When you’re a new entrepreneur, internet marketing can seem overwhelming with its many ins and outs and different variations. Whether your business is coaching, service-based, technology, products, food or fashion, an internet marketing strategy is a must have. Don’t let it overwhelm you with its complexities. Understand each component and decide which is the right way to reach your specific target market. Let’s start by taking a look at eight of the most popular internet marketing strategies and terminologies. Check out these basic definitions.

Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is selling your products and services by paying affiliates (other individuals and companies) to promote a link to your purchase URL. Affiliates are paid when their unique link is used to make a purchase from your company.

Social Media Marketing

Social media marketing consists of using social media platforms to promote your business, reach your target market, and increase awareness of your expertise. You can provide direct links to the products and services you provide.

Video Marketing

Video marketing consists of using videos of yourself to establish your authority, using video testimonials to let others sing your praises, and using live video to host impromptu tutorials and info sessions.

Email Marketing

Email marketing is the practice of establishing a list of email addresses to send a regular email containing resources your target market needs and promos of your products and services.

Search Engine Optimization

Otherwise known as SEO, search engine optimization is using strategic keywords on your website and in your social media content to help your target market find you online and increase your rankings in search engines.

Article Marketing

Also called content marketing, article marketing is the writing of SEO optimized, informative articles and blog posts that encourage your target market to engage with you and share your content.

Pay Per Click Marketing

Pay Per Click Marketing is simply setting up online ads on various platforms that you only pay for when someone clicks on the ad. It also enables you to bid on the right keywords and increase your search engine rankings.

CPA Marketing

Cost Per Acquisition marketing is an online advertising option where the advertiser (you) pays when they acquire a customer. It’s typically used to get a newsletter sign-up, event registration, etc.

Got it? Awesome. Now let’s take a look at internet marketing success strategies and best practices. The very first step is to clearly and ruthlessly define your target market. Who is your ideal client? Research them to find out the following information:

• Are they male or female?
• What is their annual income?
• What is their disposable income?
• What are their hobbies?
• Where do they spend time online?
• Where do they spend time offline?

You’ll want to do this important research before you attempt to market or sell anything. While it may be tempting to market to the broadest audience, it makes better sense and better use of your marketing time, energy, and dollars to reach your specific niche, instead. Like all successful businesses, yours is probably designed to solve a problem. You want to use the marketing strategies that reach the individuals and companies who have the problem for which you have the solution. Think of it this way – if you sell high-end purses, you don’t want to waste time and money marketing them to children. Conversely, if you sell children’s books, you don’t want to market them to confirmed bachelors. If you sell life insurance, you don’t want to market it to teenagers. Conversely, if you sell skis, you don’t want to market them to people who live in and prefer warm climates. You get the picture, right?

Once you’ve nailed the identity of your target market, build an online presence they’ll love. That can be a standalone website or an ecommerce store built on an existing platform like Shopify, Amazon or Etsy. If you’ve done your homework, you’ll know which your ideal client prefers and how they prefer to shop. Make a website or store that loads quickly, has a name that clearly identifies its purpose and, by all means, accepts online payments.

Have an online tracking method in place that allows you to see where most of your online visitors come from. You’ll want to spend most of your time prettying up the online doors they walk through. Are you generating more leads from social media than you are from your blog? Do your readers prefer PayPal over credit cards and e-checks for payments? Do you sell more books on Amazon than from your own website? Guess where your marketing dollars should go?

Once you’ve identified the internet marketing strategies your target market prefers, use them to drive engagement to each other. Then use all of them to drive traffic to your point of purchase. Create a consistent, cohesive look and feel on all your online and social media outlets. That helps your target audience become familiar with you and increases your brand awareness. Also, make sure you claim your domain name, your name, and your company all over the internet.

Have you ever heard the adage, work smarter, not harder? The internet has created a plethora of tools to help manage itself. Take advantage of as many of these as you can. Online scheduling tools like Hootsuite and Edgar make it easy to create and share your content and promo materials. It’s almost a set-it-and-forget-it method of online marketing and can help create a consistency your customers will appreciate. If your business is coaching, try automated online schedulers like Calendly. They’ll do the busy work for you while you stay hard at work behind the scenes creating products and services they need and want.

Internet marketing is a smart, affordable way to reach your target market, establish yourself as an expert, grow your business, and increase your profits. If you need more help with your internet marketing strategies and campaigns, contact me using this online form today. I’ve got all the tools and techniques you need to turn your business into an internet marketing machine.