Benefits Online Marketing | 10 Benefits of Online Marketing

For most businesses, being online means establishing a web presence, building websites, and running social media campaigns. While these are all important, being online also means having access to a vast audience, from anyone, anywhere, at any time. Essentially, you can be accessed by anyone interested in your product or service, which can translate to massive potential customer base.

With so much competition, it’s essential to find ways to stand out from the crowd. One of the simplest, yet most effective ways of doing this is through online marketing. If you’re not experienced in this area, or if you feel like you’re struggling to find the right strategy, this article is for you. Here are 10 benefits of online marketing that will help you find the strategy that’s right for you.

Broadcasts To A Vast Audience

One of the biggest benefits of online marketing is establishing a platform for your product or service that is available to a very large audience. In the era of social media, this means you can reach a large number of people easily and effectively. Your target audience will be able to find you, regardless of whether they’re in your local area, or across the country. Even more exciting is if you have an international audience. The benefits of this reach are numerous:

Increased Brand Awareness
Improved Sales
Reduced Brand Loyalty
A greater degree of customer centricity
Higher Conversion Rates
More qualified Leads

These are just some of the benefits of broadcasting to a large audience; it also opens up the opportunity to gain much more traction with your advertising, and allow you to experiment with different marketing tactics and see the results more quickly. The key is finding a strategy that works best for you and your business, no matter how large or small your company may be.

Attracting More Customers Via Organic Traffic

Being discovered via organic searches is one of the most sought-after forms of advertising; however, gaining this type of traffic is difficult. In the past, this would mean running ads on sites like Google or Bing. While this still works, it’s much more effective to establish a presence on social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook. On these platforms, you can post regularly, and allow users to discover your content organically. As a result, you’ll start to see an increase in web traffic, and eventually, sales.

If you’re struggling to gain traction on social media, consider using tools like HubSpot, which can help you develop social media strategies, and even provide you with pre-made content that you can quickly repurpose and use across platforms. Relying on ads to gain web traffic is no longer sufficient; you need to be able to capture people’s attention, and keep it, via content that is continually being published.

Improved SEO

As we’ve established, having a large audience means having a great deal of exposure. When we think about search engine optimization, we often think about getting a website to rank highly in search results for certain keywords. However, this is only part of the equation. When it comes to SEO, you need to consider how well your site performs across different search engines, whether this is Google, Bing, or another search engine. Establishing a strong SEO strategy, which includes creating content for multiple platforms, can help you gain a strong presence across the web. This, in turn, will allow you to gain more customers, and improve your conversion rates.

More Engagement With Prospective Customers

The more you interact with potential customers, the greater the likelihood that they’ll become converted into a paying customer. In the era of digital marketing, this means you can engage with potential customers through email marketing, and even apply chatbots to provide an additional means of communication and access to your services. This approach can help you build a better relationship with your audience, and increase the odds of gaining their business.

Gaining Brand Awareness

When we think about brand awareness, we often think about consumer education, or marketing messages being ‘top of mind’. Establishing a strong brand identity, and ensuring everyone in your company is aware of this identity, is an important step in gaining brand awareness. In order to do this, you need to consider engaging with your customers on social media, and even using a blog for internal communications, as this will help bring your brand identity to life, and allow everyone in your company to communicate and interact with customers on your behalf.

Experimentation

Experimentation is integral to any marketing plan, no matter the size of your company. Even for large businesses, gaining traction with new products and marketing techniques can be difficult. Experimentation, and trying new things, is important; it can help identify successful tactics, and even more importantly, it can help you determine which methods are most promising, and enable you to put your best foot forward.

Improved Conversion Rates

Getting someone to take the first step, and enter their email address into a form, is the first step to any marketing campaign. Once this has happened, you can continue to build a relationship with the customer, and eventually, convert them into a paying customer. Establishing a strong online presence, gaining brand awareness, providing helpful content, and even engaging with potential customers on social media are all positive steps in the right direction.

If you’re looking for a simpler approach, consider paying-per-click advertising, where you’re only paying for each click that is brought to your site, or paid social media, where you spend money on social media to gain more followers, and ultimately, increase your marketing ROI.

Reduced Brand Loyalty

Being able to switch service providers, or alter the way you engage with customers, is a powerful tool. This is largely due to the increased awareness of customers regarding their preferences, as a result of the Internet. Due to this increased awareness, customers are less likely to be attracted to, or loyal to, a brand or service, if they feel they can find an alternative, or improved version, elsewhere. If you’re not prepared for the possibility of switching service providers, or improving upon existing services, you run the risk of losing a significant amount of business to your competitors.

To avoid this pitfall, seek to provide customers with compelling reasons to remain loyal to your brand. Consider investing in customer loyalty programs, such as those offered by credit cards, where you can earn points and rewards, or establishing different prices for different customers, based on their location, or the type of device they are using. Developing a relationship with your customers, and establishing yourself as an expert in your field, via content that is regularly published, demonstrates that you are a brand that can be trusted, and provides customers with a clear differentiator that makes them feel extra special.

If you’re looking to reduce brand reliance, or simply want to establish a closer connection with your audience, consider investing in customer loyalty programs, establishing multiple pricing plans, or simply providing more value to your audience, through additional content, or valuable offers. Every business is different, and what may work for one company, may not work for another. Each company needs to develop a strategy, and decide what will make them special, and gain more traction with their target audience.

More Customer Centricity

In today’s world, with consumers becoming more empowered, and using the Internet to research, compare, and even question the practices of businesses, customer centricity is more important than ever. Establishing an online presence, and creating content that is both helpful and accessible to customers, demonstrates that you are a brand that is focused on providing value, and being accessible, and this will make customers feel that your brand is a brand that they can trust.

If you’re looking to gain more traction with your advertising, or simply want to establish a closer connection with your audience, consider investing in customer loyalty programs, establishing multiple pricing plans, providing more value, or even just being available to answer questions.

Higher Conversion Rates

Increased conversion rates, or the amount of people that become paying customers, is one of the primary goals of every business, regardless of their size. Establishing a strong brand identity, gaining brand awareness, experimenting with different marketing approaches, and gaining a larger audience, are all positive steps towards increasing your conversion rates.