Everything You Need To Know About The Best Online Marketing Methods

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Going online has well established itself as one of the best forms of marketing a business can take on. There’s a lot to be said for being put in contact with potential thousands, even millions, of customers. Nothing grows brands like memorable content and few things get as many hits as a campaign that goes viral. That said, there are a lot of avenues to consider. Not every online marketing method is right for every company. So here we’re going to take a look at which might be the best for yours.

The site

The core of every business’s web presence should be their website. That’s where you’re leading them too, after all. Selling through your website is about web design. It’s about making sure the homepage is clear, concise and appeals directly to what they want. Boil it down to basics. It’s also about using data like Google Analytics. Finding out which pages on your site are most visited is some valuable data. From that, you can make changes to those pages, like including calls-to-action and deals. Everything about your site should be able converting those visitors into customers, after all.

Search engine optimisation

So, how do you get visitors to your site? A lot of the marketing strategies below will have that goal amongst others. One that’s uniquely useful for getting more hits, however, is search engine optimisation. This is the use of different methods to have your site appear more prominently in relevant searches. Thus, it pairs you with the kind of web users looking directly for you. There are a few different keys to good SEO. Link-building with others sites is an indicator of relevance. As are the keywords you choose and the location that can be linked to browser IPs. Great content is also important.

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Blogging

That kind of great content is why so many companies set up a blog on their site alongside the usual pages. Creating a blog has a few key benefits. For one, it’s a great way to get involved with the kind of active communities a good blog usually draws. It’s a place to host content that will get you more hits, like informative or tutorial pieces. It also allows a great sharing of resources through guest blogs and shared webinars. Even more, it helps to build your brand as an informed expert of the industry.

Social media

Naturally, if you’re talking about online marketing, you have to talk about social media. It’s practically essential if you plan on having an active online presence. Social media is all about finding your audience. Usually, this starts with making the choice of which platforms work best. There are a lot to consider, after all. News and information is easy to spread through Facebook. If your products are visually marketable, it might worth considering Pinterest or Instagram. No matter what content you produce, Twitter’s a good place to find those who would be interested. Strategy comes later, for now, figure out which social media platforms are best for your business.

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Influencer marketing

Finding your market is important regardless of how you plan on marketing to them. If you want to find a market already built for you, however, influencer marketing is a great way of doing it. Influencer marketing starts by finding the right influencer for you. It could be a blogger, Youtube channel or podcast relevant to your business. Whether through a sponsorship or some other agreement, you can get them marketing to their own established audience. Audible has proven a great example of using relevant influencers (podcasters) to find the kind of audience who would already be open to them.

Email marketing

There’s a lot of hubbub about email being a shrinking form of communication. For a lot of different demographics, that’s just not true. For professionals, for example, you can be sure that they’re keeping an eye on every email that comes in. They can be great targets for email marketing, in that case. Getting permission is the key aspect of successful email marketing. There’s little people look down on more than unsolicited emails. Find ways on your site, like updates for exclusive tips or the like, to make subscribing all the more tempting.

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Testimonials

If you have their permission to keep in contact, then make use of it. Your customers can be more than just a revenue stream. They can be a great asset when it comes to marketing your services. One of the best methods of using them for just that is through testimonials. Prominent testimonials on your webpage can be better marketing than any professional effort. Word of mouth still means a lot, after all. Just make sure you ask the right questions to get to the core of what customers want and what you deliver.

Pay per click adverts

Search engines don’t just offer the chance to have your webpage positioned more visibly on their webpage. With a bit of investment, you can also be put right in a place of prominence. Pay per click adverts are as they sound. You bid for a piece of search engine real estate and pay every time your ad’s clicked. A successful PPC advert is all about the kind of keywords and text you use. You need to be not just relevant, but exhaustive in the terms people might use to try find your services.

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Video marketing

The internet’s more than just a medium for delivering text and pretty websites, however. Digital media can rely on sight and sound together. Video marketing can be a lot better if you’re able to distil your services down to a visually effective message. It demands less attention and can be a lot more explorative in its concept. Video hosting sites also have all kinds of different metrics you can inspect to see how well they’re working. Videos are one of the best ways of generating leads because of how quickly they can tell a story and make that story marketable.

Affiliate programs

It’s not just about using the internet to bring in new customers, however. You can also use those hits you get in partnership with other companies to get you a bit of revenue. That’s the whole concept of setting up affiliate programs (or any of the differently worded phrases meaning the same thing). It’s how influencers make their money and there’s nothing to stop you from doing it too. For example, if you’re providing informative blogs, you could include a link that would lead to another organisation. In return, you get paid for the hits you receive.

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Contests and giveaways

There are few marketing opportunities as exploitable as a good contest or giveaway. Naturally, you can’t use them all the time, so you need to make them count. A great contest or giveaway is one of the most easily spread moves in social media, for one. Make sure you’re spreading the word. Make sure that the process is simple and clear enough that you get a lot of entrants, too. Most importantly, however, is that you don’t drop it. If you’re running a contest or giveaway, you need to keep giving attention to it. You especially need to make a splash about the winner.

Building a community

One of the reasons contests and giveaways work so well is because they get you directly involved with the community. If your followers feel that there are real humans behind the organisation, they’ll take much more kindly to it. That’s why a lot of your online marketing efforts should revolve around building a community. Putting out blogs and being active on social media can give you loads of opportunities to do that. Not only can you directly reply to those communicating with you. You can also start following other users, inside and outside your industry. You can share and get involved in trends and do all the same things the other users are doing. Being truly great at social media means taking the corporate gloves off now and then. The public goodwill is well worth it.

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Referral networks

Not exactly marketing, but another way of getting great leads. The internet is just as good for getting in contact with other businesses as it is for finding customers directly. Other business provide opportunities for cross-promotions and joint ventures. Even without those, referral networks are one of the most beneficial parts of a good network. For one, it establishes you in a positive community willing to help and support you (which is important). Secondly, it can help you share and receive new leads that can guide you in actively making new sales. Just don’t expect it to be one way. You need to be part of a community, and sharing with it, if you want to keep benefitting from it.

An online marketing company takes times. Even if you’re just going for social media, it can mean handling several different platforms. Coming up with a good strategy means picking the ones best for you. It means doing your research and finding where your customers are. Once you’ve done that, keep building your relationship with them by providing great content.