We Asked 10 Experts How To Market An Online Business. This Is What They Said … Do You Agree?
We got you advice from experts.
Would you add or change anything?
Today millions, if not billions, of businesses worldwide are online.
All competing for a piece of the same audience.
It’s now more important for online businesses to focus on what works.
You can’t survive with an attractive website alone.
You must know how to market an online business.
So we asked successful business owners:
What marketing advice would you give an online business?
One who seeks the same success.
Based on the tried and tested marketing methods you have implemented.
Here is what they said.
Your business will thank you for reading this article.
Overall marketing strategy
Vanessa Geraghty
Founder: Vivacity Marketing
Marketing Strategy:
You must start with a marketing strategy for your online business, as this will lay the foundations for your success as a business.
A key component of a marketing strategy is to do market research with your ideal customers, as this will help you to uncover their path to purchase when they are seeking solutions online. And it will help you build your buyer persona, which is a fictitious representation of your ideal customer.
Market research will help you to find out the following information about your ideal customer:
- How do they decide which brands they will choose?
- What’s important to them?
- How do they compare brands online etc?
- Where are they seeking solutions online?
- How is your brand a better option than a competitor brand?
Competitor research forms part of your market research also, which will help you to identify your point of difference.
Next using your research findings you can map out your customer journey map.
These are all the touchpoints and marketing channels you will use to attract clients to your business via inbound marketing.
You will also need to nail your core message and brand promise, which will help you to clearly articulate what you do and your point of difference.
A high converting easy-to-use website is a must too.
If you’re being serious about how to market an online business.
And make sure you are really clear who your niche of customers will be, they need to have a problem you can solve with your products or services.
The marketing channels working well for online businesses are:
Email Marketing is a great way to launch new products, offers, and services.
A pillar strategy for how to market an online business.
It is a good way to keep your potential clients engaged with your brand, and purchasing from you.
So having the goal of building your email list is an important one from the get-go.
Social Media: Your research should have uncovered which of the social media platforms your ideal customers are hanging out on.
So you will need to build a content plan rich with valuable content for your audience. Educational, entertaining, and adds value.
Video marketing is a huge part of social media marketing now, so you will need to create a video content plan also and decide which types of videos you will produce weekly for your socials.
Paid Ads: Depending on what kind of online product or service you have, I recommend starting with Google Ads and a high converting landing page. Be really clear on what you want the potential customers to do on that landing page. It could be a limited-time-only offer, or it could be to book a consultation.
Facebook and Instagram Ads work really well for a product-based brand due to the visual component.
You can create some really nice video content for your paid social media ads and remember to entertain and add value!
Local SEO: Don’t forget about your organic Google listings and your Google My Business page.
A local SEO strategy will help potential customers to find your website.
So start by doing some keyword research to find out what search terms and phrases your ideal customers are searching for and build a content plan around these search terms.
Include these keywords on your website and in your metadata.
Know your Analytics: Your marketing analytics will help you to understand what’s working and what’s not. Monitor your Google Analytics, Social Media Insights, and Email Service Provider insights regularly. Understand who is the key demographic responding to your marketing plan. What types of content do they respond to? Where are they converting from browsers into buyers?
Social media marketing
Laura Gosney
Founder: Laura F creates
For service-based businesses like mine. Referrals, online communities are gold-dust for generating new leads.
Investing in something like website design can be a stressful experience for small businesses. Or budget-conscious founders.
These want to know their designers are endorsed by friends and family they respect.
The pandemic has only cemented this. Many freelancers are turning to global audiences.
Consumer confidence wavers at home. Myself included.
Building social media communities is essential for business growth.
A content marketing strategy for social media is a must-have.
That’s never going to change in online marketing!
Content is king!
Arun Grewal
Founder & Editor-in-chief at CoffeeBrewingPro.com
Arun from CoffeeBrewingPro.com – we help people brew high-quality coffee at home.
As a coffee enthusiast and the owner of a coffee brewing site.
Being an online business that has launched over the pandemic.
Requires new methods of marketing to stand out.
One effective method for marketing my coffee blog is Pinterest.
Pinterest is a growing platform and has a shortage of content right now.
Fresh content pins travel a lot further than they would on Instagram.
The reach is amazing, the engagement as well.
This has taken my blog to the next level.
Another method I use is content re-purposing.
This allows me to make the most of my blog posts.
Target readers’ concerns from more specialized angles.
Harry Morton
Founder: Lower Street
Embrace social media.
Your online customers spend a lot of their time on social media so it only makes sense you meet them there.
Your engagement with them can impact how your audience perceives your business.
Your goal should be about creating a community of engaged users, as opposed to over-marketing your business and products.
To earn your place in the business marketplace you need to dig deeper and understand what your customers want.
Once you realize what content works and what doesn’t you begin wielding social media as a powerful tool.
Lynn Power
Co-founder: MASAMI & Isle de nature
In addition to the digital marketing playbook (Facebook, Instagram).
We also use podcasts for storytelling.
Live streams to engage with new audiences.
Plus content to help drive awareness and improve SEO.
One of our best strategies has been to partner with like-minded brands.
Like Balm Labs or Olita Sunscreen.
This helps each other’s audiences and creates engagement.
Search Engine Optimization
Jake Munday
Co-founder: Custom Neon
In the infancy stages of an eCommerce business, you may not have the budget to facilitate expensive PPC campaigns.
The good news is, there are many free tools you can use to bolster SEO for your website, helping your business become more visible.
Free keyword research tools take the guesswork out of your content creation.
They help you identify high-quality keywords that you should be targeting in your product or service descriptions.
Improving your on-site SEO by optimizing your content will lead to better rankings on search engines, higher click-through rates, and therefore more conversions.
Simple strategies such as creating keyword-rich meta descriptions, catchy title tags, and inserting relevant videos are all tactics to positively impact your SERP positioning.
Furthermore, creating topical blog posts to answer search queries, using FAQs, and tutorials centered around your products are simple but effective ways to add keyword-rich informative, and relevant copy.
In addition, an unresponsive site will be detrimental to your rankings.
Factors such as site layout, poor navigation, and slow loading speeds should be fixed, so your site loads efficiently across all devices.
On top of these SEO changes, online businesses should be looking to embrace social media marketing, to reach their target audience and craft a solid brand identity.
Social media marketing is a cost-effective way to leverage your brand, drive traffic to your website and create additional avenues for the purchase of your goods.
Online video consumption grew 96% in 2020, so it’s worth considering the outstanding impact of video marketing and implementing this into your marketing strategy.
Videos distributed across all your channels serve to provide trust and genuineness in your brand and products.
Use these moments to tell a story.
Put a face to your business.
Demonstrate your values.
Highlight your commitment to sustainability.
Social responsibility, and quality.
Enjoyable video content on your site and socials.
Encourages users to spend more time on your pages.
It increases customer engagement, resulting in higher conversions.
Many businesses are joining the e-commerce space, resulting in fierce competition for traffic.
It’s simply not enough to create a pretty site hoping visitors will come.
In the early days, it’s essential to utilize all the free tools at your disposal and as profitability grows, you can increase your SEO capabilities.
Jase Rodley
Entrepreneur: Dialed Labs
Dominating the digital space without implementing the best SEO strategy is a near-impossible feat.
You could have an awesome product, top-notch content and a beautiful website to go with.
If, however, you fail to optimize your website for users and search engines you just won’t be able to reach your target audience.
For a business just starting with SEO, the best thing you can do is put yourself in the shoes of your customers.
Are they going to buy your product the second they land on your site?
Probably not!
Think carefully about the questions that they might have beforehand.
These make great blog post topics.
As you publish these over time, your brand can be an authority in your niche.
You’ll also be well on your way to the top spots in Google.
Email marketing
Philipp Zieske
CEO: Zeitholz
In a day and age where customers are constantly bombarded with ads and promotions, email marketing is much less intrusive and thus yields great results.
You don’t have to guestimate if your readers are interested in what you have to say — you already know they are since they signed up by choice.
This lets you carefully design your communication strategy and deliver relevant content that your readers actually find useful.
It’s a significant way of staying relevant in their lives so your business won’t be forgotten easily.
Blogging
Ryan David
Owner and CEO: We Buy houses Pennsylvania
I market my business by writing blog posts.
Responding to reporter requests for expert information (for backlinks).
Sometimes I also run Facebook ads. In addition, I’ve authored a chapter for the book
U Can: Run Your Own Business.
These marketing strategies are free and work together to promote my business.
“We Buy Houses In Pennsylvania”.
Except for Facebook ads, all of these techniques are free. For Facebook ads, you can set any budget you want.
I recommend these marketing strategies to any new business start-up. They produce results without spending a small fortune.
Our Conclusion On How To Market An Online Business:
Our take is… There is no one-size-fits-all approach on how to market an online business.
Experiment with different tactics as much as you can.
Then Focus your attention on what works for you and your business.
Keep in mind.
Marketing an online business can be difficult.
Use these tips to reach the largest portion of your targeted market.
Or risk your business going nowhere slowly.
Mastering How To Market An Online Business is a worthy investment.
Need help?
Want to learn more about how to market an online business? Zesno can help you.