The creation of the worldwide web has changed the way people connect, interact, and transact. While advertising and marketing entirely relied on television, radio and print media 3 decades ago, businesses these days have expanded to the virtual world. Local, national or international, small-scale or large-scale the business may be, anyone can reach potential customers and patrons wherever they may be for a lesser cost.
There are many strategies being utilized in online marketing. With all the competitors in the online market, visibility, ranking and internet traffic are things any site would aim for. Aside from putting the best web design on the site, there are a lot of things that need to be accomplished in order to thrive in e-biz.
People, experts or not they may be in this line, keep finding ways to advertise and do business efficiently and effectively online. Sadly, however, some tactics are just not good enough.
E-mail Marketing
The strategy of sending countless emails to current and prospect customers is like a game of miss and hit, with the first word usually happening. There is a greater quantity of emails being trashed by recipients than those being actually read and responded to. This is one of the main reasons why “bulk mail” and “spam mail” folders were created. This may be due to:
- The countless scams and fraud attempted and/or committed via sending email to the innocent victims.
- The fact that people are very particular with their privacy. They do not read and/or reply to emails sent by people they do not know personally.
- The fact that most people find the presence, alone, of emails from unknown senders in their inbox a nuisance.
In some cases however, businessmen have managed to invite customers or at least get their attention by sending emails.
Article Submission
This is one of the widely used strategies in online marketing today. Certain keywords pointing to the article, product and the website are inserted in the article in an “unobvious” manner. They are then submitted to the article sites.
The issue with this method is that unless the article was written in a very interesting manner, too hard to resist, it will never be read or recommended. Some search engines have also updated their policies and devalued certain websites. One is lucky if he gets the backlinks, exposure and genuine internet traffic he is aiming for. Yet in the case of article submission, many people some of which are SEO experts, slams this tactic.
Social Media Marketing
With the creation of social media sites such as Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, online businesses have seen another big door to reach potential clients. By simply creating an account or page and getting as many people as one can to like, follow or at least comment on a post or photo, the account will be trending in the news feed. Exposure means advertising.
The challenge here is to get the likes, followers and recommendations that the account needs in order to stay visible. Some accounts fail to thrive despite all the captions and status, and become “stagnant”. Account owners go to as much as buying Instagram likes and Facebook likes to keep trending, putting aside the importance of getting genuine followers.
Sending emails, creating and maintaining social media accounts and submitting articles can be inconsistent in boosting online marketing. With the right strategies however, they can work out. Instead of focusing on SEO rankings or accumulating many followers, online traders need to work on creating fresh and read-worthy contents and building a genuine audience.
