Do you want to develop your business online, but you don't know where to start? Have you heard people talk about online promotion, but are you confused about what strategies you should be using? You don't have to panic, because in the following article I have presented 10 of the best strategies that you should know.
Back in the 2000s, online promotion wasn't discussed as often as it is today.
The Facebook and Gmail platforms were at the beginning, just like many other technologies that are common today.
WordPress didn't have a website yet (until 2005) and there was no YouTube! Imagine this, life without YouTube!
Google and SEO were at the center of attention then, for sure, and the concept of PPC (pay-per-click) was trying to come to life.
What can we say about social media?
At the time, the concept of "social media" was in its infancy and we were very limited in what we could do with it.
Marketers worked a little differently in the past because the field of online marketing was completely different, being "in its early stages".
Today, we are "flooded" by so many ways to develop our businesses online and offline, that it becomes difficult to choose an effective method.
Information about the latest tools, applications, services and strategies or technologies is constantly emerging.
New marketing tactics, methods or programs are developed every day.
Everywhere you look online, you'll find a marketing "guru" talking about the latest trend in the field.
Honestly, it can get amazing.
The thing is, in this day and age, we simply can't ignore the evolution and hope that we can continue to grow our business using the same old marketing techniques. I bet when a new thing comes out you feel compelled to learn all about it. Why? Because you don't want to be left behind, right?
"If you don't keep up, you'll fall behind"
"Super-highway" towards online promotion
Many times, every entrepreneur who has a website considers himself a kind of "marketing guru" in the online space.
Although there are a lot of "experts" in online promotion, we cannot say that there is an absolute method to know success.
Several methods and strategies need to be tried until we find out which one gives the best results for your business.
With so much advice around, it can get overwhelming.
We remember when we started in this field, many years ago, and all we thought was: It will be difficult to master all digital marketing and promotion strategies.
And you know what?
Even though we know a lot about how to grow businesses online and have many successful projects, still we have something new to learn every day.
Every day our online marketing and promotion team has something new to learn from the lessons the internet has to offer. So don't feel like you have to learn everything in one day. It is neither practical nor possible.
One of the questions that are addressed to us most often in quality and by web design agency is this:
"Do I need to learn online promotion or can I just build a website and wait for people to find it on Google, as most people often do?"
Although everyone he thinks he knows to use the Internet, we cannot say that they will ever master its secrets.
We will start like this:
I've worked with dozens of small business entrepreneurs over the past few years, and most of them didn't have the slightest idea how to use the Internet to grow their business.
Even something relatively simple like creating a Facebook business page or setting up an email were far too complicated for many of the people I worked with.
It's no problem if you don't know. Not every entrepreneur knows how to use the Internet to grow their business. This doesn't come by default, as one might say, "Oh, you have a business, so you should know how to promote it online."
Sure, it may seem easy for some people working in the IT field. As online business owners, we spend most of our time on the internet. We are skilled enough to know how digital marketing and online promotion work.
To think that any entrepreneur knows how to manage his website, use social media platforms, launch e-mail marketing campaigns or do cost per click (PPC campaigns) is superficial thinking.
The reality is this:
There are too many things that an entrepreneur at the beginning of the journey should know, to be able to do them alone.
There are thousands of small business entrepreneurs who have no idea where to start when it comes to online promotion.
To the amazement of many, many don't even have a showcase site.
So think about those construction or local businesses that have been long and well established "offline". They just hit the hard reality when it comes to the online world. The competition took them long before that.
So, to finally answer the question: "Do you need to know online promotion concepts?"
YES.
Interest in online promotion services has continued to grow in recent years. It is now essential that any company that goes online adheres to good online marketing and promotion practices on the Internet.
The field of online promotion has changed
Online marketing methods are different from conventional offline marketing tactics.
To begin with, most offline or traditional marketing techniques are based on "advertising" and/or "cold selling".
The online environment, while sharing similar values and principles with traditional marketing, is a very different landscape. And navigating it can be most difficult, but not impossible.
Advertising is only a "small" piece of the online marketing puzzle. The rest of the puzzle is made up of other forms of online marketing tactics.
So finally, in this post, I will share 10 of the best online promotion ideas and strategies that you should know.
Of course, there are hundreds of other tactics you could explore. But, you don't need to worry about any of these, especially if you are new to all of this.
For now, let's focus on the important tactics for increasing brand awareness and growing your online business.
Let's begin!
Creating a website
Seriously ?!
If you are reading this and already know the importance and meaning of a create a website for your business, then go ahead.
If you have a business without a website, and you don't think it's a big deal, then please read on.
It's possible for your business to survive just fine without a website. But if "hanging on" is all you want for your business...then good luck. If you are looking for success, you must have a website.
We present the following statistics:
According to a survey conducted by GoDaddy (a large hosting company) for small businesses, it was found that 60% of small businesses do not have a presentation website. (Source)
In the UK alone, an estimated 2 million businesses still don't have a website. It is quite alarming.
These numbers could become lower as the years go by. But, many small businesses don't have a website because they find it too expensive to build one or too time-consuming to manage.
Or they just don't understand how much of an impact even a showcase site can have on your business and customers.
A mobile responsive website can have a massive impact on your business, especially if you keep in mind that over 60% of Internet traffic occurs from mobile devices.
"With a website, your business is no longer invisible" - SmallBizTrends
There is no better way to say the above statement, especially in the digital age we live in now. Because without a website, your business is practically non-existent for those trying to find your products and services online.
The blog and blogging
Yes, blogging.
Blogging has been around for a while. Almost every internet based business runs a blog of some kind.
In 1999, Jesse James Garrett compiled a list of only 23 blogs on the Internet (source).
According to this infographic, in 2013, the number of existing blogs exceeded 170 million.
Now, in 2020, there are over 600 million blogs. (source)
It is estimated that there are somewhere around 170,000 new blogs added daily to the internet.
These statistics are amazing, aren't they? Can you imagine how much the internet is changing?
So why should you care about using blog articles in your business when there are already so many around? And above all, how can you use blogging to help your business grow?
Let's take a closer look
- Blogging can help you share relevant information in a timely manner for your customers, but also for potential ones. Think of it as a direct way to communicate with them.
- Businesses that use blogs have 67% more potential customers than businesses that do not practice this online promotion tactic.
- Blogging and writing articles can help you improve your ranking on search engines. You thus generate more targeted traffic of potential buyers to your company's website, products and services.
- Blogging is a great way to add that all-important "human element" to your brand. It can help you build more connections, strengthen your relationships, and help you gain customer trust and loyalty. This is important if you want people to buy from you again and again.
- Blogging is a cost-effective marketing strategy that is simple to set up and every business should be using it.
3. SEO optimization for search engines
If you already have a website, congratulations! You can also have amazing content on your website. And, you might also have great products or offer the best service in the industry, but.. if no one can find them, then it's all a waste of time.
Here is an online promotion and marketing strategy for your website that you should not ignore:
Search Engine Optimization or SEO for short.
OK, we're sure you've heard the term "SEO" mentioned at least once in the marketing world, at least on the internet.
I've talked to many small business owners as well as marketers and bloggers and asked them what they do to drive traffic to their website. Most of them immediately respond with the fact that they advertise or run pay-per-click campaigns.
That's great, but both tactics are far from the most cost-effective.
Do not misunderstand. There is nothing wrong with doing any of these things, advertising or PPC. Then we ask, "What about SEO?"
The answer we usually get is this:
"Pfft, SEO is too technical. It consumes too much time and does not produce immediate results”.
We understand, most of them are too eager to get traffic and customers, so they turn to paid PPC ads.
We know some businesses spend a lot of money on PPC ads. Some companies even spend their annual marketing budget.
Why ? Well, because online promotion through PPC paid ads brings traffic faster than SEO. Faster traffic means more and more customers. But it comes at a cost. It can be a difficult cost to bear if not properly planned and budgeted for.
Again, I'm not saying there's anything wrong with paying for ads, but there is a much more efficient and cost-effective way.
Some of you probably already guessed. Is called SEO.
You can do SEO yourself, you don't need to hire an SEO expert. And while doing SEO is free, it has some disadvantages compared to PPC.
- SEO does not always provide immediate results. You usually have to wait a few months to see the results of your efforts.
- There is no guarantee that search engine optimization will pay off.
There are a lot of pages, article posts and websites that have been struggling for months to reach the first results on search engines. For some, it can take years, depending on the field in which they operate and the competition.
That being said, doing SEO can give your business website a lot of free traffic.
If you don't believe us, try searching for "online promotion" in Google and see where our article ranks.
It should be among the first results. This position generates a lot of traffic.
It should be somewhere on the first page, among the first results.
We know a lot of marketers who are doing great with paid advertising. They know how to do it very well, but with a very large investment.
What we mean is that if you're just starting out, you may not want to throw your entire online marketing and promotion budget into PPC ads.
When you implement simple SEO practices into your online promotion strategy on your own website, it will definitely take some time before you see results. The time you will have to wait will be slightly longer if your site is new, as Google and other major search engines do not quickly index new sites for security reasons. However, the results won't be long in coming, and will definitely be worth the effort and the wait.
You don't have to blow your marketing budget.
Search engine traffic is free, and on top of that, it can keep you in the top results if you keep your content fresh and relevant.
If you run a WordPress website, consider installing an SEO plugin. We recommend Yoast SEO or RankMath, which are free. WordPress optimization it shouldn't be a difficult process. However, you can always call on our SEO optimization and online promotion services.
Blogging on other sites
Publish articles on other sites not times guest blogging it is nothing new. Just a few years ago it was considered a very effective way to build backlinks and drive traffic.
Nowadays, if you try to use the strategy of guest blogging for link building, and you do it in a spammy manner, you will most likely get penalized by Google.
But publishing articles on your sites is still a very powerful strategy for:
- Brand promotion and increased credibility.
- Accessing a blog or news site's traffic source and driving readers back to your own website
- Building relationships with readers from other blogs and communities.
We want to emphasize that brand promotion and credibility will help you when you use this strategy.
But what about getting backlinks and generating quality traffic from those articles?
Well, it still works, but to a much lesser extent.
From my own experiences, there are blogs that generate traffic, and others that don't. The same will happen if you choose to publish advertisements.
Some news sites will generate traffic and customers, others will not generate any traffic at all.
But they will care about the authority of the site from the SEO perspective.
Email marketing
Over time, our agency has worked and connected with a lot of clients
I discovered that many of them did not have an email list for their business.
That's pretty bad, because an email list is one of the most valuable and cost-effective assets you can have in your business.
We don't want to stress you out by suggesting, "You should build your email list," because you should already know that.
You're probably thinking, "Well, I can build a fan base on Facebook or get a lot of followers on Twitter instead, right?"
Yes, it is possible. But there is a problem.
Building an email list for your business is different than building a social media network.
Yes, you can have 50,000 followers on Twitter, or you can have 20 thousand fans on Facebook and 70 thousand on Instagram, but you will never get those fans as customers. Maybe only a very, very small percentage.
Building your email list, building your own network of loyal fans, you will always get results.
Even if you can only get a few subscribers each day, it all goes towards building your marketing list.
So please, as with other marketing ideas, don't focus all your attention on social media alone.
Focus on growing your email list. It is cost effective and can be very profitable for your business later on, so you better get started.
Social Media Marketing
OK, so we have informed you that it is not recommended to focus all your attention on social media networks. Now we will tell you why it is not good to ignore them either.
It is impossible to ignore social media as it will be around for a long time to come.
More and more people are turning to Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, TikTok and Pinterest. You should start thinking about ways to get your business noticed in front of your target audience on these platforms.
Easier said than done, right? So how do we do it?
The point of social media promotion is not to have an active account on every possible platform. Find the platform that gives you the most results, engagement and conversions.
In other words, be present only where your target audience engages most with you and your content.
For example, if people are reacting to your content and interacting with your Facebook posts, then you should focus in that direction. For some businesses, Twitter or LinkedIn may work. LinkedIn is generally used in more professional settings.
Try to be present where your target audience wants to interact with you.
If, for example, you've tried online promotion through the Instagram platform for a few months and it's not bringing you much results, don't waste your resources. On Instagram, you generally target young people, if this is your target audience, you probably did something wrong in the campaigns.
We know a lot of companies that try to promote themselves on most social media platforms. They spend time and money month after month. generally, this money is allocated to long-standing firms. He believes that he needs to pay a little attention to social networks, but the one who does those campaigns simply it eats their money. They are not good at checking the results, and blindly invest a certain amount of money, monthly.
This online, multi-social media promotion tactic is useless. It's even more useless when you don't check the results reports. We don't want you to fall into this trap simulated promotion.
Our agency generally focuses on the big platforms, such as YouTube, Instagram and Facebook. They work for us.
You have to find what works best for your business and then invest.
Content marketing
Content marketing is a powerful strategy used by millions of marketers. What exactly is content marketing?
In short, content marketing is the process of creating useful, relevant and compelling content. The content must be good enough to attract people and convert them into customers.
Content can be in contextual written, audio or video form. We present the following content options:
- Videos for YouTube and social media
- Recordings and podcasts
- Electronic books (eBooks)
- Webinars and Live Videos
- Presentations (PowerPoint) and other types of visual content
- Blog posts
- Social media content
- Printed publication
The most important thing to remember when trying to promote online with this strategy is not to do it for the purpose of selling.
Try not to "pollute" a quality content with messages urging people to buy your products or services.
Rather, try to provide value and resources. By doing so, you will educate and inspire people to take action. Users thus educated will come to perceive your services as a necessity. This way you will win customers without forcing them to buy in exchange for quality information.
Outreach and influencer marketing
Influencer marketing is, again, a tactic that hasn't been around for very long, but is evolving very quickly.
Its rise in popularity has been phenomenal in the world of online promotion. When done right, influencer marketing can be very effective for any type of business.
So what exactly is influencer marketing?
Online influencer marketing is a type of marketing that focuses on using the influence that certain people have. For example, we can promote certain care or beauty products with the help of a person who has millions of followers on Instagram. This way you will drive your brand message quickly, in a very large market.
Instead of trying to promote your brand, products or services directly to a large group of consumers, you can inspire/hire/pay influencers to deliver your message.
Still not sure what this all means?
It means using industry leaders and established experts to promote your business.
Adding your business to Google Maps
If you have a local business that you want to increase your visibility online, the most basic thing you can do is add your business to Google Maps. This can be done through Google My Business (formerly known as Google Places).
From the moment your company is visible on Google Maps, you will be able to appear more easily in Google search results. The search engine will recommend your company and others similar to the services searched by the user.
Customers will also be able to leave you valuable business reviews. This will help you increase your trust, credibility and attract even more customers.
PPC (Pay-per-click) campaigns
PPC campaigns are a great strategy when used at the right time.
We remind you, if you are just starting out, be very careful not to throw your entire online promotion budget on PPC ads. I advise you to document yourself thoroughly before using this strategy, or call someone with experience.
Paid referrals are one of the fastest, but not the most cost-effective, ways to get traffic to your business website.
If you know what you're doing, you can create a very relevant and compelling offer. As long as your ad content is good, you can use targeted PPC ads to drive people to your business.
We do not recommend that you use this strategy with the thought that you will convert uncertain users into convinced customers. Paid ads don't work this way.
You can use PPC ads to build your customer base. By promoting the most valuable services, you will be able to attract more customers.
You can also use this online promotion method to develop your email list. Then you can convert the respective list with a lot of potential buyers into long-term loyal buyers.
Good luck!
These are the top 10 most important online promotion ideas and strategies to grow your business.
We want to remind you that online promotion does not have to be difficult or very complex. But if you feel overwhelmed, you can always turn to an experienced marketing agency like Mensis.
All the strategies specified above are profitable. Make sure you plan everything before you jump in and apply a certain tactic. In order to execute a successful online promotion campaign, it is essential to understand what results each step will bring.
Good luck !
Online Promotion - Questions and answers
Why do I need online promotion?
Promotion is the key element of a successful business. If you want more visibility, and more profit, then should you use these techniques?
How long does it take to see the results of the online promotion?
Many techniques are used in online promotion. Some bring immediate results, others after a few months.
Can I contact your agency for promotion services?
Of course, we try to offer you the most complete digital marketing and promotion services.
Are these all online promotion techniques?
Not. We have presented only the most popular of the strategies. We have prepared a lot of other online promotion tactics for our clients.