The online world has changed the way we look at and buy products or services. Online marketing is all about capturing the customer and being present at the right time while they’re searching, emailing, watching videos, etc. And now that you have this huge online world on your mobile devices, it’s essentially everywhere, all the time. The bigger shift is the shift in control. Because of how accessible content is, the customer is in charge of the buying process. They can share, ask, post, look up whatever they want, etc.
In order to tackle this huge market, there are different types of online types of media you’ll be using: Paid, Owned, and Earned. Paid media is what it sounds like, you pay for ads like Facebook ads, Google Adwords, or any type of display marketing. Owned media is like your blog, a list of people you email, your website, etc. Earned media is organic media you gain. Social media has changed the way we think of earned media, making organic reach play a huge role in your business.
All three of these types of media encompass online marketing. But even more importantly, you need to think of three different strategies before diving into the digital market. According to Brad Batesole from Online Marketing Fundamentals,
“…Many businesses are in such a rush to take advantage of the opportunity, that they fail to build out a proper strategy. Being digital for the sake of just having a presence in these channels is not the answer. The key is to build out a dedicated strategy that results in a strong return on investment.” You can check out his Twitter here.
The three main strategies to think of are a business strategy, a brand strategy (which we covered in an earlier post), and a market strategy. We’re going to be talking about building a business strategy and a market strategy in future posts so that we can give it the same amount of attention and detail. Stay tuned.