Your content can make or break your marketing strategy. In this article, we’ll look at what an online marketing strategy is, why you need one, and how to get started.
What Is Online Marketing?
Online marketing is a way of reaching new audience and connecting with potential customers. There are lots of different online marketing activities you can choose from such as SEO marketing and social media marketing. SEO marketing involves looking at what you can do make your own website rank higher on search engines, such as Google or Bing. Whereas, social media marketing involves using other websites like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, or Twitter to promote your products and increase your website traffic. These types of online marketing can make it easier to increase brand awareness.
There are also other types of online marketing such as content marketing and PPC advertising. Content marketing involves creating and distributing different types of content, such as blog posts, videos, podcasts, or ebooks. This can help educate potential customers about your products and create more demand for your services. PPC advertising involves paying for your online ads to be shown on search engines, social media platforms, or other relevant websites. This can help you show your content to a larger audience and generate more business leads.
How To Create An Online Marketing Strategy
Online marketing is important for any small business, especially when you’re just starting out. Here are some practical steps you can take to create your own online marketing strategy:
Define your goals: Before you get started with any type of online marketing, it’s important to take the time to think about what you want to achieve and how you’re going to measure your performance. A good way to do this is to by using the well-known SMART framework. With the SMART framework, you try to set goals that are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound. For example, a SMART goal could be: “We will try to increase our website traffic by 20% over the next six months by running paid ads on Google and Facebook.”
Choose your online marketing channels: The next step is to start thinking about what marketing channels you will to achieve you’re goals. There are many free online marketing channels and platforms that you can use to grow your audience, such as Facebook, Instagram, X, and TikTok. The trick is pick the channels that are most suitable for your business. To do this, you need to consider things like your budget, your products, your audience, and of course, your marketing resources. For example, if your SMART goal is to run paid ads on Facebook, you need to check ask yourself things like: “Is my target audience on Facebook? How will I create a good Facebook ad? How much does Facebook advertising cost and do I have enough budget?”.
Come up with a content plan: Once you’ve decided on your marketing channels, it’s time to start thinking about your content. Content can be anything that provides value to your audience, whether that’s information, education, or even entertainment. You need to create content that will help you achieve your marketing goals. This means creating content that your target audience will enjoy. You also need to know the best way to distribute your content. For example, if we revisit the SMART goal example, you might want to start by seeing what content that you have that you can potentially use for Facebook ads, such as photos, stories, videos and carousels. If you’re not sure your content is a good fit for your marketing campaign, then you can start to ask things like “What kind of content do I want to create? Do I have the resources to do this? And where can I find more information?”.
Analyze and optimize your performance: The beauty of online marketing is that you can track and measure almost everything. You can use various analytics tools and platforms to collect data on your results. You can track metrics such as impressions, clicks, conversions, bounce rate, retention rate, and ROI (return on investment). You can also use tools to test different content and see what works best for your audience. For example, for an ad campaign, you might want collect data about your click-through-rate (the percentage of people who click on your ad) and your total conversion rate (the percentage of people who complete a specific action, like submitting an online form). By analyzing and optimizing your performance, you can improve your online marketing strategy and achieve your goals more effectively.
Final Thoughts
Online marketing is an essential part of any marketing strategy. It can help you reach a larger audience, increase your brand awareness, generate more leads and sales, and better measure your results. For more information about online marketing for start-ups, visit the blog.
