The First Steps for Successful Online Marketing

If there were a formula according to which online marketing works, the creative minds of the industry could pack up. But unfortunately — or fortunately, depending on the perspective — this is not the case. Depending on the company and industry, different approaches with different chances of success lead to the goal.

1) Determine the current situation and goals in online marketing

The backbone of any successful online marketing strategy is realistic and achievable goals. These are ideally set up according to the SMART principle.

The defined goals should therefore be Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time-bound.

The overall online marketing goals usually include increasing brand awareness, new customer acquisition, increasing turnover, increasing of access numbers (traffic), customer loyalty, better ranking in search engines, image improvement (branding).

Analyse the current situation of your company to find out which of these marketing goals should be your current priority. Among other things, a situation analysis asks about customers, the competitive environment and the external perception of the company.

2) Create an online marketing concept

With which measures can our goals be achieved?

Of course, budgeting also plays a role here, as does the interaction of the individual measures, because it is not only important to select the individual advertising media, but also to ensure that they complement each other.

3) The online marketing measures

The measures defined in the concept can be of different nature. Some of the most important disciplines that are considered in most online marketing strategies are listed below, but these are by far not all of them:

Social Media Marketing

Social media communication is as diverse as the different areas of application for which this online marketing discipline is suitable. For example, you can use social media to effectively influence the public perception of your company. But the corresponding channels can also be used for customer service, market research, human resources or internal company communication.

Social media does not mean Facebook, Twitter or Instagram. Company blogs, online magazines, webinars, video tutorials or podcasts are all equally part of the social network and ensure interaction between companies and (potential) customers.

Content Marketing

Content marketing is gaining in importance and will have a decisive influence on the future of marketing. The aim of this discipline is to create relevant and valuable content instead of sending flat advertising messages.

The character of this type of marketing is primarily aimed at delivering advisory, entertaining or informative content to the target group. This can be done, for example, through advice pages, encyclopedias, blogs, studies, e-books, newsletters or other formats.

E-mail Marketing

E-mail marketing as a form of direct marketing serves to expand and strengthen existing customer contacts by sending e-mails. Within this form of online marketing, a further distinction is made between two forms. With “one-to-one” communication, an e-mail is sent individually, while with “one-to-many” communication, the same message is sent simultaneously to several recipients (e.g. from a subscription list).

Search Engine Marketing

The also SEM (Search Engine Marketing) called subarea of online marketing includes measures that aim to attract visitors to a web presence.

In connection with search engine marketing, the term SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is often used. It refers to organic search engine optimization, i.e. measures that lead to a website being better rated by search engines and placed higher in the SERPs. Decisive factors for this include the use of keywords and a structured page layout.

Advertising Banner

To online marketing belong also the advertising banners — they can be extremely effective if they are played out on the right pages and have a creative and concise message.

Who would like to advertise with banners, however, must consider still another further aspect: Part of the advertising measure is also to set up a well thought-out landing page. It is the page on which users land after clicking on the banner. The quality of the landing page determines whether the advertising campaign actually leads to a purchase (or to the defined target).