The world is evolving faster than ever before. Only two decades ago, companies were contacting television and radio stations in search of advertising, and they were consulting local newspapers and magazines to get their brand noticed amongst their potential audience. Today, however, these marketing strategies do not seem to be as effective anymore. While some companies still choose to participate in these marketing techniques, most modern businesses are taking their marketing efforts to the internet and discovering the potential internet marketing has for the success and reach of their brand. From registering a business on different social media platforms to having a central location where customers can find out more about a particular brand and the services or products they offer, internet marketing now plays an essential role in running a successful business.
Internet Marketing Amongst Brands And Small Businesses
Blue Corona reports that 66% of all small businesses claim that reaching new customers are their main priority when it comes to marketing, which means most businesses still need to increase the number of customers that trust their products or services. They also report that, according to numerous research studies, as much as 80% of all people now search for information related to a particular company on the internet before buying a particular product or service from them.When it comes to the type of strategies utilizes, as well as the particular platforms, it seems like social media always wins the battle. As much as 96% of internet marketers report social media marketing to be amongst their top priorities when it comes to promoting a business online. Social media marketing has been able to improve brand exposure for around 90% of internet marketers, and 75% of marketers’ report that their social media marketing efforts can increase a number of visitors their brand’s website receives.
We should also note that, according to the same report, it seems like 32% of all small business now tends to spend money on their social media marketing efforts, while only 25% tends to spend money on other internet marketing strategies. Amongst small business, around 17% are also spending money on ranking their website higher in search engines, and around 26% are also spending money on their email marketing strategies.
In conclusion, the top marketing methods utilized by small business in this modern day and age includes social media, website, and email.
Internet Usage Amongst The Average Consumer
While it is important for businesses to consider how other companies are using the internet to promote their business and how well their results are, it is also vital to consider how the average consumer is using the internet – it is, after all, the consumer you are targeting with your business.In the year 2000, around 738 million individuals around the world had access to the internet. Just 15 years later, the number of internet users have grown to 3.2 billion people, which means at least 43% of all people around the world now have access to the internet, as reported by Time.com. Global Web Index reports that 87% of every person who has access to the internet owns a smartphone. In 2016, BGR reported that, for the first time in history, more people who are accessing the internet from their smartphones than from desktop devices.
With these stats in mind, it has not only become essential for businesses to have their website and promote their brand on the internet but also to make their marketing efforts mobile-friendly a top priority. Since the majority of their traffic might be coming from smartphones and mobile devices, not keeping up with this latest trend may lead to a loss of many customers. Whether a business is developing a new website, setting up a new social media campaign or planning to utilize influencer marketing, making sure that their efforts will also be available to those browsing from a mobile device needs to be their main concern today.
With social media marketing being one of the highest priorities when it comes to promoting a business online, we would like to take a moment and share some essential statistics with you to help you realize just how powerful social media platforms have become.
- According to We Are Social, there are now 2.8 billion social media users around the world, accounting for 37% of the human population and the majority of all internet users.
- Over 50 million smaller businesses have created a Facebook page to help them better connect with their audience, as reported by Dream Grow.
- Facebook has reached 1.71 billion active users in 2017, and the platforms user count continues to grow rapidly, as reported by HootSuite.
- As of 2017, Twitter has reached over 320 active users, with over 500 million Tweets being sent out every single day, as reported by Omnivore.
- WordStream reports that 60% of all adults now possess an Instagram account. The platform has also reached a user count of more than 600 million users, with at least 400 million logging into their account once or more per day.
- According to Expanded Ramblings, SnapChat has more than 300 million users who sign into their account at least once a month and over 160 million users who are active on the platform daily. They also report that more than three billion Snaps are sent with this app every day.
- LinkedIn has over 460 million users, with 106 million users signing into their account once or more every month. There are over 1.5 million groups on this platform, and the platform can be accessed in 24 different languages.
Marketing Tools To Grow Your Startup Business
Now that we have shared some important statistics of how other businesses and brands are using the internet, as well as how the average consumer is using the internet, we should move forward and start to focus on your business – and how you can improve the marketing techniques, as well as the results you achieve through your marketing efforts, by simply using a few online tools (some of which are completely free to use). We are going to take a look at seven different tools that are used by millions of online marketers and brands, and explain how your business can take advantage of each tool to boost your marketing outcomes, expand your brand exposure and reach a wider audience than ever before.#1: AWeber
Let’s start off by discussing a tool that is highly effective in growing your email list and boosting the results you achieve through your email marketing efforts. Since email marketing is considered one of the most successful and effective methods of marketing business, using a specialized tool that helps you get the job done professionally is very important. AWeber is one of the most popular email marketing tools on the internet and offers features such as autoresponders, broadcast emails and hundreds of templates to choose from. Customers can sign up for a free trial to test the platform and see if AWeber can offer their business what it needs.#2: Omnisend
While email marketing has long been the king of digital marketing, it's time to go further. Omnisend does just that: an omnichannel marketing automation platform built for ecommerce, this tool has all the bells and whistles to replace many of the smaller tools you're already using.Unlike many email marketing or even automation tools, Omnisend allows you to incorporate several channels within the same automation workflow. This means your customer data is centralized, and you can run your channels from the same, easy-to-use platform. Their smart segmentation also allows you to target the most relevant message to the right customer at the right time.
For those ready to graduate from email marketing to omnichannel marketing, Omnisend is the platform for you.
#3: Canva
Next up, we have one of the best online graphic design tools. Canva has multiple uses and can be used for design projects that are as simple as setting up a banner to be shared on your website, or for something more advance, like designing a new logo for your business. Canva can also be used to design business cards, edit photos and to create stunning graphics that you can include in your social media profiles, as well as in your emails when sending out a newsletter. A large number of templates are also offered by this tool to help speed up the process of creating attractive graphics for your marketing campaigns.#4: Buffer
Social media marketing is known to be one of the best ways to interact with your customers on a more personal level – and an excellent way of driving more traffic to your website. Unfortunately, managing multiple social media profiles can be a time-consuming assignment. Instead, register for a Buffer account and use this online marketing tool to automate your social media marketing efforts. The tool allows you to create posts and then schedule them for different social media accounts – you can spend one day to compose as many social media posts as you want; thus completely automating your social media efforts.#5: It’s Alive!
Next up we would like to share a tool that is still relatively new, but most definitely very useful to even the smallest of businesses. It’s Alive! Is a chatbot builder for Facebook. A chatbot automates the customer service process of business; thus allowing you as the owner to focus on other important aspects that will help your business grow. It’s Alive! Is simple to use and there is no need to learn how to code. Simply set up a chatbot to monitor your Facebook page and you’re good to go.#6: Trello
Organization is a key element to running a successful business. You need to keep track of everything that is going on, and you need to plan ahead of time for every department of your business – sales, marketing, products and services, and everything else needs to have a plan behind them. Trello is an easy-to-use planning tool that will help make your marketing efforts a breeze – capture your thoughts and ideas, as well as effective strategies you and your team come up with, on a Trello board, which can then be organized and utilized continuously to ensure the success of your marketing campaigns.#7: Sniply
Creating original content that is sure to go viral is a difficult and time-consuming task. It takes a lot of research and great writing skills to come up with newsworthy topics that people will share continuously. Hiring someone to do this for you can cost you a lot of money. Instead, “piggy-back” off other people’s content by using Sniply. Sniply is an online marketing tool that allows you to enter the URL of viral posts on the internet, then create a popout with information about your company. Once created, simply share the URL that Sniply gives you on your social media profiles – since these posts are already viral, your followers will be more likely to share the link.#8: SEMRush
While social media marketing and email marketing are important, we should not forget the fact that getting your website to rank high in search engines can be just as beneficial. SEMRush is another marketing tool that allows you to monitor the presence of your website amongst major search engines. The tool can also be used to monitor the search presence of competing websites and gives you the ability to find link building opportunities that will help to increase the presence of your company’s website in Google and other major search engines.Final Words
With internet marketing taking over traditional forms of advertising, it is important that modern and even older businesses catch up to the latest trends in marketing. By taking a business online, a business owner is able to identify an entirely new potential audience to promote their products or services to, and gain access to a wide variety of new tools and techniques that they can use to put their business in front of millions – and to stand out from their competitors that have not yet caught up to the world of internet marketing. We have discussed seven of the top marketing tools that every business should utilize from day one – these tools will help any business increase their reach and get them the best results possible from their internet marketing tactics.
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Author Bio:
Stevan Mcgrath is a digital marketing professional who possesses expertise in brand design and development. Stevan is passionate about utilizing his diverse skill sets for new and innovative online marketing strategies. He has worked as a freelancer and a contributor to ProvenSEO. Despite having a wide influential reach, he seeks client satisfaction as his topmost priority. He also writes blog posts on recent digital marketing trends. To know his work and more details you can follow him on facebook, twitter, LinkedIn.
