6 Must-try Online Marketing Strategies

As competition in the global marketplace continues to intensify and becomes more competitive every month, internet entrepreneurs have had to step up their game when developing their online marketing strategies.  Therefore, it goes without saying that a lack of understanding how the development of more effective online marketing strategies for growing your business can hinder your chances of keeping your business alive.  The more creative your marketing strategy is, the greater the chances of being successful in your online business endeavor.

First Rule of Thumb

Your website is your primary marketing tool.  Most new online entrepreneurs fail to realize the importance of having the right website design and how it is their primary marketing tool when launching their business.  It can influence the length of time that a visitor spends on your pages by holding their attention.  Ask yourself this question.  What is at the very core of all your digital marketing endeavors regardless of the products or services you’re offering? It’s your website.  So it follows then that the design of your website is essential to all of your marketing efforts.

If your web pages aren’t clean, easy to navigate and read, and uninteresting, the money and time you’ve invested in the development of your marketing strategies will be for naught.  In reality, all you’ll be doing is turning off those visitors who specifically came to your website because of the products or services you’re offering.  If you design and develop an attention-grabbing and mobile-friendly website, you’ll generate more visitor traffic.  And when you convert those sales leads, you’re going to be more profitable.

Online Marketing Strategies to consider

Finding an online marketing strategy that works can be extremely challenging depending on a number of factors such as the type of business or industry, the competitive nature of the products or services you are selling, who your target market is, and so on.  Developing the right online marketing strategy often times involves a great deal of trial and error.  While a particular strategy may look appealing, it may not be right for your business.  So if you’ve struggled to find an answer to your dilemma, here are 6 must-try online marketing strategies worth considering.

Strategy #1:  Offer a unique product or service that fills a specific need – a company’s products or services can be better than the marketing strategy that promotes them.  Unique products or services that fill specific needs have built more fortunes than any online marketing strategy ever has.  If your product or service is no more advantageous than your competitor’s, no marketing strategy is going to convince your target audience to purchase yours rather than theirs.

You’ll quickly discover how persuasive your advertising efforts can be when you offer a superior product or service.  Therefore, if you’re offering a unique product or service, then you’ll need to develop a unique online marketing strategy to promote it.  By making your product or service more unique than your competitor’s, you’ll bridge the void and position it better than what the competition has.

Strategy #2:  Generate more leads and sales with words that sell – the most successful online marketers will tell you that you have to know who your target market is and how to sell to them.  They not only understand who their customers are, they know what their goals and needs are as well as the psychology behind their buying habits.  You can use this information to speak to your target audience by optimizing your online marketing strategy and your website in order to give them what they want.

If you utilize the right words, you’ll generate more results because your website will be easier to navigate, more persuasive, and more trustworthy.  Add a call to action and your customers will respond by purchasing your product or service.  This is one of the easiest and efficient online marketing strategies to employ.  Furthermore, it is the most cost-effective way to gain more leads and generate more sales from your website.  In fact, this is probably the primary online marketing strategy to use after you have established your product or service offer.

Strategy #3:  Develop and maintain a blog – this is easily the most neglected or overlooked online marketing strategy of all.  Blogging allows you to employ new keywords and key phrases while optimizing your search engine marketing.  More importantly, your blog will enable you to connect and interact with your customers, share important information and updates about your products or services, and is a source of offering good advice.  It’s also a key component of the branding process in that it helps you develop a stronger online presence.

By maintaining your blog, you’ll earn the loyalty and trust of your customers while building long-term relationships with them in the process.  In this sense, maintaining refers to keeping your blog content fresh and continually updated.  You need to determine the frequency of blog updates and accept the fact that there may be interruptions to your updating schedule.  Start by using small tidbits that can be updated weekly and once you have established this aspect, encourage your readers to interact with you.

Strategy #4:  Develop a newsletter – you should definitely utilize a newsletter in your online marketing arsenal.  This is one of the most powerful communication tools because it will enable you to stay on your customer’s radar, so to speak.  This increases the odds of them thinking of you first when they start shopping for the products or services that you offer.  A well-written newsletter is one of the best ways for an online entrepreneur to build their customer base, add new customers, and retain them.

While the concept of a newsletter is nothing new, it is an ideal way of emailing an informative letter to those customers that have subscribed to it.  Naturally, you have to provide useful content to the reader if you want your newsletter to be accepted and appreciated.  Otherwise, you find that your readers are unsubscribing from it.  So it will benefit you to send out new, updated information every week or two that your subscribers will find extremely helpful (e.g. FREE items, how-to tips news feeds, special offers, etc.).

Strategy #5:  Use social media to put your products or services in front of potential buyers – no matter what type of products or services you offer, social media marketing and networking are paramount to any online marketing strategy.  It puts you, your company, and what you are offering in front of your potential buyers.  Social media has become an extremely powerful online marketing platform over the past decade and it is going to continue getting stronger.

According to a number of sources, the top 5 or most recommended social media platforms for using in your online marketing strategies include:

• Facebook (business pages)
• Twitter
• Google+
• LinkedIn (company pages)
• YouTube

Furthermore, there are certain web intelligence tools such as Google Alerts that can be used in order to help you find a listing of social networking opportunities.  For instance, Google Alerts can be used to find blog posts, forums, and other online discussions relative to the products or services that you sell.  These allow you to provide topical input and post links that will direct other members in the group back to your website.

Strategy #6:  Referral marketing – while this is certainly not a new marketing strategy, it has recently become a popular component of many online marketing campaign strategies.  The reason for this is simple.  Customers that are referred to your website are the most cost-effective and profitable forms of marketing there is.  Referral-generated consumers tend to be extremely loyal and purchase larger quantities.  Not only that but they fast buyers and negotiate less than other customers.  Plus, they will refer even more customers to your website.
Large numbers of referral customers are luxuries that just don’t occur.  So you should do some research in order to find referral marketing methods and tools.  These will proactively generate more referrals while at the same time integrating easily with your online marketing strategy.  A happy customer makes a great candidate for affiliate marketing programs that you could easily employ in order to generate more sales.  Although this will require an investment on your behalf, it is still more cost-effective than launching an entirely new marketing campaign.