The advent of social media, online stores, and mobile apps has changed the game for marketers. No longer do you need to simply target audiences in large cities. You can now connect with your fans and followers, wherever they might be, and even encourage them to take action.

But has all this change made online marketing obsolete? Hardly. In fact, marketing online is more important than ever before. Here’s why.

Emerging Technologies

The sheer volume of data available online makes it the perfect playground for influencers, marketers, and strategists. With every new social media tool that launches, the ability to analyze consumer behavior and track campaigns in real time becomes more accessible.

For example, let’s say you’re a fitness influencer with thousands of followers on your various accounts across social media. One day, you notice that a popular fashion blog and magazine is covering your niche, and they’re calling out your fans on social media in praise of your work.

If you’re not careful, this could put a damper on your social media traffic, which in turn, could lead to a drop in revenue. To prevent this from happening, you could take two approaches.

• You could engage with the fashion blogger, thanking them for the coverage and encouraging them to keep up the good work. Doing this shows that you’re a savvy marketer and takes the pressure off your audience, encouraging them to visit your website to learn more.
• You could also install a tracking pixel on your website. This pixel would then be added to any blog posts or articles that reference you, which would show the fashion blogger’s audience that they influenced the decision to visit your site.

Digital Nomads

If you follow my blog, you’ll know that I’ve been traveling the world for the past two years. During that time, I’ve seen first-hand how technology has made it easier for brands to reach audiences wherever they might be. Let’s take the example of digital nomads. These are people who work remotely for brands or creative agencies. They’re often located in far-flung places like Indonesia or the Philippines, but regularly visit popular digital nomad hubs like Tokyo or Hong Kong, where the cost of living is extremely affordable.

With the right marketing campaign, you could potentially grow your business, no matter where you are in the world. It’s all about exploiting the right audiences and engaging with them on a personal level.

Fully Integrated

To succeed in today’s digital world, you need to integrate all aspects of your marketing strategy. This includes social media, search engine optimization, email marketing, and much more. Luckily for you, I’m a big believer in working with a marketing agency that has experience in implementing digital marketing plans and strategies for brands.

An agency that specializes in marketing online will have the ability to put together a fully-integrated strategy, taking care of the technical, while you focus on getting your message out to your target audience.

Lower CPL Scores

One of the first things that pops up when you enter “online marketing” into Google is a long list of ads, some of which are blatantly spammy. As a result, your chances of earning revenue through adwords are pretty low. But what if I told you there was a way to find untapped affiliate marketing groups, whose users are almost guaranteed to buy your product, and earn high referral fees?

Enterprise software like HubSpot and Marketo make it easy to set up automated email campaigns, track your results, and tweak your approach based on what works and what doesn’t. With automated email campaigns, you can choose to send the same exact campaign to multiple groups (say, the 50,000 members of your first affiliate marketing group, and the 25,000 members of your second group) or, you can create separate campaigns and send them out to different groups (and upgrade your automation software, so that when someone clicks a link in one of your emails, they’re taken to a page with all the necessary information to make a purchase).

Using these types of software, along with a little bit of creativity, you could potentially earn a satisfying and profitable revenue stream from online marketing alone (that is, without having to resort to ads).

Cross-Platform

When it comes to marketing online, having a presence on as many platforms as possible is essential. This ensures that you’re reaching the right audiences no matter where they might be in the world. If you want to be able to target audiences in Indonesia, you’d better be on Snapchat, Instagram, and Facebook, all of which have a very large user base in that country.

You can also create different types of content (e.g., blogs, articles, or podcasts) and distribute them across all your platforms. Not only will this build credibility among your target audiences but it will also help search engines like Google better understand what your site is about.

It’s never been easier to market online. You have access to more platforms than ever before, which means that, as a marketer, you’ve never been more important. And, although it might seem like a pain to have to track all these platforms and groups, the ability to do so is what makes marketing online so invaluable.