Marketing is basically a process in which a business or organisation attracts the attention of potential clients and customers. Every company, business or organisation offers products and services. Through marketing strategies, these companies and organisations spread information about the products and services they offer to potential customers and clients.
Marketing comprises researching how useful the products and services offered by brands are to their potential customers; promoting these services and products; and selling and distributing these products and services to the customers. Simply put, the sales and profitability of a brand are determined by the marketing strategies implemented by that brand.
What is online marketing?
When a business or organisation uses the internet to advertise and market its services or products to potential customers, it is called online marketing. Online marketing makes use of emails and websites to make customers aware of their products and services. This is executed in a way that the target population of the company’s services and products are made aware of the same.
Once the target population of customers is made aware of the existence of the products, they are highly likely to purchase the products or avail the services, thereby increasing the sales and profitability of that company.
Online marketing strategies
To delve a little deeper into the concept and practice of online marketing, it is important to have a basic idea about the different strategies or components of online marketing. Brands promote their services or products online through emails, social media platforms, different mobile apps, websites, and blogs. The different online marketing strategies have been listed as follows:
- Web analytics
- SEO
- Mobile advertising
- Online advertising
- Email marketing
- Social media marketing
- Blogs
- Content marketing
1.Web analytics
In modern times, every company or organization has its own website. Web analytics is the strategy in which these websites are analysed on a monthly basis to gain a clear understanding of the ways in which these websites can be improved. Implementing favourable changes to the website can increase the sales of the products or services advertised on these websites. This in turn increases the profit of the company in question.
2. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Whenever you type anything in the search bar of your browser, the website links that appear on the first page of your browser are the websites that are search engine optimized. These first few websites are basically the most relevant to what the user searched for in the browser. When an entire website or web-pages are made search engine friendly, these websites get higher positions in search results.
Usage of the right keywords, in the right order, with appropriate titles, website speed, meta descriptions, etc, makes websites search engine friendly. If a website appears higher in the search results, it is more likely that it will be clicked by the user.
3. Mobile advertising
Nowadays, most people have smartphones. People download different apps on their smartphones for different purposes. Mobile advertising is the strategy wherein companies provide ads for their services or products across different apps to spread awareness about their business. You can click on these ads to get more information and even buy the products that are advertised on these apps.
4. Online advertising
This is one of the oldest and simplest strategies under online marketing wherein different organisations and brands provide attractive, attention-grabbing advertisements about their services and products on various websites. When users come across these advertisements, they are made aware of the brand and they may even click on these ads to potentially buy a product.
5. Email marketing
This is another common marketing strategy implemented by different companies and organisations. Under this strategy, companies send emails to their customers to promote their products, appealing offers, discounts, new products, etc. Customers can get in touch with a company by replying to these emails or clicking on specific icons.
Customers may also be given the option to subscribe to the brand’s newsletter. To derive maximum effect, catchy phrases need to be used in the subject line of the mail, because that would draw the attention of the customers and arouse their interest.
6. Social media marketing
Think about the innumerable times you’re scrolling through your social media feed and coming across different advertisements for products and services you might be interested in. Think about when you’re scrolling through stories on a social media platform and you come across a website advertisement that attracts your attention. These are all social media marketing strategies. Another popular marketing strategy implemented by various brands is when you see influencers or celebrities featuring sponsored products on a platform to get you interested in a specific product or brand.
7. Blogs
Blogs are basically web pages made by a group of people or an individual which is updated frequently by the owners of that blog. Blogs contain information about different brands, products, and services that can increase the sales of the same.
8. Content marketing
A lot of businesses and organisations also use content marketing as a way to spread awareness about their business and commodities. This is done by providing content in the form of infographics, podcasts, blogs, images, etc. This is another proven way of influencing consumer behaviour and increasing the sales and profitability of a company’s commodities.
What are the perks of online marketing?
The basic goal of online marketing is the same as that of traditional marketing- to promote commodities, increase the sales and profitability of companies. However, online marketing is a much more effective marketing strategy.
- Online marketing is more cost-effective than traditional marketing.
- The impact on sales is measurable through online marketing strategies. It is possible to know how many people have clicked on an advertisement and how many customers have actually purchased the commodities.
- Online marketing is an efficient and fast way of building a brand’s name and popularity.
- The access to information about a brand, its commodities, offers, etc, is much higher and more convenient for potential customers than traditional marketing strategies.
To summarise, online marketing is a faster, efficient, and cost-effective manner of increasing the popularity and profitability of any brand. Some brands only rely on online marketing strategies for their sales.
