Why does internet marketing matter? There are more than 4 billion internet users worldwide. Those internet users make billions of searches. Google alone has more than 3 billion searches per day.

With the increase in mobile use, people depend on the internet to find the products and services they want and need. This means you must have an internet presence for your business to succeed these days.

Before you jump into an internet presence, it's important to know how to use the available platforms wisely. This includes understanding what internet marketing is and how to take advantage of this marketing tactic.

What is Internet Marketing?

Internet marketing takes in any online marketing efforts. This includes:

  • Search engine marketing
  • Social media marketing
  • Email marketing
  • Paid advertising
  • Networking

These marketing platforms use content and interaction to create brand awareness. This allows you to reach leads and customers at each stage of the sales process. The internet provides an economical way to educate and create an emotional response to make people want to work with you.

Types of Online Marketing

Online marketing combines free and paid strategies to reach your preferred audience. To make the most of these opportunities, you need to understand who you want to reach. You also need to understand what your audience will respond to. 

You should create a buyer persona before implementing any of these strategies. The buyer persona will answer who you want to reach, their wants and needs, and how and where to reach them. Once you understand your potential customers, you can determine which online platforms will work for your brand.

Search Engine Marketing

The best way to reach new leads involves ranking high in searches. This includes search engine optimization (SEO) onsite and paid advertising on search engines.

SEO seeks to increase your website's ability to get noticed on search engines. You can optimize your website with keyword research and link building. 

You want to find high-ranking, low-competition keywords to use in your website content. These keywords, combined with internal and external links help you create authority and rank higher in searches.

Social Media Marketing

You can also create brand awareness through ads and posts on social media sites. Once you determine the social media platforms where you can reach potential customers, you create business profiles on each one.

It's important to stay consistent with brand information and design on each platform you use. It's also important to engage with your audience on a regular basis.

This engagement involves sharing your own content and content from other industry professionals. You also want to share personal info about the company. Make sure you respond and interact with relevant info to keep your brand in front of potential customers.

Email Marketing

Every marketer needs to build an email list. You can create a lead magnet to capture these contacts and reach out to each lead based on where they are in the sales process.

You want to create autoresponders to welcome new leads. You can also provide incentives to new and current customers, send reminders, and introduce new products and services. Each email should provide a call to action, clearly stating what you want them to do with the information you provide.

Paid Advertising

Pay-per-click marketing involves paying for clicks, conversions, or impressions on search engines or social media sites. These paid ads or promoted content helps you rank higher and engage more people.

You set up the demographic information for the people you want to reach, and determine keywords to activate your ad in searches. Once everything's set, you pay, based on the ad metrics.

It's important to know what you want from the ads you set. If you create ads without a clear plan, you'll end up wasting money. 

Internet Networking

Networking involves relationship building rather than outright sales. This proves important to create new opportunities for partnerships and interaction.

Internet networking involves using online groups to build these relationships with others in your industry. This opens doors for collaboration opportunities.

You can also join groups to interact with customers, answering questions and sharing information. These online groups include social media groups, industry forums, and Q&A forums.

Content Key for Online Marketing

Each of the internet marketing platforms revolves around content. It's important to publish content online to create trust and authority. With valuable content, you can draw in new customers and establish your brand's online presence.

While a good content strategy proves important, only 39% of marketers have a strategy in place. This strategy includes

  • Blog posts and guest posts
  • Ebooks and PDFs
  • White papers
  • Case studies
  • Infographics
  • Videos

The content provided should answer real questions. Content also needs to remain engaging so people stick around for more and share the content with others. You should create content on a regular basis, but with a specific goal in mind.

Internet Marketing: How-to

Now that you understand what's included in internet marketing, how do you put those platforms together to create a strategy? You need to understand how the different internet platforms work together to get the most out of them.

It's not just a matter of throwing content out there. You want to strategically combine platforms to get the most out of each one.

It Starts with a Website

Your first step in internet marketing is creating a website. You want to create a site that's easy to navigate and runs smoothly. When creating a website, you also want to keep mobile users in mind.

Make sure you create pages for ease of use. The pages should include contact info. You should also include a blog to provide content for sharing.

Use your blog to build up internal and external links. The internal links send people to other parts of your website and external links provide authority. Both types of links, when combined with keywords, build up your SEO.

Capture Emails

Once you have your website in place and you start to build up content, you want to start capturing emails. You can create a lead magnet to capture contact info as people visit your site. Lead magnets can include videos, ebooks, and case studies.

Create email campaigns to welcome and follow up. Set up autoresponders for welcoming emails and follow up for the different stages of the sales process.

Interact on Social Media

To get the most out of social media, you want to start small. Determine the platforms where your potential customers hang out and get active on those sites.

You want to do regular posts with a mix of interaction and content. The rule of thumb on social media involves 80% content and 20% personal interaction. Break up content with 50% from other authorities, and 30% brand content.

Forum Profiles

Once you start to generate content, you should look into different industry and customer forums. Groups and forums will help you learn what others in your industry are doing. Some forums allow you to learn more about potential customers to help you build up your buyer persona.

With some forums, you can even share content specific to the questions or concerns addressed. This gives you another opportunity to get your content in front of more eyes.

Include PPC Marketing

You want organic traffic, but that doesn't mean you should ignore the paid traffic. You want to include PPC marketing on search engines and social media sites to reach new leads.

Determine your best content to share for PPC marketing. Determine whether you want more traffic or better conversions for paid ads. This will help you determine how you set up each ad. 

Analyze Internet Marketing Results

None of these internet marketing strategies will do any good unless you measure your results. You need to find the tools that will help you analyze and measure the results from the different platforms you use. 

This includes website and social media analytics tools. Most social media sites have analytics tools provided with your page to determine your results. Some website providers have their own analytics tools included.

You can also use tools such as Google analytics to measure your content success. These tools will help you determine which platforms offer the best results for your efforts.

You can also measure what content works best with your audience. This will help you determine what type of content to offer and where to share it.

Digital Marketing Success

The means to succeed with internet marketing changes often due to changes in algorithms for the marketing platforms. This means it's important to have the tools to keep up with these changes. It's also important to have the tools to adapt your marketing strategies to meet these changes.

The tools you need for success depends on whether you need help getting started, or you need help nudging your internet marketing strategies to the next level. Wherever you are in the process, check out the marketing bundles available to push you towards success.

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