When starting a small business, most owners focus on getting their first buyers. Many people rely on traditional forms of advertising – flyers, coupons, posters. Knowing that they offer high quality products or services, owners trust that customers will soon discover them – it’s just a matter of time. Of course, this strategy may bring good results, but there is a better and easier solution: start-ups need to consider the opportunities that online marketing offers. There is no business, whether new or established, that can ignore the huge market and opportunities offered by the Internet.
What is Online Marketing?
Starting with the basics, online marketing is a method that uses the Internet to promote or communicate messages of a company’s products and services to potential customers or target audiences.
Online marketing is very different from traditional marketing, which originally included tools such as printed ads, billboards, television and radio ads. The widespread use of the Internet for business and personal purposes has created new channels in advertising and marketing. There are also many benefits and challenges to online marketing, and it primarily uses digital media to convert virtual visitors into customers.
In the case of online marketing, it is essential for a business to have its own website that serves as a form of communication platform with customers – the website presents the products, services, and goals of a business. A website should be interesting and useful to the readers, because that is the only way they will return and increase inbound traffic to your site.
You have a number of tools at your disposal to set up your online marketing strategy: you can start email marketing, use social media, improve search engine optimization (SEO) on your website, launch pay-per-click ads, or focus on content marketing. And these are just a few examples.
The main advantage of online marketing is that you can measure and analyze its impact and results. You can see which channel works best for attracting new customers and visitors.
Internet Use Accelerates
There is a direct link between the growth of the world population and the increasing use of the Internet. In 1995, only 16 million people had access to the Internet. This figure represented 4% of the world population at that time. Let’s fast forward to a few years later and see that there are 4 billion people connected to the World Wide Web today. This figure represents 53% of the Earth’s population. It is estimated that by 2021 more than 4.6 billion people will use the Internet daily. As the world population grows, the coverage of the Internet will be further increased. More and more countries are improving their infrastructure to make the Internet accessible to people.
These numbers indicate that you can reach customers mainly online. If you do not have a website, you will not be able to take advantage of the Internet. Not having an online presence can undermine your business growth prospects. (The role of websites has already been discussed in our post blog post ‘Why you need a website for a successful business’.) This is the first step in developing an effective online strategy. If you don’t have a website yet, it’s not too late, just contact us and we’ll help you build one.
As a start-up business, it is crucial to ensure that your marketing strategy does not lag behind but evolves over time. Everything and everyone is connected to the digital world – if you are unable to reach your audience in the right way, you will lose the competition and lose a lot of potential customers as well.
Cost efficiency for new businesses
Online marketing is much more cost effective than traditional marketing tools. This is especially important for start-ups, as establishing a business involves a lot of capital and resources being consumed by other expenses. Web marketing, on the other hand, offers a cheaper and more effective advertising channel. Let’s look at some examples.
Blogging is one of the most cost effective online marketing tools for small businesses. An informative, well-written blog can be an ideal way to showcase your new business to a wider audience while increasing the amount of traffic to your site. Blogging is not just about writing interesting short articles. For a marketing strategy to be effective, blogs must be very relevant to your target audience and follow SEO (search engine optimization) guidelines. After you have published a blog, you should promote it on social media, even on other websites. Remember that blogging is not the fastest-selling marketing strategy but in the long run it is a great way to drive sustainable inbound traffic.
Another example of cost-effective methods is SEO, or search engine optimization, which makes your site more visible on the Internet. Since online search is the primary way for customers to find products and services, SEO is an essential part of any internet marketing strategy. SEO helps your prospective clients find your new business, whether they are searching through mobile devices or pc browsers.
I would mention another important method (non-exhaustive list), the PPC or pay-per-click advertisements. These ads are ideal for small businesses and start-ups because you can set the exact amount you’re willing to spend. There are plenty of platforms to start your ads: Google and Facebook (the two most popular), or you can advertise with Bing and Twitter.
You can create targeted campaigns with online marketing
One of the greatest gifts that online marketing has given us is the ability to choose from huge amounts of demographic data. That way you can narrow down the target group you want to focus on. If you are smart enough, you can create ads that are highly relevant to your target audience and it will help prospective clients relate to it – with a more general ad it’s almost impossible. That way, you can connect with people without using annoying traditional advertising techniques – for example, you don’t have to show the same ad thousands of times a month or interrupt someone’s program over and over again.
Online Marketing and Competitors
The trends and techniques of online marketing are constantly changing, so it is important that you keep up with these improvements. In order for your new business to be successful, you need to look at your competitors and learn from their strategy. Sometimes it’s worth looking at them not as mere opponents but rather someone you can learn from. Look at the content they use, how often they blog, how much infographics they use on their websites.
Analyze how your competitors are communicating their messages to their audience and how they are trying to promote their brand. You will probably find the areas that make their own online marketing strategy unique. The ultimate goal is to get ahead of your competitors. However, you cannot do it unless you are competing in the online marketing world.
Final Thoughts
It’s hard to find more cost effective forms of advertising than online marketing. Of course, start-ups are trying to get the most out of a small budget – fortunately, many forms of online marketing allow you to promote your business products or services, communicate messages, and reach a wide audience, even if your budget is very tight.
Compared to advertising on TV, radio or direct mail, online marketing costs significantly less and reaches a much wider audience at the same time. If you are trying to promote your start-up business with online marketing tools, you have a much better chance of succeeding in your business.