Online Marketing – What it is and How To Benefit

online marketing, online marketing meaning, advantages, online tools, types, samples, strategies

Welcome reader, hope you enjoy this Online Marketing Guide. This is a ultimate guide and introduction to online marketing.

Online marketing flies. To stay up, you need a solid foundation, critical thinking, independence, and creativity. That’s why we produced this guide—to empower you with the mental building blocks to stay ahead in a tough industry.

There are many manuals about marketing. You can choose anything from textbooks to online video courses. But, we thought that there was something missing — a handbook that actually starts from the beginning to equip already-intelligent professionals with a balanced blend of strategic and tactical assistance. The Beginner’s Guide to Online Marketing helps.

1. What is Online Marketing

Online marketing uses electronic gadgets and digital networks to advertise a good or service.

The promotion of brands via the internet and other digital communication channels is known as digital marketing, sometimes known as online marketing. This includes email, social media, and web-based advertising as well as text and multimedia messages.

Digital marketing is basically any kind of marketing that uses digital communication.


Online marketing is also know as the art and science of selling goods and services online.

Finding marketing techniques that work with your target audience and bring in money is an art. The research and analysis you need to do to figure out how well those efforts work is a science.

Alternative Names: Internet Marketing And Digital Marketing 

Online marketing is the process of using web-based channels to inform potential customers about a company’s brand, products, or services. Email, social media, display advertising, search engine optimization (SEO), Google AdWords, and other strategies are utilized for online marketing. Reaching potential clients through the internet platforms they use for reading, browsing, shopping, and socializing is the goal of marketing.

The widespread use of the internet for both personal and professional purposes has led to the creation of new platforms for advertising and marketing communication like those described above.

Online marketing, which mostly uses digital platforms to attract, engage, and convert virtual visitors into customers. 

Traditional marketing, which historically includes forms of advertising like print, billboards, television, and radio, is different from marketing done online.

Before the emergence of online marketing channels, the cost of selling goods or services was frequently prohibitively high and conventionally challenging to assess. Consider how brand awareness levels are monitored for national TV advertising campaigns using consumer focus groups. Traditionally, controlled experiments have not been well suited for these procedures.

Creating a website and developing client acquisition campaigns for little to no money today allows everyone with an online business (as well as the majority of offline firms) to engage in online marketing. Optimization can also be used to improve the effectiveness and return on investment (ROI) of these marketing-related goods and services. 

2. Online Marketing Meaning

Online Marketing Meaning 


Online marketing refers to advertising strategies and initiatives that use the internet to reach potential customers. It is a set of techniques and tools that marketing experts use to promote goods and services online.

It has a significantly wider range of marketing elements than pre-Internet marketing techniques. This is because there are so many platforms and online marketing tools available.

The term “online” here refers to having an Internet connection. So online marketing is a way to advertise to whoever is coonecte to the internet. This is opposed to offline.

Digital marketing, SEM, Internet marketing, and web marketing are additional names for this type of advertising.

Connecting with your target market and developing a brand are two of the most important parts of running a successful business. In actuality, the majority of businesses fail without marketing tactics.

You already know that it’s different if you’ve read my prior guide to digital marketing.

Not all digital marketing campaigns necessarily involve internet marketing, but in general, that’s the rule.

Online marketing, according to TNMedia, is”…any instrument, plan, or method of spreading the company name to the public.” Commercials can be shown in a lot of different ways, and some marketing strategies put more weight on subtle messages than on obvious ones.

Online marketing is any method of marketing that uses the Internet to connect with potential customers.

In essence, it’s everything you do online to attract attention, gain more viewers, and ultimately persuade them to make a purchase from you. 

In this guide, we will explore some key subcategories of online marketing. 

3. Advantages of Online Marketing

advantages of online marketing, types, examples, online digital marketing, SEO marketing, Women in business

Digital marketing’s advantages Rewrten abado

Digital marketing’s popularity is due to its wide reach. It also has other benefits that can boost your marketing. Digital marketing has many benefits. 

1. Online marketing grows businesses 

Digital marketing should be a major focus of most businesses’ marketing strategies. Never before has it been so easy to stay in touch with customers, and nothing else offers the personalization of digital data. 

The  More you embrace digital marketing, the more your company can grow.

2. Geographic reach 

If you don’t limit your online ad’s location, anyone can see it. This helps your business reach a larger audience across digital channels. 

3. Cost efficiency

Digital marketing reaches more people and costs less than traditional marketing. Traditional advertising like newspaper ads, TV spots, and billboards can be expensive. You have less control over whether your target audiences see your messages. 

With digital marketing, you can create 1 content piece that draws visitors to your blog. It’s easy to change an email marketing campaign’s schedule or content if needed. 

Digital marketing gives you more advertising flexibility and customer contact. 

4. Metrics on your Marketing Campaigns

To know if your marketing strategy works, look at how many customers and revenue it generates. How can non-digital marketing do that? 

You can always ask customers how they found you. 

That doesn’t work everywhere. Many companies don’t talk to their customers one-on-one, and surveys aren’t always accurate. 

Digital marketing makes tracking results easy. Digital marketing software and platforms automatically track conversions, such as email open rates, website visits, and direct purchases. 

5. Easier Personalization for Your Business

Digital marketing can collect customer data offline can’t. Digital data is more precise. 

Suppose you offer financial services and want to send special offers to web users who viewed your products. You know you’ll get better results if you target the offer, so you prepare 2 campaigns. Young families who’ve looked at your life insurance products and millennial entrepreneurs who’ve considered your retirement plans. 

What do you do without automated tracking? How many phone records are there? How many customers? How do you know who reads your brochure? 

Digital marketing gives you all this information. 

6. Better Customer connection 

Digital marketing allows real-time customer communication. It lets them contact you. 

Social media strategy: If your target audience comments or shares your latest post, that’s even better. Every time someone joins the conversation, your product or service gains visibility. 

Customer interaction is beneficial. As they participate in your brand’s story, their engagement rises. This can boost brand loyalty. 

7. Simple Conversions 

Digital marketing lets customers act immediately after viewing ads or content. With traditional ads, the most immediate result is a phone call. How often can someone contact a company while doing the dishes, driving, or updating records? 

Digital marketing lets them click a link or save a blog post to move up the sales funnel. They may not buy immediately, but they’ll stay connected and let you interact with them.

The capability of measuring the impact of each individual channel as well as how visitors acquired through various channels engage with a website or landing page experience is a significant advantage of employing online channels for marketing a company or product. Further analysis can be performed on the visitors who become paying customers to ascertain which channels are most successful in attracting worthwhile clients. 

The following can be ascertained with the aid of analytics for web or mobile app experiences: 

• Based on the rate at which visitors become customers and the cost of those visits, which internet marketing methods are the most cost-effective at gaining customers. 

• Which channels are efficient at attracting and generating customers with better lifetime values, such as email marketing, which encourages previous customers to make repeat purchases. 

• Which client demographics show a high propensity for upsells and strong engagement behavior, such as software or mobile apps that aim to upsell more products to highly engaged users.

4. Importance of Online Marketing

Importance of online marketing

All kinds of small businesses are recognizing the importance of online marketing.

Local brick-and-mortar businesses used to be able to disregard online marketing in favor of more conventional strategies. However, as consumer habits evolve, buyers are much more likely to do online research before making a purchase. In fact, they might even do some online product research while they’re in the store.

In general, every business should use some online marketing or risk losing customers.

What makes online marketing so important?

Employing an omnichannel digital marketing strategy paves the way for new consumer engagement strategies while providing marketers with insightful data on target audience behavior. 
Companies can also anticipate a rise in retention. A study by Invesp found that businesses with effective multichannel customer engagement strategies keep 89% of their clients on average. Compare that to businesses that don’t have good omnichannel strategies and only keep 33% of their customers.

Digital marketing is still developing. For instance, the growing range of wearable technology available to customers offers new marketing options. According to Forbes, video content will be improved for search engine optimization (SEO) and email marketing will get even more tailored. Social media will also become more conversational in the B2B area. 

5. Online Marketing Tools

Tools for online marketing 


There is an online marketing tool for any online platform and type of digital marketing you want to use. A strong online marketing program can be built and maintained using a variety of techniques, including: 

Online Marketing Tools Available

1. Google Analytics for Web Site Performance

 

Google Analytics is free software that shows who visits your website and how they behave. 

It works best with Google Search Console, a free digital marketing tool that helps you uncover site issues and boost traffic. 

Google Analytics data includes: 

Your site’s daily, weekly, monthly, or other time period visits. 

Referrals, organic search, advertisements, social, or direct 

Google keywords used to find your website 

User interests and demographics 

How long and which sites each person visits 

This useful information might help you optimize your website and marketing activities (while keeping your SEO efforts low cost). 

Search Console or Analytics may show you get a lot of traffic from a keyword you don’t cover. Write a keyword-optimized blog post to boost traffic and engagement. 

Facebook traffic but no Twitter? Maybe you should focus on your main channel. 

Not just analytics, but insights matter. 

2. Mailchimp for Email Online Marketing

Email marketing should be part of every business’s strategy, big or small. 

By joining your mailing list, customers invite you inside their inbox. Email marketing has a greater ROI than other marketing methods. 

To start email marketing, you need a service that captures emails, manages lists, sends emails automatically or on a schedule, and analyzes interaction. 

Mailchimp is great for startups and small businesses. Mailchimp is free till 2,000 subscribers. It has the key features you need without complicating email marketing. 

Mailchimp now offers a variety of digital marketing solutions (some paid): 

Personalization, segmentation 

Site-builders 

Shapers 

Audiences 

CRMs 

Forecasting 

3. Hootsuite For Social Media Posting

Undoubtedly. To stay competitive, you must use social media. Social media can be a significant time waste, even if you’re using it for marketing and not simply scrolling. 

Hootsuite can help you save time using digital marketing tools. 

Hootsuite provides a central administration platform for all your social media channels and lets you plan posts in advance so you can prepare all your social media material in one session. 

You get extensive reporting tools to see which social media initiatives are succeeding and compute ROI. 

One dashboard lets you track brand mentions and manage reactions. 

Hootsuite now gives tools to promote social media posts. 

4. BuzzSumo for Seo Content Ideas

Your content strategy shouldn’t involve wild guesses about what your audience will like. 

60% of successful B2B content marketers have a written strategy. 21% of the least successful brands have a written plan. 

BuzzSumo is one of my favorite content marketing tools because it helps with research. 

BuzzSumo offers hot social media content based on keywords. After your search, you can study the results to find writing ideas. 

BuzzSumo goes beyond content research and viral posts. BuzzSumo offers digital marketing tools like: 

Keywords 

Influencer-search 

Twitter topics 

Analysis 

Problem-solving 

Monitor brands 

5. KWFinder for Keyword Research

SEO is a cornerstone of internet marketing, so get it properly. You should make sure your site is correctly designed and optimized for mobile, and your content should contain relevant keywords. 

To locate suitable keywords, you need a digital marketing tool. You have various options, from Google Keyword Planner to SECockpit. 

Advanced digital marketing solutions cost $100 or more each month. KWFinder offers small businesses precise, inexpensive, and helpful insights. 

Enter a seed term to get hundreds of recommendations, search volume data, trends, and a rating difficulty score for each word or phrase. 

Mangools, the company behind KWFinder, offers individual tools or a comprehensive package including a backlink tool, website analysis, SERP observers, and more – plus a browser extension. 

6. HubSpot to Manage your Online Marketing Campaigns

It’s difficult to manage several campaigns across multiple marketing platforms and figure out what’s working and where to improve. 

HubSpot is an all-in-one marketing software solution that optimizes for more traffic, a greater conversion rate, and better ROI. 

The platform contains landing page designs and features like live chat and user action events to boost engagement and convert more visitors into buyers. 

HubSpot’s other features: 

SEO software 

Page optimization 

Template email 

Automated marketing 

Manage 

Analytics 

Facebook management 

HubSpot’s complete edition is expensive, but small firms can start with their free or basic bundle. 

HubSpot has switched from an inbound marketing tool to a CRM platform, including free and paid sales hubs, customer care hubs, and content management (on top of the free/paid marketing hub). 

The full content management platform is paid-only. 

7. Canva for Creating Eye Catching Media Content

Visuals engage audiences when it comes to online marketing. 

Use quality photos, quote graphics, vibrant graphs, and infographics to keep your readers interested. 

What if there was a tool that helped you generate fresh, visually appealing material in minutes? Canva, duh! 

Canva keeps adding graphic design tools and templates, including social media, infographics, marketing posters, business cards, and eBooks. 

Canva’s free templates (and freemium) are beneficial. 

Use site photos, submit your own, or create new ones. 

Creating high-quality graphics requires no prior experience. Canva offers drag-and-drop photo editing, color palettes, font combinations, effects, and custom image sizes. 

8. Ahrefs For SEO Content, Key Word Research and Competitor Analysis

Modern SEO focuses on understanding the search intent of keywords you can rank for and creating relevant, organic backlinks from authority sites. 

Search engines will know how authoritative and trustworthy your website is if it has excellent links. Your digital marketing approach relies on off-page backlink analysis. 

Despite a number of great tools, many digital marketers solely use Ahrefs. 

With Ahrefs, you can undertake competitive analysis and see the terms your competitors rank for in organic search results, uncover the best keyword ideas, access your backlink data instantaneously, identify niche-relevant content, and track your desktop and mobile keyword ranks. 

Ahrefs has grown and currently offers tools for: 

Backlink and website analysis 

Keywords 

Keyword gaps and website performance audit 

Tracking rankings over time 

Content explorer for specialized tracking 

9. Slack for Online Marketing Productivity

Slack 

In digital marketing, team communication is key to project success. Invest in easy-to-use software that facilitates team communication and data sharing. 

Slack is a popular teamwork application. This tool’s straightforward data sharing and message search have won over many digital marketers. 

Slack integrates with key project management, office management, sales, productivity, design, and development tools, making it easier to manage your digital marketing campaign. 

10. Yoast helps you Optimize your Content for SEO

Why spend hours studying keywords and subjects if you don’t optimize your content? We all forget sometimes. 

Yoast is one of the top free digital marketing tools for SEO-optimizing content. Yoast will tell you where to put your keyword, how to improve readability, and what you’re doing incorrectly. 

Paid versions let you add related keywords, search for semantic keywords, get internal link ideas, and more. 

Try Yoast’s free edition to learn its capabilities and assess your site’s content. When you’re ready, pay to promote your content.

6. Types of Online Marketing

As there are methods of getting information online, there are about as many different sorts of online marketing. However, there are a number of approaches that frequently succeed.

1. SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

Search engine marketing (SEM) and search engine optimization are both types of online marketing (SEM). When a potential consumer types in search terms that match your product offers, SEO works to optimize the language on your company website so that it appears higher in search engine result listings.

A high-ranking website could get masses of free organic visitors, and optimizing your website to perform better in search results doesn’t cost anything (website traffic that happens naturally).

In contrast, SEM is a paid search marketing tactic. When a person enters one of your keywords into a search engine like Google, you must pay a fee for the display of your advertisement. They are also referred to as pay-per-click (PPC) fees.

SEO is a marketing tool, not a marketing method. It’s “the art and science of making web pages search engine-friendly,” according to The Balance.

SEO is both art and science. SEO is a science because it requires research and weighing different factors to get the best possible SERP ranking (SERP).

Today, the most important SEO elements are:

Content-quality 

Participation 

Mobile-friendliness 

Link count and quality 

In addition to the above elements, you must optimize your site’s back-end. URL structure, loading times, and broken link count. Improving technical SEO helps search engines crawl your site.

SEO is a science, but its unpredictability makes it an art.

to rank on the first page of a search engine’s results page. This helps people find your products or services when they search for your brand. Digital marketers focus on Google because it’s the market leader.

There’s no quantifiable rubric or consistent rules for SEO rankings. Google and other search engines frequently change their algorithms, making predictions difficult. You can adjust your strategy based on your page’s performance.


Opportunities for online advertising come in many different forms. Using banner ads that are integrated into web pages is one strategy. Interstitials, which are advertisements that show before or between bits of content, are one of your other alternatives. On their platforms, various social media service providers, like Facebook, also offer advertising.

2. Email Marketing

Email can be used to distribute newsletters and give customers specialized goods and services based on their demands. Additionally, you can inform your clients about company updates, future activities, and exclusive deals.

Email marketing is a very successful technique to reach potential customers after you have a subscribed email list of people who might be interested in your goods or services. This is because your message will arrive in their email inbox, where they are more likely to notice it.

Email marketing is a proven method. 89% of respondents said it’s their best lead generator.

Marketing automation lets you segment and schedule emails to better meet your customers’ needs.

If you’re considering email marketing, here are some tips:

Send targeted campaigns by segmenting your audience.

Mobile-friendly emails

Schedule your campaign 

A/B-test 

m-commerce 

3. Marketing on Social Media

Online marketing is possible on social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Pinterest, to mention a few. They work best when they are part of a larger content marketing plan that puts a lot of emphasis on the quality and value of the content you create for your business.

Social media marketing involves online discussion to boost traffic and brand awareness. Social media marketing can promote your brand, products, services, and culture. Social media marketing is worthwhile because billions of people use it.

Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram are popular social media platforms, followed by LinkedIn and Youtube. Your business’s social media platforms depend on your goals and audience. If you want new leads for your FinTech startup, targeting industry professionals on LinkedIn is a good idea. If you run a B2C aimed at younger consumers, Instagram ads may be better.

Social media marketing is popular because it encourages audience participation. 96% of B2C digital marketers use it, and it’s gaining ground in B2B. The Content Marketing Institute says that 61% of B2B content marketers have used social media more this year.

Social media marketing has built-in engagement metrics that help you reach your audience. You can prioritize shares, comments, or website clicks.

Social media marketing may not target direct sales. Many brands use social media marketing to start conversations rather than sell products. This is common for brands that target older audiences or offer non-impulse purchases. Your company’s social media goals matter.

Following best practices is crucial for social media marketing success. Social media marketing best practices include:

Respond professionally to comments and questions 

Scheduling social media posts

Post timely

Social media managers support marketing efforts.

Understand your audience and which social media channels they use most To learn how Mailchimp can help with your social media strategy, compare our free tools to others.

4. Blogging for Online Marketing

Another strategy to communicate with your clients and keep them informed about your goods or services is to create a blog. A blog can be utilized to offer suggestions and receive insightful comments.

The more value you can give readers through the knowledge you publish on your blog, the more credibility your brand will gain. Customers may be more willing to try out your product as a result.

Digital marketing is as diverse as digital media interactions. Here are some digital marketing examples.

5. Content Marketing

Quality content is the key to an optimized page. SEO depends on a lot of things, but one of the most important is content marketing, which sends valuable content to a specific audience.

Content marketing’s goal is to attract leads who become customers. It’s unlike traditional ads. Instead of offering a product or service to attract customers, it gives away free written material, such as:

Articles 

E-books 

Newsletters 

Transcripts 

Whitepapers 

Infographics 

Statistics prove content marketing’s importance:

84% of consumers expect companies to create entertaining and helpful content.

62% of 5,000-plus employee companies produce daily content.

92% of marketers consider content a valuable asset.

Content marketing is effective but challenging. Content marketing writers must rank well in search engines and engage readers who will share and interact with the brand. Relevant content can build pipeline relationships.

Identifying your audience helps you create relevant, engaging content. Who is your content marketing for? Knowing your audience helps you create the right content. Use videos, blog posts, printable worksheets, and more in content marketing.

Follow content marketing best practices when creating content. This means creating grammatically correct, error-free, understandable, relevant, and interesting content. Your content should also lead readers to the next step in the pipeline, such as a free consultation or signup page.

6. PPC 

PPC is a form of digital marketing where you pay when someone clicks on your ads. Instead of paying a set amount to run targeted ads online, you only pay for those clicked. When people see your ad, it is complicated.

Because Google is the most popular search engine, many businesses use Google Ads for PPC. When a spot is available on a SERP, the engine holds an instant auction. An algorithm prioritizes ads based on factors such as:

Ad-quality 

Relevance 

Quality homepage

Price 

PPC ads are placed at the top of search engine result pages based on the above factors.

After clicking an ad, each PPC campaign has 1 or more target actions. Conversions are transactional or non-transactional actions. A purchase, newsletter signup, or home office call are all conversions.

You can track target conversions via digital marketing channels to see how your campaign is doing.

7. Affiliate Marketing 

Affiliate marketing is a digital marketing tactic that lets people promote other businesses. The process is the same whether you’re the promoter or a partner business.

A revenue-sharing model When someone buys your promoted product, you get a commission. Merchants pay affiliates for every sale they make.

Some affiliate marketers review one company’s products on a blog or other site. Others have multiple merchants.

First, connect with the other party, whether you want to be or find an affiliate. You can connect affiliates with retailers by starting or joining a single-retailer program or by using digital channels.

There are many things a retailer can do to make their affiliate program appealing to potential promoters. You must equip affiliates for success. This includes bonuses, marketing tools, and pre-made materials.

8. Native Advertising

Native advertising disguises digital marketing. It blends in with surrounding content to be less obvious as advertising.

Native advertising was created to combat consumer ad cynicism. Many consumers assume a paid ad is biased and ignore it.

A native ad avoids this bias by providing information or entertainment before promoting something.

Always label native ads. Promote or sponsor something. If these indicators are hidden, readers may spend time with advertising before realizing it.

When consumers know what to expect, they’ll like your content and brand. Native ads are less obtrusive than traditional ads but not deceptive.

9. Influencer Marketing

Influencer marketing works with a celebrity, industry expert, or content creator with a large following in exchange for exposure. These influencers may promote your products or services on social media.

Influencer marketing helps B2B and B2C companies reach new audiences. Influencers represent your brand, so it’s important to work with reputable ones. The wrong influencer can hurt your business’s reputation.

10. Automated marketing

Marketing automation improves the efficiency and relevance of digital marketing campaigns. Instead of cumbersome, time-consuming processes, you can focus on your digital marketing strategy.

While marketing automation may seem like a luxury tool, it can improve audience engagement.

Stats: 

Personalization is “very” or “somewhat” appealing to 90% of US consumers.

81% of consumers want better brand understanding 

77% of companies value real-time personalization, but 60% struggle with it.

Marketing automation enables personalization. Brands can collect and analyze consumer data and create targeted marketing campaigns.

Send digital marketing messages to the right audiences.

Many marketing automation tools use prospect engagement with a message to determine when and how to follow up. Real-time customization lets you create individualized marketing strategies for each customer without extra time.

Mailchimp’s marketing automation tools let you interact with your audience through behavior-based, transactional, and date-based automations.

Email marketing is simple: send a promotional message and hope your prospect clicks. Execution is complicated. Your emails are wanted first. This requires a list that

Personalize the body and subject line 

clearly states the subscriber’s email type.

Email signature with an unsubscribe link

Transactional and promotional e-mail integration

You want your campaign to be seen as a service, not a promotion.

11. Mobile marketing

Mobile marketing engages your target audience on smartphones and tablets. SMS, MMS, social media notifications, mobile app alerts, etc.

All content must be mobile-friendly. Make content for both computer and mobile screens.The Pew Research Center reports that 85% of Americans own a smartphone. 

7. Online Marketing Examples

Online Marketing Examples


Online marketing campaigns include, for instance,

Although there is potential for businesses to expand their online presence and grow their audiences through online marketing, there are also inherent difficulties with these strategies. Due to the virtual nature of message and content distribution to a particular audience, marketing might first become impersonal.

Marketers need to have a thorough understanding of the demands and preferences of their target audience before developing an internet marketing plan. Using methods like surveys, user testing, and face-to-face interactions, you can learn about the whole user experience.

In addition, online marketing can be crowded and aggressive. The ability to sell goods and services in both regional and global markets is powerful, but the competition can be fierce. Because so many businesses are using internet marketing to advertise their goods and services, businesses that invest in online marketing may find it challenging to attract customers’ attention.

Marketers need to find a balance between creating a unique value proposition (UVP) and a brand voice as they test and build marketing campaigns for different platforms. 

8. Online Marketing Strategy

Digital marketing campaigns are acts within your digital marketing plan that drive you toward a goal. 

If you want to produce more leads through social media, you might run a Twitter campaign. Share your greatest gated content on Twitter to attract leads. 

Online Marketing Strategy 

Here is an intriducition of the point we will be covering in this guide for online marketing strategy:

1. Create Ideal Customer  Personas 

You must know your audience for any marketing approach, digital or not. Create buyer personas to build the best digital marketing tactics. 

Build buyer personas to organize target segments and strengthen marketing. 

Buyer personas are established by studying, surveying, and interviewing your target audience. 

Making assumptions about your target can cause your marketing strategy to go in the wrong direction. 

Your research pool should comprise customers, prospects, and people outside your contacts database who match your target population. 

What information should you acquire for your buyer persona(s) to inform digital marketing? 

Whether you’re B2B or B2C or sell a high- or low-cost goods will affect this. 

Here are several business-specific beginning points. 

Numbers and demographics 

Use web analytics tools to discover your website’s traffic source. 

Age is relevant depending on your industry. If so, use your existing prospect and contact database to uncover trends. 

Sensitive information like income is best gathered through persona research interviews, not online surveys. 

This can be gleaned from your existing B2B customer base. 

Psychographic and qualitative data 

Depending on the problem your product solves, you may already know your buyer persona’s goals. Real customers and internal sales and customer service staff can confirm your assumptions. 

Speak with consumers, sales and customer service reps, and other customer-facing personnel to understand their concerns. 

Ask target audience members and customers about their hobbies and interests. If you’re a fashion business, knowing if your audience is interested in fitness and well-being can inform content and partnerships. 

Talk to consumers and target audience members to learn their company priorities. If you’re a B2B software company, knowing your audience prefers customer service over price is valuable. 

By combining these facts, you may construct accurate buyer personas for your organization. 

2. Determine your Marketing Goals and Marketing Tools

Always relate marketing goals to company goals. 

If your organization wants to boost online income by 20%, your marketing team may aim to produce 50% more internet leads than last year. 

Use a marketing plan template to establish your annual strategy and main priorities. 

Whatever your digital marketing aim, you must measure its effectiveness with the correct tools. 

HubSpot’s Reporting Dashboard aggregates marketing and sales data so you can rapidly assess what works and what doesn’t to enhance your approach. 

3. Evaluate Digital Channels and Assets

When assessing your digital marketing platforms and assets to select what to include in your strategy, consider the larger picture to avoid feeling overwhelmed or confused. 

Categorize your owned, earned, and paid media in a spreadsheet. 

Media Framework: Owned, Earned, Paid 

To do this, use the owned, earned, and paid media framework to categorize the digital “vehicles,” assets, or channels you’re already employing. 

Ownership 

This includes your website, social media profiles, blog content, and images. Your business controls owned channels. 

This can also include off-site content you control (e.g. a blog you publish on Medium). 

Earned

Word-of-mouth marketing is earned media. Whether it’s guest blogs, PR, or customer experience. This effort earns you earned media. 

You can earn publicity through newspaper mentions, positive reviews, and social media shares (e.g. social media channels). 

Advertisers 

Paid media is any vehicle or channel you pay for to attract buyer personas. 

This includes Google AdWords, paid social media posts, and native advertising (e.g. sponsored articles on other websites). 

Let’s look at an example to better illustrate this approach. 

Say you have owned content on a landing page to generate leads. You want to use more than owned, earned, or purchased media alone. 

To generate more leads, make the content shareable so your audience may distribute it on social media. This increases landing page traffic. Earned media. 

You can promote your material on Facebook and pay to have it noticed by more of your intended demographic. 

This is how the three framework elements operate together, but it’s not required. If owned and earned media are successful, you may not need compensated. Evaluate the best way to fulfill your goal, and then include the best channels into your digital marketing strategy. 

Now that you know what’s being used, you can decide what to cut. 

4. Plan Owned Media Efforts 

Digital marketing relies on owned media, which is usually content. Nearly every communication your brand broadcasts is content, including About Us pages, product descriptions, blog entries, ebooks, infographics, podcasts, and social media posts. 

Content converts website visitors into leads and consumers and boosts brand awareness. SEO-optimized content can enhance search and organic traffic. 

Owned content is essential to any digital marketing plan. First, determine what content will assist you succeed. 

If you want to produce 50% more website leads than last year, your About Us page probably won’t be part of your strategy unless it’s been a lead-generator in the past. 

Here’s how to determine what owned content you need for your digital marketing campaign. 

Content audit. 

Make a list of your existing owned material and rank it by what has done best for your aims. 

If your goal is lead generation, rank your content by lead generation over the last year (such as a blog post, ebook, or site page). 

Determine what’s working so you can plan future material successfully. 

Find content holes. 

Find content gaps using buyer personas. 

If you’re a math tutoring company and know your personas struggle with studying, develop some. 

Your content audit may reveal that ebooks placed on a given landing page convert well (better than webinars, for example). 

In this math tutoring company’s scenario, you may decide to create an ebook on “how to study more effectively.” 

Plan your material. 

Make a content development plan based on your results and the gaps you’ve found. 

Include: 

Name 

Format 

Objective 

Promoters 

Why you’re publishing 

Content priority 

This can be a simple spreadsheet with money and time estimates if you’re outsourcing content creation. 

5. Plan Earned Media Campaigns

Comparing your past earned media to your present goals will help you prioritize. If you want traffic and leads, rate each earned media source from most to least successful. 

HubSpot’s Traffic Analytics’ Sources reports include this information. 

Hubspot’s traffic analytics 

A newspaper story you wrote may have increased conversions by driving qualified traffic to your website. LinkedIn is where most people share material, which improves traffic. 

Based on past data, determine which earned media will help you attain your goals. Don’t rule out something new because it’s never been done. 

6. Plan Sponsored Media Campaigns

You must review your sponsored media on each platform (Google AdWords, Facebook, Twitter, etc.) to determine what will assist you accomplish your goals. 

If you’ve spent a lot of money on AdWords but haven’t seen results, it may be time to modify your approach or try a another platform. 

This guide explains how to use AdWords for digital marketing. 

By the end of the process, you should know which paid media channels to keep and which to drop. 

7. Integrate your Online Marketing 

You’ve planned and researched your digital marketing strategy, and you know its components. 

So far, you should know: 

Buyer persona profiles (s) 

Digital-marketing-specific aims 

Owned, earned, and paid media inventory 

Owned, earned, and paid media audit 

A content Strategy Check List 

Check out this collection of basic marketing techniques used by teams across sectors to better grasp digital strategies. 

1. Blog

Blogging is a digital marketing must-have. Blogging is a big role for businesses that wish to attract clients that are interested in their products and services. 

Why? Because well-written blog entries answer a customer’s immediate need. HubSpot sells marketing tools, and our users construct strategies, campaigns, and editorial calendars for their employers. Our blog addresses these issues immediately. 

Don’t blog just because; answer consumer problems. To do so effectively, know your audience’s pain points. So you can write helpful, tailored material. 

2. Paid Ads

(Paid Ads e.g. Google Ads, Facebook Ads, or Instagram Ads). 

The story isn’t just about organic blogging. Non-organic plays, like sponsored advertising, are equally significant. This will boost brand awareness and reach audiences who can’t locate your business organically. 

This is vital when you’re building your site and not generating enough visitors. Digital advertising should include the following: 

Facebook ads 

Pay-Per-Click (PPC) (PPC) 

Adsense 

Advertising online 

Nearly every platform lets you promote, either through a display network (like Google’s) or its built-in ad system (like Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn’s). 

LinkedIn ad: 

Advertising doesn’t rely on content or SEO. Simply create some material, choose images, and launch your advertising campaigns. To ensure the success of your campaigns, prepare an advertising plan that outlines your target audience, media, and budget. 

We recommend downloading this plan template. 

3. Offer Free Educational Content 

Digital marketing doesn’t end when visitors visit your website or click adverts. Offer value in exchange for their email. Users “pay” for gated content with their contact info. Lead generation is vital if you want to turn visitors into clients. 

Create a landing page with a free ebook, tutorial, template, or kit to offer free resources. Consider what your customers need to accomplish their jobs well. Create a resource to assist them. HubSpot: 

Epub landing page digital marketing example 

Follow landing page best practices to encourage free downloads. Limit navigation menus, remove superfluous information, and delete buttons and links. Only download educational content. 

4. Optimize your Content with SEO

SEO is crucial to your digital strategy. It will help you rank for product-related keywords and increase traffic to your blog and educational offers. 

SEO is the best way to get your product pages in front of those searching for them. To engage and convert users, invest in on-page SEO. 

5. Create a Giveaway/contest Online

Instagram Giveaway 

Giveaways and contests enhance brand awareness and digital strategy online. You’ll get hundreds or thousands of new followers and leads in exchange for a free product. 

This strategy is useful if you sell a consumer product or transport physical goods. A cosmetic firm may give away beauty items, while a photographer may provide a free portrait session. B2B enterprises and manufacturers may not benefit from this method, but you may adapt it to your needs by offering a free product to the first consumer to sign up for your mailing list.

6. Webinarize

Webinars are a good alternative to contests, especially for B2B companies. They’re vital for educating the public about your products and services and giving leads a chance to hear from a company rep. So, they can obtain real-time replies to inquiries. 

Webinar library: digital marketing example 

Source: 

Complex product? Create a website page for upcoming and prior webinars. Your customers may access educational content, and prospects can learn about your products in an interactive style. 

7. Podcast

Clubhouse and Twitter Spaces are competing for market share in audio marketing. While Clubhouse isn’t a podcast, the idea is the same: educate and engage a mobile audience. They only need a player. 

HubSpot Podcast Network: 

Hubspot podcast network digital marketing example 

Podcasts can be an important part of your digital strategy, allowing you to reach people beyond search engines and social media. Plus, it’s a more unplanned, natural media, albeit you should prepare each episode properly and give useful content. 

8. Send out Emails 

Email marketing is a crucial digital strategy. It lets you cultivate product-interested clients. You wouldn’t subscribe to a brand’s newsletter if it didn’t interest you, and a business shouldn’t email customers who haven’t signed up. Not if it risks email deliverability. 

Blogs, sweepstakes, and webinars can generate subscriptions. When someone offers you their email and consents to receive your messages, you can send them an email marketing campaign. 

Online Marketing Strategy

A spreadsheet can help you design your digital marketing strategy, but it can soon become chaotic and intimidating. 

For long-term planning, you need a digital marketing strategy paper. But how? Free digital marketing plan template. 

This template will guide you through your business description and initiatives, target market and competitor information, and marketing plan, including budget, channels, and analytics.