How to market your business using online channels

Most businesses today know all too well that it is imperative for them to be present and visible online. It is a major aspect of a marketing strategy which can be cost effective and yield high returns when done right. With that being said, navigating the channels you should be using and ensuring that you’re optimising these to the best of your ability can be overwhelming. Here’s how to stay ahead of the game and win with your online marketing.

online marketing channels

Put simply, your online marketing should be aimed at increasing brand awareness and generating leads. Think of your content in terms of owned media (what you create and have full control over), paid media (what you advertise) and earned media (organic content created by customers).

Online channels - A Customer-first approach

When looking at the different types of online marketing channels available to your business, it's important to stay relevant to your business. The best way of achieving this is to apply customer-centricity to your thought-process and strategy. Think about where your customers and potential customers are likely to be. Are they likely to turn to Google to search for your product or service or are they more likely to discover your content through social media?

Below, we look at the main online marketing channels available to businesses:

Social Media: The most obvious when it comes to online marketing, with far reaching potential. You’ll need to build your brand on the social media platforms that suit your brand both in terms of content and the audience you’re targeting. Through organic content and paid campaigns, you can share, promote and target what your business is all about. Social media presents great opportunities to grow your brand and increase leads.

Email Marketing: This is one of the most effective tools at the disposal of a business. You need to hold your email database in high regard and actively work on expanding it with a visible sign-up form on your website. With this, you can directly communicate with your customer base through prepared and relevant newsletters that informa and direct people where you need them to go.

Search Engine Marketing: This is a key aspect to increasing your online visibility. It involves paid search advertising resulting in ads that pop up when someone is browsing for something on the internet using a search engine. You can also make use of retargeting ads, which ‘follow’ the person after they have searched for something particular - for instance, if they searched for cars online, then the adverts that they come across while online will be car related. In addition to this, ensure that your business has a “Google my Business” account, so that it is easily accessible when searched for on Google. It's also important to note that a comprehensive search engine marketing strategy also includes search engine optimization (SEO) that allows your business to generate cost-free clicks to your website.

Website Design: Your website needs to be well designed for your audience, as well as being responsive and adaptive to various devices. All of the relevant details should be easily accessible and helpful features can be used, such as live chat or offers. This is where you can share valuable content, gain leads, market your business’s values and sell if you are an e-commerce site.

Public Relations: Increase your business’s online visibility through online talk. You can do this through press releases, for example, or events and sponsorships. For industry related presence, consider your involvement in conferences and attracting people through online forums and platforms like Slideshare.com and Quora.com.

How to market your business

Strategy: You need a clearly outlined strategy before embarking on online marketing. This will ensure you have direction and can measure your results accordingly. Having a holistic strategy will benefit your business as you can design campaigns that incorporate all of the necessary channels. Along with this, you need to ensure that your management is in order, as the marketer needs to determine which channels are best and follow the best practices relating to each aspect of these.

Content: Your business needs to create valuable content. This can be shared across various of the online channels and tweaked where necessary. This can be a key driver of value perception in the eyes of your audience and search engines. Ultimately, your content and the quality thereof will determine how successful your online marketing is. Experiment with the forms of this, from copy to video and audio.

Optimisation: Search engine optimization should always be in mind when creating and publishing content. By following certain structural and content-based requirements, such as keywords and schema codes, your content will be seen as valuable by search engines and will therefore rank higher. This will result in a significant drive of traffic to your content. Another helpful technique in achieving this is through integration - link and embed your content for added avenues of generating traffic.

Conversion: Of course, all of your efforts in online marketing should be geared towards conversion, whether that is direct or not. Your online presence should inspire people and generate interest in your brand, which then converts them into leads and guides them to your website, sparking the start of their journey through the sales funnel. Once successfully converted, brand loyalty can be established online which is to be held in high esteem. It's important that you measure conversion from all areas of your online marketing activity so that you can tweak your strategy for better, improved results.

The takeaways

There are several online channels for your business to consider using. A comprehensive marketing strategy will include many - if not all - of these aspects. When creating your strategy, it's important to always start with clear goals and objectives.

For example, if you are a B2B business and your objective is to generate more qualified leads for your business, it's important that you understand the type of content that your audience will relate to and where your audience is likely to be found online. For many B2B businesses, advertising on LinkedIn or Email Marketing to your existing or new databases. If however, you're business is consumer focused, the type of content you create may need to be more diverse and distributable across multiple platforms in order to engage with your audience.

When operating online, take care in publishing content that meets the requirements of search engines and your customer base in order to get the best results.