The plan to promote your business online is called web marketing. This includes utilizing different online channels to reach business goals - Social Media, Search Engines, Email, Forums, Visual Platforms and more. Web marketing also means collecting data, analyzing and repurposing it. You’ll read about all these concepts in the chapters of this guide.
Below are just a few web marketing terms for you to get started
Display Ads: Visual ads on third-party websites leading viewers to your site.
Native Ads: Unlike display ads or banner ads, native ads don't look like ads. They blend with the media platform.
Search Engine Marketing (SEM): Promoting your website via paid ads on search engines.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO): Improving the visibility of your website by improving the organic search results.
Organic: Content that hasn’t been promoted through paid ads.
Social Media Marketing (SMM): Getting traffic by using different social media channels (FB, Twitter, LinkedIn, Snapchat, IG, etc.)
Affiliate Marketing: Rewards affiliate members for visitors or customers they have redirected to you.
Content Marketing: Creating and sharing content to drive traffic to your website.
Crowd Marketing: Marketing your business by engaging a large number of people to facilitate discussion.
Video Marketing: Using platforms such as Youtube or Vimeo for sharing your videos for promotional purposes.
ROI: Return on investment is a measure used to estimate the efficiency of marketing campaigns. ROI % = Net Profit / Total Investment X 100.
CTR: Click Through Rate is the proportion of users who click a desired link, to the total number of users who viewed the page.
Conversion: The proportion of viewers that convert to buyers or viewers through your ads, depending on your CTA.
CTA: Call to action is the immediate response you want your target audience to take.
Email Marketing: Promotional activity through email.
How much does web marketing cost?
Social channels offer ads at different costs.
These costs are based on your bids; it's like entering a worldwide auction.
Gog Zalibekyan
"This is the question we are asked the most. And our answer is the same - if you become an expert at leveraging different web channels staying true to your story and your voice - it can cost very little or nothing at all."
What is a buyer persona?
The buyer persona of your business is usually one or a few fictional characters who ideally portray your customer base.
How old are your visitors?
What is their gender?
What language do they speak?
What country are they browsing your website from?
What type of device are they using?
What’s the most popular page/product on your site?
The answers to these questions, and a bit of research on your analytics platform will help you create data driven non-fictional buyer persona.
Take your users as a compass and watch your business grow.
Ita Babayan
“When drafting your buyer personas, make sure you have real people in mind. Better off, base your assumptions on real life data from your site. Many free analytics tools can give you answers to these questions.”
Understanding your audience is the key to web marketing success
Behind a good Web Marketing Campaign, there's a planned marketing strategy with a clear measurable goal (e.g. reach, engagement) and a target audience you want to reach. Determining the right audience you want to reach is the first step to accomplishing your business goals. It is a process of creating your ideal customer by age, location, habits, interests, lifestyle, work, education, experience and other factors.
Let's go through an example - you make unique boho jewelry and you have just created a website to showcase your work.
Business Goal - You want to reach more people and expand your sales.
Gender - You know from previous experience that your customers are ladies.
Age - 25-35 years old.
Interest - Boho trends, jewelry, art, Coachella.
Location - Your country, because you want to avoid international post costs.
Language - English, because you want to be able to facilitate communication.
So, there you have it - your target audience and demographics.
Once you have a clear understanding of your business goals and your audience, it will be easier to choose the right social media platform for your business. Knowing where your audience hangs out is actually knowing where to put your efforts to make your business visible.