Being
online is usually associated with online actions such as online sales, likes
and tweets, information about your business and yourself, and just plain old
brand building. But smartly chosen; some online actions can actually have an
impact of foot traffic to your store, office, or whatever space you use on a
regular basis to interact with your customers.
Just imagine the number of people
that go online for so many reasons. Some people go online for work, some for
entertainment, some for socialization, and yet others go online for shopping.
There are a huge number of people searching for all sorts of things all the
time. And since they are telling the search engines about their needs,
providing them the answer to those needs is what internet marketing is all
about.
Benefits of Web Marketing
Internet marketing is a great
medium for business owners to reach their target market. So, what is it that
differentiates web marketing over traditional marketing?
Cost Efficiency
Imagine the cost of a TV
commercial, the time when they show it also determines the cost per placement. A
cheaper alternative to TV would be a radio commercial. But even then you would
need to produce the ad and broadcast it which is costly. It is also very broad
marketing.
Web marketing can be so much
cheaper as there are hardly any production or transmission costs involved. It
is also very effective because it is targeted specifically to the user
searching for the item at the time they are interested.
Instant Feedback
When you air a commercial or
publish an ad, you need to conduct a survey to learn what the audience thinks
about it. This is not only time consuming, but also expensive. Online, it is
much simpler because you will not need the survey process and still get honest
feedback.
The internet allows you to get
feedback from the target market in a snap. They can ask questions and leave
their comments in a matter of minutes. This helps in communicating with the customers
faster and they become easier to convince thanks to the two way communication.
Word of Mouth
Wouldn’t it be great to have
everyone talking about your business, product and service? It would be like
having a huge number of people doing the marketing for you. The power of word
of mouth cannot be underestimated. This is because people would trust a
recommendation from a friend or user of the product more than they would trust
any form of advertising.
Social media increases the power
of word of mouth manifold because instead of just telling one person at a time,
the internet allows a person to reach several people at a time. You post
something on your Facebook wall, all your friends get to know of it and then
their friends get to know of it and so on. One Facebook post can make or break
your brand because of the huge number of people getting to know of it.
Similarly, one email can trigger a chain reaction. So it is essential that
marketing power of word of mouth be correctly utilized in internet marketing;
it will surely affect the sales of your brand.
Web Marketing Techniques
The internet has revolutionized
marketing. Some methods cost almost nothing and bring about considerable
changes in sales. There are so many ways to incorporate web marketing into your
business. Here we discuss a few of them.
Bulk Email Marketing
If you have a large number of
subscribers on your business mailing list, all you need to do is just think of
an offer that your customers will find appealing and send them an email.
Several email tools are available in the market that let you see who opened
your email, who responded and which links they clicked on. This information can
be useful as it will help you focus your future offers. The biggest advantage
of bulk emails is the low cost.
Search Engine Optimization
Search Engine Optimization or SEO
is a way of improving the visibility of a website on search engines via the
natural results.
For internet marketing, you need
to know what keywords or key phrases people search for when looking for a
product similar to yours. You can then optimize your website by editing the
content. This will not only increase the relevance to the keywords but also
remove any indexing barriers of search engines.
Social Media Marketing
Social media marketing is a
technique that implements various social media platforms in order to achieve
marketing communication. It includes sharing of content, images and videos for
marketing purposes.
Your customers are interacting
with brands on social media and presence on the web is a key to tap their
interest. People like to spend a lot of time on social media sites. With proper
campaigns, this gives you an opportunity to reach a massive number of people.
Pay per Click Marketing
In order to get new clients on
your subscriber list, you may use Pay per Click advertising. This is more
expensive and you have to pay the advertising website for every click. However,
in the long term, it provides you with new email contacts and the cost of
remarketing to these clients drops over time.
It is essential that the message
is campaign focused and the landing page serves to target the customer’s needs.
You would not want them to land on your homepage or to look for that button
that takes them to the offer.
Optimize website with call to action
Your website is of no use to you if it is not intended to
sell a product or gain a customer. Your internet marketing technique should
have a clear purpose. This means that every page of your website should focus
on getting the visitor to take an action. This can range from purchasing
something online, filling out a form, sending an email, etc. Your website needs
to be interactive and not just a billboard stating that you are open for
business.
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