In the increasingly digital world we live in, Offline Marketing no longer works. Well, not entirely. While offline marketing still works for some businesses, especially for those with brick-and-mortar locations, it’s important to consider the advantages of digital marketing.
As a marketer, you’ll need to master the art of online marketing: SEO, PPC, Email Marketing, and more.
If you’re looking to increase your knowledge in this area, you’ve come to the right place.
In this article, we’ll go over everything you need to know about online marketing, including the advantages and disadvantages of each digital marketing channel.
SEO (Search Engine Optimization)
SEO is a marketing technique that allows you to earn more traffic to your website and leads to more sales. Through SEO, you try to improve your website’s ranking on search engines like Google and Bing.
In short, SEO helps your website achieve a high ranking on search engines for specific keywords or phrases. When a person searches for a product or service on a search engine, the results will typically appear at the top of the page. For instance, if you’re selling organic baby food, when a person searches for “organic baby food”, the results will usually include your website.
A high-ranking website will have the opportunity to attract visitors, leads, and customers.
The main disadvantage of SEO is that it’s a tedious and time-consuming process. You’ll need to perform keyword research, track website performance, and analyze traffic to determine the effectiveness of your SEO strategy.
PPC (Pay Per Click)
PPC, or Pay Per Click, is another digital marketing channel that allows you to promote your products and services by paying advertisers to display ads on your behalf. PPC is a little different from SEO in that you don’t need to have a high-ranking website to get started with PPC. You can easily get started with a free Google AdWords account, for example.
With PPC, you’ll often times see ads that are not particularly relevant to your product or service. These ads can sometimes hurt your conversion rates if you’re not careful. To ensure you get the best results from your PPC marketing efforts, you need to have a clear idea of how much you’re paying per click and ensure that you’re only paying for ads that are relevant to what you offer.
Though PPC is a widely available channel for gaining quick traffic, it’s not considered a long-term sustainable strategy. PPC is useful for getting the word out there, expanding your reach, and getting your product or service in front of potential customers, but it doesn’t always provide the best ROI (Return On Investment).
Email Marketing
Email Marketing, or sending emails to potential customers, is another extremely powerful marketing tool that you can use to grow your business. With Email Marketing, you can keep in touch with potential customers without having to keep up with snail mail.
You can use email marketing to promote your products and services, offer discounts, and stay in touch with your customers. When someone subscribes to your newsletter, you’ll be able to send them regular emails with helpful information, offers, and updates on your products.
This type of marketing is effective because people enjoy getting useful emails from time to time, especially when they’re interested in what you have to say.
The main disadvantage of email marketing is that, unless you have a massive list of subscribers, you’ll probably only be able to target a small portion of your audience.
Social Media Marketing
If there’s one place people go to get all the information they need, it’s social media.
As a marketing strategy, leveraging social media to get the word out there about your products and services is highly effective. There are hundreds of different platforms where you can post, share, and comment on content.
You can use social media to follow, like, or comment on relevant content, people, and organizations, which in turn, may follow, like, or comment on your content.
Through this type of social media marketing, you can put out content that is highly engaging and entertaining, and often times, viral in nature. Simply find relevant and popular hashtags, create engaging content, and watch your follower count increase.
One of the major advantages of social media marketing is that it’s incredibly affordable. Even a small business can get started with a free Instagram account and a handful of sponsored posts per day. You don’t need to have millions of dollars to invest in traditional advertising methods.
The disadvantage of social media marketing is that, unless you have a huge following, you’ll only be able to reach a small audience. Though it’s not always the case, a lot of the time, social media posts only get a few hundred or few thousand views at most. While this may be enough to get the attention of potential customers, it’s not necessarily going to cause them to buy your products or services.
Why Should You Consider All These Channels?
As technologies change and evolve, marketing strategies and channels change with them. The key is to remain aware of the latest trends and technologies, so you can properly position your business for the future. In the past, marketing was limited to magazine spreads and radio ads. Today, with the click of a button, you can have an entire website dedicated to your product or service.
While these traditional methods are still effective, they might not be the best fit for every business. If you’re looking to brand or image your business, you might want to consider investing in digital marketing. With the right techniques, you can have a highly effective digital marketing strategy to grow your business.