Online marketing, Internet marketing, webvertising or e-marketing is the marketing of goods and services that is carried onto the internet. Online marketing is now considered to be one of the fastest and effective mode of marketing, as it is a quicker, and the cheapest mode of marketing. Since the advent of internet and new media, internet has been constantly used by every one for searching to socializing.
In this article we are going to look at the benefits of online marketing and most importantly the various tools available for online marketing, which makes your work faster and more productive. So here are few online marketing tools, which are fun and productive and are being used by all the marketers and business professionals:
1. Social Networking:
Today social networking is the “in” thing, as it is used by one and all for its eclectic purposes. Not only do social networking sites allow you to interact with the members of your own virtual rolodex; they allow you to extend beyond your personal network, into your secondary and tertiary contacts, your friends-of-friends, and hence your company can get free traffic through this form of online marketing.
From Facebook, Twitter, MySpace to LinkedIn there are various social networking sites that have their own pros and cons which gives you an array of new methods to market your service. You can create your own page and feed in your blog, create groups, build your professional profile, participating in Q&A’s related to your profession is a great way to build credibility and visibility.
2. Social Bookmarking:
This form of online marketing is the way of sharing ones interest and likes on these sites so that it is bookmarked and can be used later on by others who visit the website and are looking for similar interests and facts. On these bookmarking sites one can create his/her own personal page and can feed in with the information and stories he would like to share.
Getting your content on the home page of Digg is one way to pump up your web site’s traffic by thousands within minutes; this can result in valuable links to your site. Build friends and send them your articles to rate on StumbleUpon, more thumbs up will get your article shown to more people outside your network and can result in thousands of visitors every day. Even if your content gets buried on Digg, it can flourish on Reddit, which can be a catalyst for jumping to the home page of other social bookmarking sites.
3. Email marketing:
Email marketing is the fastest and the cheapest medium of marketing, as it is nothing but sending emails to your customers and letting them know about your company in a way that will make them want to know more. A well-organized email marketing campaign can generate leads, increase customer awareness, and encourage consumer interaction.
4. Blogs:
Blogs are the way of expressing ones ideas and knowledge with the help of nothing but appropriate words. It is the easiest way of putting across you company’s pros and cons, and various other features. Create a company website and keep updating your blog every week, use it to link to deep pages on your site to help them get indexed in the search engines. You can try with WordPress which is a simpler way of starting off with writing blogs.
5. Content sharing websites:
Similar to social bookmarking, content sharing websites like Squidoo helps in creating a lens around your business area. A good one with lots of information will even rank in the search engines and can bring traffic to your web site. You can also post and share your company power point presentation for others to view and share on Slideshare. Photos and videos can be shared through Flikr if your company can translate information to interesting photographs and videos.
6. Directories:
Sites like Google, Yahoo, etc is more proficient and faster than any other yellow page directory and hence has a upper hand over these traditional directories. The Open Directory a staple of the SEO crowd, this directory can be tricky to get into but well worth it for the link chain it passes along to your site. Similarly, Yahoo directory does the same but only that you will have to pay a couple of hundred bucks a year.
7. Creating your Own Knowledge Center:
You can always create your own website and can update it with sum case studies as your prospects love to see what others like them are doing. That is why they will take time to read a simple case study that describes a problem you solved for a client. Your weekly top, three or five tips and solutions for your prospects will also help you in keeping your prospects glued to your site.
Thousands of online marketing tools scream for attention, with new ones popping up every week it is always good to get your research right and know the latest tools that are available. Among these, you might be using some of them already, but you’re sure to find a couple that will round out your small business marketing toolkit nicely, and if you are new to the industry and waiting to get started then you should definitely follow these tools.
