comments on every post or establish personal relationships with each follower.
Micro-influencers on Instagram, who have a follower count ranging from 10k to 50k, demonstrate an average engagement rate of 3.86%, in contrast to mega-influencers who showcase a lower rate of 1.21%.
Do Check If Your Influencer Has Fake Followers
As influencer marketing gains popularity, the quantity of influencers accumulating fake followers is on the rise. Despite the official prohibition and labeling it as fraudulent, some individuals succeed in circumventing Instagram’s regulations and acquiring bogus followers through various services. Instagram penalizes such accounts with permanent consequences, but this process requires time. Therefore, it is crucial to verify if influencers genuinely possess a legitimate following, even if they initially appear to have a substantial audience.
Typically, services that enable “fan-buying” involve a large quantity of fake accounts. It is important to carefully examine and explore the followers. Fake accounts often lack posts and profile pictures, and their usernames may consist of random combinations of numbers and letters.
Don’t Give Too Many Directions
While you may have great excitement for your upcoming collaboration with a new influencer and have already envisioned the post they will create to promote your product, avoid being overly detailed about it.
If you provide too many directions, you will receive less input from the influencer. Therefore, despite having great ideas, they might offer even better suggestions.
Sharing your excellent idea may not necessarily be the perfect match for their feed, therefore it is advisable to collaborate and generate content that benefits both your brand and the influencer’s platform.
Do Allow Room for Creativity
Creative individuals known as influencers have already generated significant amounts of content and established a loyal following. Consequently, they are reluctant to relinquish their artistic independence. Therefore, even if you succeed in obtaining their initial cooperation, they will not be inclined to engage in future collaborations with you.
Although it may appear risky for brands, granting influencers the freedom to decide their content is crucial, as creative freedom accounts for 83% of their highest concern. This approach enhances authenticity since influencers possess a deep understanding of their audience’s preferences and what seamlessly aligns with their content better than one can envision.
Don’t Choose a Social Media Platform Based on an Influencer
Choosing an influencer as the basis for selecting a channel is one of the most significant errors in influencer marketing. Simply being a TikTok influencer does not guarantee a suitable fit for your brand, especially if you specialize in selling anti-aging facial creams since the majority of TikTok users are below 30 years old. Hence, understanding your target audience is crucial prior to choosing a social media platform for your influencer marketing campaign. Once you have identified the suitable channel, you can proceed to the subsequent phase of selecting the appropriate influencer.
Do Set Specific Goals for the Collaboration
Having specific goals for your marketing campaign is crucial in determining its success, and this holds true for influencer marketing as well.
What are your expectations for the campaign? Do you anticipate higher sales or greater brand recognition? Alternatively, are you aiming to boost traffic to your eCommerce store? Alternatively, you could focus on gaining more social media followers as a goal.
Although you have the freedom to establish any objective you desire, it is crucial to clarify the purpose of your influencer marketing efforts in order to generate pertinent content and persuasive call-to-action.
It takes time to see the results of influencer marketing, just like any other marketing type. However, it has been proven to be effective when executed correctly. We believe that the DOs and DONTs mentioned above will assist you in finding the most suitable influencer for your products, establishing the right goals, and achieving the desired outcomes from your campaign. While we have discussed the most vital aspects of influencer marketing to consider when starting out, our team has an extensive list of guidelines for working with influencers. If you feel that you require a more in-depth understanding of influencer marketing, don’t hesitate to contact Internet Marketing Geeks today. We are available to answer your questions and schedule a consultation for new clients, enabling us to begin creating your personalized marketing plan immediately.
