10 Internet Marketing Strategies All Business Owners Should Know

Posted on: Friday, Oct 12

Social Media Marketing – Simply put social media marketing is the use of social media to promote your brand, services, or products whether locally, globally, or nationally. Social media includes popular platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and many more. One of the most attractive benefits of social media marketing is that it is essentially free if done in-house. In addition, taking advantage of paid ad opportunities on social media can be one of the most cost efficient ways to expand your reach.
Content Marketing – Instead of pitching your products or services directly, you are instead providing truly relevant and useful content to your prospects and customers to help them solve their issues. An example would be a plumber who uses a blog or YouTube to detail Do-It-Yourself methods, rather than promoting only his services.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) – SEO isn’t just about making sure your site is structured in a way that search engines understand. There are a lot of different aspects to SEO, which is why most companies outsource this marketing. SEO includes incorporating keywords into the website in an effective manner, building appropriate links, and managing local listings.
Pay-Per-Click (PPC) – The most widely known media for pay-per-click advertising is known as Google Adwords. PPC allows the advertiser to set a daily budget, change the ads frequently, drive traffic to specific pages, run ads on a schedule that works best for the business, and use geographic specifics. The cost of the ads are on a per click basis and are determined like an auction with factors including landing pages, keyword searched, and competition for the keyword searched.
Review Marketing – Review marketing is essentially “word of mouth marketing” — the oldest and perhaps most trusted form of advertising. There are a lot of places on the web to leave customer reviews so encouraging happy customer to leave you a review on Google, Yelp, or other places is a great no-cost technique to market online. It is also a good idea to address any negative comments with a courteous, helpful, response. Remember that everyone gets a negative review at one time or another; it’s how you respond to that review that consumers care about.
Affiliate Marketing – Affiliate marketing is a type of performance-based marketing in which a business rewards one or more affiliates for each visitor or customer brought by the affiliate’s own marketing efforts. Affiliate marketing results are easy to track with the use of website analytic reporting.
Email Marketing – Email marketing is an effective way to keep in contact with your customers whether that means touching base with them monthly or twice a week. How much email marketing you do is dependent on your products and services and your audience. The key to successful email marketing is that your email has a compelling offer or message and looks professional
GEO Fencing – Geofencing is the practice of using global positioning (GPS) or radio frequency identification (RFID) to define a geographic boundary and to use that area to administer a trigger that sends potential customers a text message or other such alert. For example, a restaurant could erect a simple geo-fence in an area surrounding its physical location. When potential customers pass through the fenced area, they receive a coupon making it more likely to stop in. Alternatively, an auto dealer, could set up a geo-fence aimed at targeting individuals who are leaving a competitor dealership.
IP Targeting – IP Targeting is the process of targeting internet advertising to specific households based on their Internet Protocol address (which is the string of numbers assigned to your internet connection by your Internet Service Provider). You are able to easily target all households in a specific neighborhood, for example. This type of marketing is very effective when combined with direct mail and is frequently used during U.S. elections by politicians wishing to capitalize on name recognition.
eCommerce – If your business sells products through an eCommerce website then proper online marketing is essential to your success. Product marketing can be done through many of these marketing strategies above, but also through Google Shopping, Amazon, and other outlets. You may need to work with an internet marketing company to make sure your inventory updates with these platforms in an automated product feed.