Marketing, as you may know, is a large part of life in the 21st century. In the past, physical mailers and billboards were the only ways to spread the word about a business. Now, with the rise of the internet, businesses can market their products to consumers with minimal costs while having complete control over the content that is distributed.
Traditional marketing, such as radio advertisements, newspaper ads, and billboards—all of which are still relevant but need to be adapted to the new era of marketing—have evolved to become online marketing.
Here, we’ll cover the top three types of online marketing that you should be doing to grow your business and make the most of the new era of marketing.
Traditional Marketing
The first type of marketing that you should be doing is traditional marketing. This type of marketing is highly effective when used in conjunction with other forms of marketing. For instance, you can run an ad in a newspaper or radio station or put up a billboard on the side of the highway and get great results from that.
Traditional marketing is important because it provides reach. When you put up a billboard, you’re not just advertising to people who live nearby but also to those who are driving by. And when you place an ad in a newspaper or magazine, your reach is even greater. You’re not just advertising to people who live nearby but also to those who are interested in your product or service and/or read the publication.
Content Marketing
The second type of marketing that you should be doing is content marketing. This type of marketing aims to attract and retain potential customers by creating engaging content that is specifically designed to encourage them to take some kind of action, whether it’s buying a product, giving a review, or responding to an offer (like a discount).
Think of websites like HubSpot and Google Now. These are platforms that have evolved from having simply a business’ website to providing users with valuable content that is often entertaining, educational, or inspirational.
Just because your product is online doesn’t mean that content marketing isn’t relevant or useful. In fact, when used effectively, content marketing can be highly effective even if you don’t have a physical product to sell. For example, you can write a blog post about how to properly prepare food for an important event, how to choose the right clothing for your type of event, or how to handle stressful situations. These are all examples of content marketing that could potentially help a business (whether it’s yours or not) to grow.
Product Marketing
The third type of marketing that you should be doing is product marketing. As the name suggests, this type of marketing is focused on marketing a given product or service. When used effectively, product marketing can be very effective in encouraging someone to try out a new product or use a particular service. It’s important to bear in mind that not all product marketing is created equal. Some product marketers try to up-sale and will often bombard your Instagram account with flashy ads and discounted deals to get you to buy their product.
You don’t need to avoid product marketing completely. For instance, you could market different types of safety equipment that you think their employees will find useful. Or, you could use product marketing to attract new customers to your business by offering them a special deal. Sometimes the best approach is to simply provide helpful content that relates to their area of expertise.
Your job as a marketer isn’t to push products that you think are the best fit for a given audience. It’s to understand the needs of your audience and find products that they will value and benefit from. Sometimes this might mean presenting a deal that is heavily discounted or offering a complimentary product with your paid advertising.
Generating Demand
In addition to being effective directly in terms of attracting potential customers, these types of marketing also have the side effect of generating demand. When used effectively, these types of marketing can help businesses to become more popular and, in turn, more profitable. This is because people are often more likely to purchase a product or service if they know other people are interested in it as well.
When you run a radio ad or newspaper ad to promote a restaurant, you’re not just ensuring that people know about the restaurant. You’re also helping to generate interest in the product or service and, therefore, encouraging them to visit the restaurant to try it out. Or, when you post a picture of a delicious looking cake on social media, you’re helping to generate a craze for that particular type of cake. People are interested in your product or service because you’re demonstrating that others value it enough to spend their money on it.
Measuring The Effectiveness Of Your Marketing
Finally, it’s important to measure the effectiveness of your online marketing. Just because you ran a radio ad, for example, doesn’t mean that it was a waste of time and money. It just means that you’ll need to determine how effective the ad was in terms of attracting potential customers. Or, if you ran a blog post campaign, you’ll need to see how many leads you generated and whether or not those leads were actually worth acquiring.
The key to effective marketing is knowledge and analysis, not just the creative side. As a business owner or manager, you need to be making the right decision based on the available data rather than investing in a marketing strategy that you think will work out well because you saw your friends’ Instagram posts about a particular product.
The above information serves as a primer on the various types of online marketing that you should be doing to grow your business. Simply remember to use common sense and be creative!