Internet marketing and advertising for your business 

Internet marketing and advertising options are endless today, and new channels are constantly being created. Choosing the most effective internet marketing channels is very difficult for a digital agency when both “traditional” and “new” channels are available.

“Digital marketing” experts often go quite deep into digital marketing terminology in their sales pitches and use many acronyms. Much of this jargon can be “meaningless” to the business decision-maker and can lead to alienation from the real potential of digital marketing. 

Through my blog, I will explain digital marketing in simple terms so that companies can make better decisions about their internet marketing investments.

I will also explore the different marketing options and help entrepreneurs choose the most appropriate channels for their business’s digital marketing.

Marketing history and previous marketing options and channels

First of all, a bit of marketing “history” - which in this case is only about a decade ago, when there were far fewer digital channels to choose from and consumers and b2b decision-makers had not yet adopted social media channels. It was much easier to select the most appropriate marketing channels for a company to support sales with marketing efforts.

In the past, a company’s marketing consisted of one or more of the following:

• Print advertising (magazines, direct mail, letters, etc.)
• Trade fairs and other events
• TV advertising in the form of programs or commercials (everyone may remember Remontti-Reiska as a good example)
• Boos and direct calls
• Face-to-face sales, for example, in shopping malls.

However, the last decade has seen a proliferation of new digital alternatives to “traditional marketing.” Customers have adopted new devices and digital channels, and you are reading this on your computer, mobile phone, or tablet. However, I’m unsure whether you are reading this on our website, Facebook, LinkedIn, or anywhere else it is featured. So the terminals and the channels are more diverse than they were a decade ago.

Business marketing and investments in “traditional advertising.”

In the past, investments in trade fairs, for example, had to be planned much earlier because the preparation for the trade fair took a lot of time, and the investment also usually moved in the tens of thousands. 

Investors could not accurately measure the input from the fair. Investments had to be made front-loaded, and a significant part of the company’s budget allocated to marketing had to be tied to this effort. Investors and businesses only hoped that the fair would increase sales or awareness or that potential customers would come and say hello to the stand.

Modern business marketing

Traditional corporate marketing is increasingly being replaced by electronic advertising. Using digital marketing tools, we can choose our inputs every month and no longer have to commit the majority of our marketing budget to a single event. 

A company can now start marketing without a significant investment the moment they want, regardless of whether a print publication or fair is due.

This means that the amount of capital invested in marketing is up to the entrepreneur, and marketing can start immediately when it is deemed necessary. Businesses can market their products relatively cheaply, and they don’t have to spend thousands per stand, let alone on other associated costs. 

The corona pandemic, for example, has caused severe sales and production problems for many companies. Although electronic marketing cannot solve everything, it can drive potential customers to a website when a company decides to market online.

In summary, the investment in Internet marketing is often smaller and more manageable than in “traditional marketing.”

What are the options for internet marketing?

The number of options is constantly increasing, and it is tough for a company to choose the right ones to benefit from new internet marketing channels.

These channels include:

• Google advertising
• Social media advertising (Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, etc.)
• Banner advertising
• Other channels (email advertising, SMS campaigns, app ads on mobile phones, etc.)
• Content production (blogs, videos, etc.)
• Websites (different types of optimization and content production for websites)

Test the most popular ones to see if they are profitable for your business. The most popular are Google advertising and social advertising. Thirdly, I would perhaps mention display advertising to customers who have already visited your website.

Which channels should you choose to market your business?

Choosing the right channel for your company’s online advertising is a broader topic to cover, but I will try to give you some principles on online advertising.

Google advertising allows you to reach people who are already searching for your company’s products or services in your industry in general. The customers in this channel are already in need and are actively seeking your services. 

Before Google, the selection of a service provider was made through yellow pages and your own networks, or through industry trade fairs, for example, which still play an important role in marketing your business (but perhaps I would no longer recommend looking for information on yellow pages).

You can reach your customers even if they are not yet looking for your services with social media advertising. In Somes, you can search only by company name, such as “Kubla,” or by person, such as “Kalle Santalahti.” Thus, once you have decided on your customer segment, you can start advertising immediately, for instance on Facebook or LinkedIn, so that you can reach your customers within a few months.

Where to start with digital marketing?

It’s easiest to start marketing your business on the world’s largest search engine, Google, or on the world’s largest social media channels, such as Facebook or LinkedIn because your customers are already on these channels. 

If you have any questions about other options for online advertising, please contact us. We will be happy to tell you about other options if you are interested (for example, email marketing, search engine optimization of your website, or even video production). 

Content creation has always been vital, and it was developed for every offer your company made, for example, long before electronic channels became a popular way to advertise. So the new marketing alternatives do not necessarily require more active content production, but the medium has changed from paper brochures to internet marketing. 

Content for your business has always been important and will continue to be so. However, content production is not the first thing to consider when starting internet marketing. I recommend paying attention to the choice of channel and possibly the choice of partner. Partner with a company that already has enough content.

How should you launch your marketing campaign? Develop a website, or wonder if the right potential customers will come there?

When it comes to sales and marketing, it’s good to remember the order of importance. 

Suppose you already have a business website, then:

1. The first step is to reach potential customers to make offers and receive orders.
2. Secondly, we need to reach out to enough of these potential customers because it is difficult to get three orders if we only meet once each week.
3. After that, it is important to think about the website and the advertising message. However, the message and the website will not matter if we do not reach potential customers often enough, right?

Of course, the company’s website plays an important role, but it is easier to develop it based on the results obtained. Most of the time, an organization’s marketing plan begins with contacting potential customers via the internet. If your business website is only visited by a few customers a week, you cannot get too many orders. 

Once you know that your marketing reaches “enough” customers, you should also consider developing your website. Moreover, you should consider where your customers are redirected from your website through your advertising and what types of content they are looking for on your business website. 

Once you know that your website is attracting the right potential customers, it’s time to think about how to encourage them to contact you.

There are several ways to direct potential customers to your company website. One of the most important indicators of your site’s effectiveness is a metric that shows how quickly potential customers leave your site. However, it is difficult to draw reliable conclusions from these metrics if your site does not yet receive several hundred visitors a week. 

Fortunately, this can be fixed quickly, for example, by advertising your business on Google. As I mentioned earlier in my article, Google is a search engine that people use to find the information they need, and your customers are also looking for information there at the moment. 

You can also use social media advertising to direct potential customers to your website very quickly. This will again give you more insight into the development of your website and what content on your company’s website is of interest to your potential customers.

Make it easy for people to contact you!

It’s a good idea to provide your clients with several channels to contact you. The most common ways to contact are phone calls, sending an email, and sending a contact form. All of these can be measured very accurately. 

Using Google Analytics you can even view the number of contacts you get on a daily basis. In addition, you can see which internet advertising channels are bringing in the contacts. 

You can know which customers are most likely to contact you as a result of Google advertising, Facebook advertising, or LinkedIn advertising, or even without any paid advertising from Google. 

If customers are coming to your website without paid advertising from Google, then your business is already in an excellent starting position. Today, you can easily check this in Google Analytics.

Calculate your monthly marketing budget, then start testing and measuring.

Marketers often make one-time marketing investments in their businesses, adjusting their marketing budgets as needed. If you wish to do internet advertising for your company, I recommend planning ahead for six months, or at least four months. 

As long as you track results continuously and go through accurate internet marketing reports on a monthly basis, you will find the most appropriate internet marketing tools for your business.

Because of the reasons listed above, it is vital first to attract a large number of potential customers to your business website before evaluating the effectiveness of your marketing efforts online. 

For example, the results of advertising on Google can be measured and optimized based on weekly results. However, a month’s, or even two months, results will not provide the advertiser with enough statistical information to identify the main points to correct, whether your company does its own internet advertising or chooses to outsource it.

Outsourcing your company’s marketing

Outsourcing different aspects of your marketing is an effective solution when the various marketing activities are a headache, and your company does not have the resources and skills to handle them. Moreover, you will not get the full benefit of marketing if you are unfamiliar with the various marketing tools or if you do not use them at all. Read our blog to learn more about outsourcing your business marketing.

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