What Is Online Marketing?

Online marketing – or internet marketing – is your advertising and marketing efforts that are happening online (of course) through your website, social media, email marketing and mobile devices. You’re doing it to get prospects who ultimately become customers and clients.

Depending on your target audience, your online marketing might be done in conjunction with offline marketing such as advertising in newspapers and magazines or on the radio or television.

Your online marketing is part of your funnel, and your funnel is how you walk people through:

1. Becoming aware that you exist and attracting them to you. This is where they find you and you offer them something valuable at no charge so they opt into your list.
2. The second phase of your funnel is selling. You will educate and make offers to them. This can be done immediately after they opt-in as an upsell of a small dollar offer.
3. The final phase of your funnel is wowing. Someone is now a client and you knock their socks off! And while you’re at it, they send you referrals.

These three steps are simplified down to the minimum – there are a whole lot of other things involved in the lifecycle marketing process!

Online Marketing Broken Down

Now, let’s break down each of the sections of online marketing in a 10,000 foot overview.

Website

The website marketing includes the following:

• Organic website visits through SEO (Search Engine Optimization)
• Paid website visits through Pay Per Click
• Visits to your website via referrals. This could be either referral partners or affiliates driving traffic to your site or listings on other websites who have a link back to your site.

Within your website also includes pieces that are broken down even further…

• Content marketing.  Google and other search engines like new content, so you want to be sure you are blogging regularly.
• Video marketing. Video can go on your website, but it can also be put on YouTube (which falls under social media, as well). And Google owns YouTube… If you have a video on YouTube and it’s been optimized for searching, it will show higher in the rankings.
• Podcasts. While you can have your podcasts hosted separately on channels like iTunes, you can also have them available on your website. Here’s an example of my podcast where followers can also listen on iTunes, Android, Stitcher and TuneIn or subscribe via email.

Tip: Creating content for blogs, videos and podcasts can become overwhelming, so repurpose your content and use it on all three media channels!  After you’ve written your blog, record a quick video of yourself teaching or demonstrating the content and then record a podcast on the same topic, focusing on the highlights of the content! And, of course, you can pull tips from your content to use on social media.

Social Media

There are a lot of social media networks out there. The important thing when starting is knowing where your ideal customer or your target audience is hanging out at!

• Facebook
• Twitter
• Instagram
• LinkedIn
• Pinterest
• Snapchat
• Tumblr
• Google+
• YouTube
• Periscope
• Meerkat
• Blab
• Reddit
• StumbleUpon
• And many, many more!!

Don’t try to do them all. Focus on one or two and get consistent with those. Once you have consistency on those channels, then you can move on to another channel – if you want!

Tip: Each social media platform has its own ‘culture’ in terms of messaging, images and appropriate calls-to-action.  It’s a mistake to assume you can use the same post content across all the social media networks without tweaking it to fit in with the character of the various platforms. Gary Vaynerchuk explains how to master marketing on the big four social media platforms here.

Email Marketing

While email marketing may seem like it’s from the stone age, it is still a very important piece of your online marketing strategy. People have asked to hear from you, and you should be providing valuable content on a regular basis.

You also need to be sure you’re asking them to DO something: schedule a call, buy a product, buy someone else’s product that you receive a commission for.

However, you want to make sure that you don’t ask too much. This will turn your readers off. Think of it like your bank account. Every time you provide valuable content with no strings attached, you are making a deposit. Conversely, every time you ask your readers to make a purchase, you are withdrawing from your bank account. Ask too much, and you’re overdrawn!

Tip:  Have you heard of the marketing strategy called ‘bouncing?’ It is the process of causing your readers to move around with you via clicking links.

When they click a link to follow you to a different web property, it increases their sense of intimacy and trust with you and instills an impression of your authority.  This leads to greater loyalty and stronger relationship with you in the future.

Asking your readers to click a link to your blog or another valuable resource is a great way to ‘ask them to do something’ while also continuing to deliver value to them.

Mobile Marketing

Since 80% of internet users own a smart phone, any effective online marketing strategy must include optimization for mobile engagement.

Optimizing for mobile marketing simply means that you ensure all your content is easily read/viewed/interacted with on a small screen.

Mobile users expect a simple and seamless process when accessing the internet via their devices, so make sure your website, emails, and order forms are mobile responsive.

Tip:  Perform a quick audit of your own ‘mobile experience’ by putting yourself through your entire funnel on a mobile device. If you find any area that is difficult to interact with, make the needed changes to enhance the experience.

For a deep dive into mobile marketing and why you can’t afford to ignore it, check out this guide.

If you’d like to talk about your online marketing and get some direction, schedule a free call now!