"B2B brands can make use of the Internet as a marketing tool for promoting products and services thereby generating better ROI for their businesses."
These three categories- website, social media, and email- are used as internet marketing.
Web marketing involves promotional websites, internet advertising on search engines, affiliate marketing websites, e-commerce websites, and organic search engines with the use of search engine optimization or SEO.
Social media marketing involves using marketing and advertising strategies which include viral marketing with the use of social networking websites such as Linkedin, Medium, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.
Email marketing uses advertising and promotional methods through email messages to existing and potential customers.
A majority of the companies consider internet marketing in their marketing plan because of its lesser costs of distribution of information and the huge scope of audience.
It also utilizes the use of online digital customer data management and electronic customer relationship management (ECRM)
Objectives Of Internet Marketing
Generally, Internet marketing applies the internet technology to:
· Convey and promote the products or services of a company
· Online advertising and selling of products or services; and
· Making surveys and research for the company such as preferences and needs of its current customers and potential target audience.
Benefits Of Internet Marketing
· Flexibility
Internet marketing allows your business to be open and accessible to existing and potential customers 24/7 without worrying about fixed opening store hours or overtime costs of staff. It is also beneficial and convenient to your customers as they can browse for new products or services and place their orders at any time most convenient to them.
· Wider Range of Market/Audience
With the use of online technology, you will be able to connect to potential customers globally. You will be able to advertise and sell products in any areas nationwide or other countries. You will be able to develop an import and export business without the hassles of building groups of distributors globally and the costs that come with it. But if you are into selling products or promoting services in other countries, see to it that your products are feasible for the local market and adhere to local business policies. This will include modification of the products to address the needs of the local market.
· Customized Products and Services
Internet marketing will give you the opportunity to monitor your customers’ visits and preferences by generating customers’ profile and their purchasing history. By tracking your customers’ web visits, you will be able to have information about their needs; thus, will be able to produce offers that will answer their needs.
· Customers’ Retention
Internet technology has a system for developing and strengthening relationships with existing and potential customers, thus, increasing the retention degree of your customers. When a client has made an order from your online site, you can start a good relationship with that customer by sending a follow-up email to validate the order and thank the client for patronizing your goods. You can nurture this relationship by regularly sending emails to the customers with personalized offers and updates of the products. You can also encourage them to write reviews on your official website.
· Cost Efficient
It is cheaper to promote and sell products compared to retail stores because you do not have any regular overhead expenses and costs of rentals and maintenance. You do not have to buy stocks for your display but only when a product is in demand. This will keep your inventory expenses low. Primarily, the Internet is a very abundant source of international audience and information is available anytime you want it, as quickly as you want and the cheapest way to promote and sell products and reach out to millions of potential clients.
Importance Of Internet Marketing
It is the aim of every entrepreneur to make their products or services known in the business world to generate good customer leads and sales. It may be hard for online business to be known and recognized as trustworthy and dependable one. Thus, the kind of marketing the entrepreneur utilizes can be a determinant for success or failure of the business.
The following are important factors in Internet marketing:
· Business logo
One effective way to promote your business is through your company name; logo, color patterns, messages and other basic factors that will help your company and make potential customers remember your products or services.
· Strengthening your Accessibility
Internet marketing assures your existing and potential customers that you are accessible and committed to assisting them whenever they have some concerns, inquiries, and even problems regarding your products or services. Blogging and social media are methods that make your customers know that there is “someone” behind the website who will respond to them whenever the need arises.
· Reaching your Target Audience
With the use of effective Internet marketing method, B2B Brands can reach out to a bigger audience or customers even to those who are not used to utilizing online marketing methods. Internet marketing allows a customer to find your company when they try to browse for the products or services they need. It motivates people to make connections with your company through commenting on your blog or via the social media platform(s) that you are using, thus establishing a long lasting connection with your company after their first purchase from your company. This can lead to dedicated and loyal customers who can also promote your products or services to their families and friends.
· Building your Company’s Reputation
There are many online marketing mediums you can use to promote your B2B brand, which allow your company to be known within the online communities, defining the nature of your business, and what your company can offer to customers. Always remember that customers tend to trust your company when you have an active and reliable website with updated posts and other active links to another social media sites.
· Marketing tools are cost-efficient
Using the Internet marketing method can save you a lot of money and time when compared to traditional marketing methods, and it has the ability to reach out to huge targeted audience or market to generate good ROI and consistent customer leads. Take note that bad Internet marketing can be detrimental and the right online marketing that can be effective for your purposes of reaching good customer leads and sales will be your determinant for your success.
II. Planning and Developing your Internet Marketing
This article primarily aims at helping B2B brands who want to be successful in their online ventures by choosing the best marketing tools that fit best their company’s goals. Internet marketing planning should be simple yet it can attract customers and make good sales.
Factors to Consider in Planning your B2B Brand Online
- Website Design
Web designing is considered as the basic skill you must learn to become successful in this online venture. You must learn the languages of HTML and XML and various web design software. This knowledge will help you create a web design to suit your customers’ needs and requirements.
Aside from web design skills, you must learn and be creative with using colors as well as the font types and sizes. From these skills and know-how, you will be able to plan and develop a website that will attract potential customers. For beginners and those who do not know about web designing, it may appear to be a complicated process with plenty of technical terms. Actually, the languages are easy to comprehend and there is available software to help you by providing you with templates. Or better still, if you feel you cannot do it, then you can find some professional web designers to do it for you.
- Web Hosting
After a successful designing of your website, you will need to host it. This is where using the best web host like Hostgator, Bluehost, namecheap,etc. come in.
- Website Development
This is another factor in Internet marketing that you have to produce a material or software to fit the needs of the customers. Web development entails a complex process because it needs to have several inputs. The process includes web content, affiliate marketing, and more.
Product or Service Promotion Methods Online marketing applies methods that include search engine optimization (SEO) and famous sites to boost up its transparency. Promotions are generally placed on websites that have higher visibility and more traffic such as Google and other search engines. It needs basic and easy skills to promote your products or services.
- Product Sales
For any Internet marketing entity, selling product and promoting services are main tasks of any business owner. But even direct selling corporations are now utilizing the Internet to reach out to people and potential customers. They realize that with the internet, they can reach out to more and bigger market with fewer costs. Selling approaches depend on the type of business and generally the customers themselves inspire these methods.
Check out for the soon posted part two of this article.
I hope you benefitted a lot from this article? and I am looking forward to sharing more with you.
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