You probably hear about "internet marketing" all the time, also referred to as online marketing or digital marketing, but what is it, really?

Internet Marketing defined: the promotion of a company and its products or services through online tools that generate leads, drive traffic and increase sales.

Internet marketing is an umbrella term that covers a wide variety of marketing strategies and avenues that businesses can use online to promote their products and services. It uses customers' online activity to connect them with a business by reaching them in variety of places on the internet. These businesses can choose from the types of internet marketing to use, depending on their business model, types of products or services, their target customers, budget and more.

Internet marketing has pretty much rendered sales pitches and traditional marketing obsolete, with the exception of companies with large advertising budgets (think Super Bowl commercial), who are able to include radio ads, TV commercials and other traditonal advertising expenses in their budgets. The reality is, most businesses can barely afford traditonal marketing these days, much less, 6.5 million U.S. dollars (2022) to air a 30-second long commercial during the Super Bowl. So, where does that leave small and medium-sized businesses?

People, in general are over traditional marketing (or selling). They know what they want and how to find it online. In a sense, businesses have "changed the channel" on traditional marketing.

Speaking of channels...

With more than 4.8 billion people using the internet today, Internet marketing has leveled the playing field for every business and every budget, becoming one of the easiest and most affordable ways to reach your target audience at the right place and the right time. Internet marketing has literally changed the way that consumers shop.

Internet marketing focuses on content, content and content, delivered to your target audience through a selection of digital channels; emails, search engines, social media posts, blog articles or online ads.

Website Design and Content

A great business website allows customers to:

• Find your business online
• Learn your business's location or contact information
• Discover your products or services
• Sign up for your email list
• Request more information
• Make purchases

Websites often use search engine optimization (SEO) to ensure that their content will rank high on search engines and be easy for customers to find.

Email Marketing

Engaging email marketing, rich in content, allows you to build on your relationships with your customers, the loyal ones and the new ones. Email marketing is a powerful internet marketing channel, a form of direct marketing, as well as, digital marketing, that uses email to promote your business's products or services. It can keep you in touch with your current customers and also keep them up-to-date with information about your business.

Social Media

Do you know anyone who doesn't use some type of social media? Whether it's facebook, instagram or TikTok, most consumers use some kind of social media. When you know your target market, you can choose the best social media platform to reach them. Find out where your ideal customers spend their time and focus your efforts there.

Pay Per Click Advertising

Pay per click (PPC) is an online internet marketing strategy in which advertisers pay each time a user clicks on one of their online ads. Essentially, you're paying for target visits to your website or a specific landing page. PPC has some great advantages over other digital marketing strategies.

• PPC is measurable: The single greatest advantage of any lead generation method is the ability to measure the exact cost per lead. With traditional above-the-line marketing, this is always challenging. How many leads did a newspaper or radio campaign generate? PPC, whether paid search, display or social ads, all have a method to be able to track a conversion. It could be a form filled in, an email or a phone call, but you can tell when you have that lead firmly in the first level of your funnel, and you know exactly how it got there. That allows you to see what the cost per lead of each strategy is, and adjust your path accordingly.

• PPC is targeted: Paid search, social and display marketing, all require you to select where, when and who you want to show your ads to. You can select people based on their age, what they typed in as a search on Google, what type of content they are reading or even if they have kids or not! Seth Godin says, “Everyone is not your customer” and this is a key thing to understand in marketing. By knowing your target market, you can reach them with an idea that resonates with them. Being able to target exactly the person that is your ideal customer can reduce your cost per lead and increase your overall ROI.

• It’s evolving: More and more companies are moving to online advertising to grow their business. In the past, the way to advertise was Yellow Pages and local newspapers. Billions of dollars are spent each on PPC advertising. Selling advertising is actually how most of the large internet companies make their money, Facebook and Google being at the forefront of this. In fact in 2015, 77% of Google’s total revenue came from ad clicks on the Google search page. That figure doesn’t even include revenue generated form the wider Display Network or YouTube! That is $52 billion from people clicking on ads after doing a search on Google.com. Since these ad platforms are their money spinners, it makes sense for these companies to spend a lot of time and effort developing their ad platforms to make it easier and more beneficial for advertisers to spend money with them. For advertisers, this means that you have a constantly evolving tool that offers several unique benefits.

• You can reach the same people again: Whether you call it remarketing or retargeting, the ability to show ads to people that have already interacted with you is powerful. There is an old marketing adage called the Rule of 7 – a potential customer needs to have 7 touch points or exposures to your brand before they take action. Now what if you could accelerate this process by showing your brand to people that had already been on your website? That’s remarketing. Some companies have had absolutely extraordinary results with remarketing, both on display platforms and on social. What is clear is that PPC has given us new and unique ways to stay top of mind.

Blogging

Business blogging is a marketing tactic that uses blogging to get your business more online visibility. A business blog is a marketing channel (just like social media, direct mail, email marketing, etc.) that helps support business growth with a variety of benefits!

Blogging is an effective way to:

• Share your knowledge and expertise
• Build trust for your brand
• Establish your brand with free marketing
• Drive traffic to your website
• Repurpose blog content for Social Media
• Convert traffic into leads
• Drive long-term results
• Help with link-building
• Share company news
• Attract new customers

Today's consumers are not really interested in being bombarded with radio ads, commercials or even phone calls touting products that don't interest them. With infinite amounts of information on the internet, most consumers take a more proactive approach (internet marketing) to finding solutions to their problems, searching for the products and services that meet their needs - and avoiding the ones that don't.

If you're not sure what internet marketing can do for your business, give us a call. We love getting to know new clients and offering suggestions for how we can help their businesses with internet marketing. We'd love to help you too.