There is no question that the web has changed the way we interact and do business. Whether we’re buying clothes online, booking holidays online, or paying for services with credit cards, the web has made these things much easier for us.

But while the web has made life simpler for us, it has also made marketing more complex. Now that we can be more easily accessed by more people, marketers have to figure out how to connect with customers in a more personal and natural way.

What is online marketing?

Simply put, online marketing is the marketing and selling of products or services over the internet, often through websites. The practice includes email marketing, social media marketing, and display advertising.

Online marketing can also refer to the marketing activity carried out through digital platforms such as social media. These platforms can sometimes be referred to as digital marketing when used in isolation, although they can also be used for traditional marketing tasks such as email marketing and display advertising.

Why should you adopt a digital marketing strategy?

The rise of the digital native consumer has greatly influenced the marketing strategies of businesses around the world. Forrester predicts that by 2022, 80% of all consumer purchases will be made online.

What does this mean for marketing in 2022? More individuals are discovering the power of the internet to research and learn about products and services, and, as a result, they have greater expectations about what the brands they love will offer for them.

So if you’re looking to grow your business in the next 5 years, adopting a digital marketing strategy is a great place to start. But how do you go about adopting this strategy? What are the fundamentals of an effective digital marketing strategy?

1. Create content regularly

Creating content consistently is essential to establishing yourself as an expert in your field, and it will also encourage potential customers to seek you out. Developing and maintaining a blog is a great way to do this, and you can use tools like Hootsuite to help you easily create blog posts and schedule your content to appear when people are searching for your favorite topics. You can also use tools like Sumo to gather and analyze key performance indicators (KPIs) like website traffic, leads, and conversions.

Whether you’re a professional blogger, a marketer, or a social media manager, having content available to your audience at all times is essential.

2. Build trust

Even though content creation is important, your job isn’t done once you’ve published your blog post, podcast, or social media content. You must continue to build trust with your audience even when they’ve already come to know and like you. How do you do this?

You can start by being honest and transparent about the business you’re in, the products you’re promoting, and the methods you’re using to grow your business. Having a clear and open conversation with your customer is the key to earning their trust, and you can use platforms like Hootsuite to help you easily connect with and engage with your audience.

But creating trusted content doesn’t happen overnight. It takes time. You have to continue to grow your audience, demonstrate your expertise, and establish yourself as a thought leader in your industry by consistently creating valuable content that is worth sharing.

3. Test and learn

Finally, you must continuously test and learn in order to grow and improve your strategy. You’re not going to learn everything about marketing in a few short hours, and it’s certainly not something you can just “google” and discover on your own. By continually testing different marketing tactics and learning from your mistakes, you can improve your effectiveness and grow your business.

What does this mean in practice? You could start by trying out different types of content, like blogs, vlogs, or podcasts. See what resonates with your audience and determine the value you place on different types of content. Always be looking for ways to improve and scale your efforts. While you’re testing, you’re also learning, and this is an important part of improving your strategy and growing your business.

Fundamental Principles of Digital Marketing

While it’s always a good idea to adopt a fresh set of eyes to analyze your current marketing strategy, it can be incredibly helpful to view your strategy from a different perspective. If you’ve already got a marketing strategy in place, it can be helpful to look at it from a digital marketing perspective, asking yourself questions like:

What are my unique selling points?

How do my customers find me?

What websites do they visit most often?

What does my website traffic look like?

What types of content do my customers interact with the most?

What am I doing that’s working and what am I doing that’s not?

The answers to these questions will form the basis of a new marketing strategy, and it’s worth taking the time to find them.