The internet has become the driving force of marketing for many companies, and although traditional marketing methods will never and should never be replaced, they have somewhat taken a backseat to the phenomenon of digital marketing.
The following are just some of the main ways in which you can utilise the powerful tool that is internet marketing to help grow your business:
The Website
The heart and soul of your company’s online presence should be the website. It is the place where everything will centre back to and it will be the hub of information regarding your brand, products and services.
You don’t have to accept sales transactions online; the need for this will depend on your industry and the services or products you sell. Ensure you have prominent contact details somewhere on the homepage of your site, as people like to know they can contact a real person at some point when dealing with companies online.
Email marketing
Gaining prospective customer emails and current/past customer emails is a great way to keep the sales relationship fresh. There are many ways to gather this, be it from them contacting you with a query, them signing up to an email database to receive a newsletter or offers, gathering business cards at networking events, any way in which they surrender their contact information.
You can send emails regarding current offers, news and updates, etc.
Press releases and Content Marketing
Online press releases work in the same way as print press release would, its emailed to news publications and contains interesting information about your brand that could be considered newsworthy.
However with online press releases you have the freedom to include multimedia attachments in addition to the traditional images. This could include video, audio, and more, and you then send this to online publications.
Content marketing involves writing about your industry rather than your company itself. Popular topics include ‘how to’ articles and informative articles relevant to your products or services.
It is advisable to enlist the services of an internet marketing company regarding the writing of this articles as they will know what is required to create an article made for the internet, and will be able to improve your search engine rankings through SEO in the process.
Market Research
You can also use internet marketing as a means of researching your target markets. Conducting online surveys, making use of your email marketing database to ask for feedback, encourage comments on your website and blog, etc.
Doing market research on the internet can be cost effective and reach a wider audience than traditional market research.
There are many other ways in which internet marketing can help you to grow your business, and for it to be effective it is advisable to enlist professional internet marketing services from companies who have experience and proven track records.
