When you sit down and think about the number one marketing tool in your arsenal, what comes to mind?
Email? Social media? TV ads? Newspaper ads?
While these are all great tools that can make a significant difference for your business, the number one marketing tool is actually the internet.
While it may be strange to wrap your mind around the idea of the internet as a marketing tool, it houses hundreds of strategies and tools, including some of the ones listed above, that marketers can use in order to reach their target audience.
If you want to take your business to the next level, one of the best things you can do is embrace the power of the internet and utilize this marketing tool to grow your audience, your brand loyalty, and your profitability.
The Internet As A Marketing Tool
The internet can help you reach thousands more people with costs less than or equal to marketing tools like television and newspaper ads. As of July 2020, roughly 4.57 billion people were active internet users. That is 59% of the global population–more than the number of tv households and print newspaper readers combined! With this many people using the internet regularly, your business cannot afford not to consider how to use the internet as a marketing tool.
Here are a few marketing strategies that you can use to expand your reach and help your business thrive:
Paid Advertisements
Tools like Google Ads provide an easy way for businesses to advertise online and put their business in front of new eyes. When people are searching keywords relevant to your business, or they are looking for businesses similar to yours, Google Ads helps your business’ website show up at the top of the search results, leading to more website visits, conversions, and sales.
The great thing about this type of paid advertisement is that they not only improve your reach, but they only cost you money when they deliver results. Unlike print ads or television ads, which cost you the same amount of money whether you gain 1,000 new customers or zero new customers, Google Ads is results oriented. Only when people click through to your website or call your business, potentially putting more money in your pocket, do you pay for these ads.
Whether you want to stick with Google Ads or use Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising tools, the internet has a host of ways for you to make the most out of paid advertising.
Social Media Marketing
Digital marketing tools like social media are another benefit of using the internet as part of your business’ marketing strategy. With approximately 3.5 billion social media users worldwide, this digital marketing tool is too big to ignore. Creating social media content is a great way to build your audience, provide value, and drive traffic to your website.
Social media platforms are great for sharing engaging content that will capture the attention of viewers and encourage them to share your content with others online. When people have a positive experience with your business on social media, they are far more likely to recommend your business to the people in their social circle.
Furthermore, social media also helps you keep your brand at the forefront of your audience’s mind. If your followers see regular posts from you, they will be more likely to remember and consider your brand when they are in need of a product or service that you have to offer. Each piece of content you post is another opportunity to spread brand awareness and connect with your audience.
Considering 54% of social media browsers use social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter to conduct product research, it is more important now than ever for you to make sure that you are using social media to connect with your audience and share information about your goods and services.
When it comes to marketing on the internet, establishing a strong social media presence is one of the most beneficial steps you can take to help your business.
Email Marketing
Email marketing has the potential to help your conversion rate skyrocket. With email marketing, not only are you able to provide relevant information to people who have already shown an interest in your business and its products or services, which already makes them more likely to convert in the future, but you are also able to use segmentation to make sure you are only pushing products, discounts, and other information about your business to consumers who will find that information useful.
When you put an ad in a newspaper, you are spending money to reach a wide audience full of consumers that may or may not actually be interested in what your business has to offer. However, when you use an email marketing campaign as part of your digital marketing strategy, you are able to reach people who already find value in your brand and have interest in what your brand has to say or what your brand has to offer.
Blogging
One of the best ways to expand your organic reach is to incorporate a blog on your business’ website. Blogs can help your business grow in a number of ways:
- Blogs allow you to share the heart of your brand and provide value to your audience, leading to more repeat and lifelong customers.
- Blogs help build search engine optimization (SEO), allowing your website to rank higher in search engine result pages.
- Blogs incorporate keywords related to your industry, helping people find your business when they search for those keywords.
- Blogs are shareable content that allow your audience to spread the word about your business and share your blog posts with their friends and family.
As you can see, online blogs are able to benefit your business in a way that print marketing tools simply cannot. If you want to help your business grow and provide relevant, useful content for your audience, the internet is a powerful marketing tool you should consider incorporating into your strategy.
Creating A Content Strategy
While all of these strategies certainly have the potential to revolutionize your ability to market your brand, they are only helpful if they are used effectively. The best way to make sure you are making the most out of each of these methods is to develop a strong content strategy:
- Determine which strategies and what type of content will be most helpful for reaching your specific target audience. For instance, if you want to reach millennials, then social media marketing is a must, and you should consider creating engaging video content.
- Create a content schedule so that you can post content for your blog, email newsletters, and social media platforms at peak times for engagement.
- Conduct keyword research and work with content marketers to make sure you are including these keywords in your online marketing strategies.
- Use analytics to determine which campaigns and keywords are the most successful for your business so that you can adjust your content marketing strategy accordingly.
- Hire content writers to craft high quality content like blog posts, emails, and social media posts for your business.
With the right content strategy, you can take advantage of all of the benefits that come with using the internet as a marketing tool, helping your business continue to grow for years to come.