Now that you have created a beautiful website with plenty of great content, you need an internet marketing strategy to help you increase website traffic and convert that traffic into sales. Fortunately, the internet provides plenty of opportunities for you to maintain your existing customers, reach out to potential clients and improve conversion rates.
Each year, the Content Marketing Institute looks at online marketing trends in the business-to-consumer and business-to-business sectors, commonly known as B2C and B2B markets. In their 2014 Benchmarks, Budgets and Trends – North America reports for B2C and B2B markets, the Content Marketing Institute shows an unprecedented use of internet marketing. Today, 93 percent of B2B marketers and 90 percent of B2C marketers now use content marketing to reach new customers.
The most successful companies use a number of strategies to reach clients. The most effective B2C marketers use an average of 14 tactics while the best B2B marketers use about 15. Interestingly, Content Marketing Institute listed the same top four online marketing strategies in the same order for both B2B and B2C marketers, which suggests these are the four most important strategies you should use in your online marketing campaign.
These four strategies are:
- Social media other than blogs
- Articles
- eNewsletters
- Blogs
Social media platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram and LinkedIn give marketers multiple opportunities to reach out to prospective clients. One of the greatest benefits of social media marketing is that your clients can share your content and promote your brand.
Posting articles on your website presents your company as an industry leader. Keyword-rich articles also increase pagerank on Google and other search engines. Furthermore, articles give you an opportunity to post Call-to-Action buttons and links to product information on your website.
eNewsletters are a great way to give qualified prospects the updated and relevant information they need to purchase new products from you. While many companies engage in social media marketing, B2C marketers actually feel that newsletters are more effective than social media campaigns.
Keyword-rich blogs are one of the easiest, most effective marketing strategies. The best-in-class B2B marketers rate blogs as the most effective tactic. B2C marketers are beginning to lose interest in blogs but this form of online marketing still manages a strong position in the top four marketing strategies.
Whether you market your company’s products to other businesses or directly to consumers, you can easily integrate these four effective online marketing strategies into your sales plan.