Top 7 Online Marketing Strategies Used by Top Agencies

Guide to Top Online Marketing Strategies

Online marketing has become a mainstay in today’s connected world, and, in many ways, online marketing strategies have overtaken the older offline methods, such as cold calls, in a big way in the 21^st century.

The advent of social media means that more people are spending time online. If companies want to reach them, they need to develop a good online marketing plan or work with an online marketing company to evolve their lead generation and sales channels.

According to an online marketing research report on itu.int, titled “ICT Facts and Figures 2016,” the number of individuals using the Internet globally has increased more than 240% between 2005 and 2016, from 1.02 billion to 3.48 billion.

In a study called “The Future of Digital Marketing,” 80% of companies stated that they planned to increase their digital online marketing budgets in the next 12–18 months.

Companies are increasingly recognizing the importance of having an online marketing campaign in their advertising mix and are turning to online marketing services to keep up with their competition.

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In this article, we are going to review the top 7 online marketing strategies that are being used by many of the top online marketing agencies in the business.

Even though the Internet and online marketing tools are always evolving, there are some proven online marketing techniques that you can learn to help you get ahead and take charge of your online marketing plan this year.

Online Marketing Strategies | What You Should Be Doing

For those interested in an introduction to small business online marketing, as well as for medium or larger sized businesses, these online marketing tips can help level the playing field between you and your competition, putting the power of online marketing in your hands to drive more customer engagement, leads, and sales to your business.

In our “Top 7 Online Marketing Strategies Used by Top Agencies” list, we are going to go over the paid and non-paid options, as well as note which strategies are better for B2B or B2C channels, and talk about the different online marketing services out there in the social media realm.

Whether you chose to ultimately use an online marketing company or implement your online marketing campaign yourself, if you follow these top online marketing tips, you can’t go wrong and will join others who are making online marketing work for them in 2016, 2017, 2018, and beyond.

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Online Marketing Tip #1: Paid Search with Search Engines

Paid search through services such as Google AdWords, Baidu (China) or Yahoo remains one of the top online marketing techniques to get customers to your website right away. Whenever you receive one of those emails from an online marketing agency promising you a #1 ranking on Google, it’s through paid search.

Paid search through search engines is a fairly straightforward online marketing plan, but you do need to know what you’re doing so you don’t end up wasting a lot of money that never converts to sales.

You basically chose the top keywords that your customers may be searching for to find your goods or services and incorporate those into your paid search online marketing campaign.

You then bid a certain amount per keyword for your listing to show up in the top “advertisement” area of the search page.

Google has been getting very competitive to keep its ad revenue up, so you don’t always have to use an online marketing company. Google itself now has experts that can help you get started and continue optimizing through its online marketing tools.

Paid Search with Search Engines Online Marketing Strategies:

Start with a smaller list of core keywords first. Optimize those, then expand.
Research the top search engine used in your country so you know where to begin.
Use tools like Google Keyword Planner or SEMrush to see what keywords your competitors are using.

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Online Marketing Tip #2: Paid Search with Social Media

Another option for quick results and immediate traffic to your website or shopping cart are the online marketing services for paid advertising through the major social media platforms.

While it’s taken a while for social media companies to hone their paid ad online marketing tips for advertisers, they’ve now ironed out a lot of the initial issues, and depending upon the type of product you sell, this can bring in lots of immediate business.

The “big three” that you will want to check out first when planning for any large or small business online marketing are Facebook (mainly consumers, B2C), LinkedIn (mainly business, B2B), and Twitter (a bit of both). LinkedIn offers you a place to make posts, which are pretty much like blogs on its platform, and start different business-related groups in order to connect.

Facebook is a great platform to use if you’re selling consumer items, especially the smaller ticket, impulse-buy type.

Paid Search with Social Media Online Marketing Strategies:

Review ads on the top social media platforms for ideas of what to do yourself.
Test a variety of messages and images in your ads and retool often to get to the best converting ones.
If you’re new to social media, consider using an online marketing company for this, like Alchemy or AdParlor.

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Online Marketing Tip #3: Referral Programs

Referral programs are one of the online marketing strategies that can help you leverage customer connections. A referral program encourages your customers to share their positive experiences of using your goods and services with their friends, family members or coworkers. Personal referrals have a much stronger trust factor than other online marketing techniques because they come from someone that is already known and trusted.

According to online marketing research by Nielsen, word-of-mouth recommendations are still one of the most influential, with 84% of survey respondents saying this kind of recommendation was the most trustworthy, and people were 4 times more likely to buy when referred by a friend.

You can offer a discount for each online referral or offer a contest entry for each social media “share” or “retweet” of an online marketing campaign.

Referral Programs Online Marketing Strategies:

Offering a contest entry or free logo t-shirt for sharing your message is a great way to get referrals.
Include in your online marketing campaign referral an email that invites customers to refer a friend, where both the old and new customer receive a discount.
Leverage referrals and customer testimonials on your blog, videos, and other content.

Online Marketing Tip #4: Videos

No online marketing agency would launch a campaign these days without incorporating video into the mix. According to online marketing research by Adelie Studios, companies using video get 41% more traffic from searches to their website than those that don’t. People have become more visually driven in the Internet age, and the rise in the popularity of videos is a big indicator of the success of these types of online marketing tools.

We all remember how Youtube launched the career of Justin Bieber and PewDiePie, but you don’t have to be an entertainer to harness the power of video for your online marketing techniques. The advent of smartphones with HD video capabilities has made it easy for a small business online marketing individual to create an engaging video about a company, product or service; put it online; and start driving new business.

How-to videos can help you make a seemingly complicated product easier to understand and also put a face on your business by interviewing some of your team.

Videos Online Marketing Strategies:

Use one of the great video online marketing tools, like WeVideo, Magisto or Loopster, to easily edit your videos online.
Keep videos short and to the point. Advertising videos are typically between 30 to 60 seconds.
Don’t forget the music. Music can instantly create a feeling and engage the viewer. You can find some at Music Loops or Big Fish Audio.

Online Marketing Tip #5: Email Marketing

While it may not be one of the most exciting online marketing tips, email is still a vital cornerstone to online marketing strategies, and it’s one that is used by an online marketing company to deploy many other types of content, like videos or blogs. If you’re running a sale, then you want to first get it out to your opt-in email newsletter list of loyal followers.

Email still delivers the highest return on investment (ROI) over other offline and online marketing strategies. According to online marketing researchby Campaign Monitor, for every $1 spent on email marketing, $38 is generated in ROI. This makes it one of the most powerful online marketing tools that you can have at your disposal.

Today, personalization has become the norm for email marketing, and segmenting your lists per market or product is important to allow you to deliver pertinent content to each person.

There are several online marketing services you can use for email delivery, including Mail Chimp and Constant Contact.

Email Marketing Online Marketing Strategies:

Make sure you are in compliance with the CAN-SPAM Act when sending out your email newsletter.
Segment your lists for less “unsubscribes.” Your commercial clients may not be interested in the same online marketing message as your consumer clients.
Use email as your core platform to deliver your other content, whether it is a link to your new social media site or to your newest SEO-focused blog.

Online Marketing Tip #6: Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

If you want to spend less on paid search or paid social media but still bring people to your website, then SEO is one of the key online marketing strategies that an online marketing company will use.

It consists of the way you tag and incorporate keywords into your website that will help your site, over time, naturally rank higher in the unpaid search engine results.

The SEO-based online marketing plan takes a little longer to get you on page 1 of Google than does paid search, but it often brings higher quality traffic to your site and can help you build up a traffic generation channel without the high cost of paid search.

It’s a long-term strategy, but one that any good top online marketing agency will incorporate into your overall online marketing campaign.

Some good online marketing tips for SEO include writing and posting regular blogs on your website that focus on a particular keyword or set of keywords people would use to find your goods and services.

You can also link between your website and social media platforms as a good online marketing plan to build SEO.

SEO Online Marketing Strategies:

Use the excellent online marketing tools provided by Google that give you strategies to use.
Before you put up a new webpage, blog or other content, make a plan for the keywords you want use and optimize for on that page.
If you can naturally link back to your site from other high-quality sites, that will help your SEO ranking.

Online Marketing Tip #7: Mobile Apps

Mobile (smartphones and tablets) has been an up-and-coming platform upon which people visit and buy goods online, making it increasingly important in the mix of online marketing tools.

According to the online marketing research by eMarketer, mobile ad spending is expected to top $100 billion worldwide this year. There is a reason: people are using mobile more and more because it integrates with their mobile online life.

If you have a product or service that lends itself to creating your own mobile app, then that could be an online marketing plan you choose to use. However, you don’t need to have your own mobile app in order to tap into the burgeoning mobile ad market.

There are a few options out there, such as Google, Airpush, and ExactDrive, that you can use for online marketing strategies for mobile apps advertising.

Mobile Apps Online Marketing Strategies:

If you choose to make your own app, use one of the many helpful resources to get started, like Shoutem or AppyPie.
Make sure your own website is optimized to look good on all devices: WordPress or Wix can be good resources for this.
Make sure to choose apps for advertising that match your customer demographic.

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Online Marketing Company Top Strategies Recap

We hope that you found our “Top 7 Online Marketing Strategies Used by Top Agencies” informative and helpful for your ongoing online marketing plan.

These represent the best online marketing tools and online marketing services you can use to ensure you reach your customers no matter where they are online.

Whether you are doing small business online marketing or you are a larger company working with an online marketing agency, these top 7 strategies for great online marketing should be part of your daily marketing mix.

With the transition to an online world that is connected to our offline life and buying habits, these core online marketing techniques will ensure your company is successful in reaching customers currently as well as into the future.

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Top 7 Online Marketing Strategies Used by Top Agencies | Guide