The Increasing Importance of Online Marketing
Online marketing is something that has been imperative for businesses for a few years now, but in the wake of the current Coronavirus pandemic, it has never been so important. As the world is pretty much on lockdown, people are relying on the online world to get them through this challenging time. People are relying on the internet to find out information, to speak to their friends and family, to keep working and earning money, to keep themselves entertained and to buy essentials.
Therefore, if your online marketing efforts are not up to scratch, then perhaps this isolation period is the time to be working on them. Online Marketing or digital marketing is essentially any form of marketing that exists online, so that includes marketing on search engines, social media, email, and other websites that connect you with your current and your prospective customers.
Then, more importantly, than all of them is your own website and any of your own businesses online branding materials such as email marketing and online brochures. Online marketing also includes things like Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), Content Marketing, Social Media Marketing, Pay Per Click (PPC), Affiliate Marketing, Native Advertising, Marketing Automation, Email Marketing, Online PR, and Inbound Marketing.
In today’s online and fast-paced, if you’re not making the most of this online marketing, then you are really missing out. As people or more importantly, your consumers are online and connected more than ever before, you need to be where they are and connecting to them where it matters. The way we live our lives now means that people are always on their phones or laptops anyway, but due to the Coronavirus this online usage will spike enormously, and people will be checking emails more, going on social media apps, and interacting online via voice technology and now looking to do their day to day activities online.
More and more people are embracing online shopping, online teaching and learning, reading stories to kids online, playing music and creating concerts online, doing personal training sessions online and even joining in pub quizzes online. It is when they are doing these activities and getting through this tough time that your customers or potential customers need to see you too.
Online marketing doesn’t mean that you have to be in your consumer’s face so that they get fed up of you, but what it does mean is that it is easy for customers to access your business, your products or your services, it makes it easier for them complete purchases and buys your services on whatever medium you are marketing on, and if you choose to go with multi-channel marketing, then this lets your customer decide and gives them a choice of which platform they want to use.
Multi-channel marketing is not only good and convenient for your customers, though, but it is also good for your business as there are many channels a company can take advantage of to reach potential customers such as online advertising, blogging), direct mails, email marketing, and newsletters.
As these marketing channels continue to grow, this is even more of a reason why you should be making the most of them. If you don’t do this now, but your competition does, who do you think customers will go to? The business that they see has a presence on social media, one who’s offers show up when they are scrolling through their phones. These people are valuable customers, and if you want to be able to tap into them, then your marketing campaigns must be online and on as many channels as are relevant to your business, product, or service.
It is up to you, however, to make your business or brand stand out from the crowd in the online marketplace and cut through the noise to be able to reach as many consumers as possible.
The world of online marketing is so beneficial, but at the same time, it can be a minefield if you’re not used to it. With so many different channels and platforms you can use to advertise your business, where do you begin? What can online marketing do for you?
The first thing you need to do for your online marketing efforts is to invest in your website. This is one of the most essential parts of your business. Not only does your website act as an online shop-window, but it’s even better than that as it is somewhere that your customers get to explore rather than just walking past the front. They are able to navigate their way around your website and find out more information than they could ever possibly find out from a real shop window or a flyer through their letterbox. Your website is now your first impression; when someone types in your business name or even your service and location in Google and you come up, you want to make a good impression.
If you have an outdated website, one that doesn’t look professional or lacks information, then your customers may well be put off and will go elsewhere. Your web design could actually make or break the success of any other advertising you do.
Not only do you need an excellent website, but your customers need to be able to find it, and in inline marketing terms, this means that you need to be up to date on search engine optimization, or SEO. Working on your SEO and investing money into it means you can improve where your website ranks on search engines like Google for searches related to your products or services. It involves incorporating keywords related to your products or services on your site so that when users search those keywords in search engines like Google, relevant pages appear in results.
You can identify the best keywords for your pages by doing keyword research to see what your target audience is searching for, as well as which keywords your competitors are targeting. You want to choose keywords that are used by your target audience and will attract them to your site.
Another basic but must-do when it comes to online marketing is social media. Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram present significant opportunities to reach and connect with your target audience, and these platforms are a great place to advertise because there are so many customers active on these platforms every day, and you need to be there. Also, advertising is relatively low cost on social media, so it’s well worth taking advantage of.
If your business relies on traffic from the search engines, and it would benefit from the increase in traffic better rankings could deliver, we can help. Direct Submit are a digital marketing agency that specialises in all thing’s SEO. Set up over 15-years ago, we have been continually adjusting and tweaking our proprietary SEO strategies, which has made us leaders in our industry.
Call Direct Submit today on 0845 2722350 or visit our website for further information on how we can help your business grow and develop with effective SEO or Search Engine Optimisation.
