As an entrepreneur, you need to have some working knowledge of marketing. Fortunately, the most successful form of marketing is digital marketing— marketing done online— and it allows you to reach more people and spend less money than you would with traditional forms of marketing, such as newspaper ads, billboards, and commercials.
However, to be successful at digital marketing, you must have a strong online presence for your business. This means that you must have a business website, first and foremost, and you should also have a presence on social media. Once you have your online presence set up, you can begin using these four marketing strategies.
#1: Affiliate and Referral Marketing
These digital marketing strategies allow your customers to take part in your business— and they get paid to do it! Many small businesses start referral programs that allow their most loyal customers to promote their products to their family and friends. Referral and affiliate marketing are two terms that are often used interchangeably, basically meaning that a person promotes your products and when they get other people to purchase your products through their personalized link (affiliate link), they earn a small commission.
Affiliate marketing is most often associated with influencers with a large following on social media, but it can also refer to your customers with a modest following. Of course, influencers with a larger following will create more brand awareness (and possibly more sales), but it’s also more likely that their commission will be a higher percentage, or that you will pay them a larger amount upfront.
#2: Content Marketing
This method of marketing uses meaningful content to create brand awareness and drive traffic to your website. Content can be in the form of photos, videos, blog posts, and any other type of content that you can send in emails and post on social media.
Email Marketing
Email marketing allows you to communicate with your customers, and you can do this by sending them meaningful content. Meaningful content for emails includes information about upcoming products, promotions, and other informative news for your customers.
Social Media Marketing
The majority of the content you create for marketing is probably going to be posted to your social media pages, and this is known as social media marketing. Most social media platforms allow you to create a business page for this purpose, also giving you tools and tips to help make your marketing more effective. The top social media platforms are:
- Snapchat
#3: PPC and SEO Marketing
These two digital marketing strategies use techniques to get your business website to rank higher on search engines.
PPC (Pay Per Click)
PPC marketing allows you to have your ad posted on a publisher’s website, and then you pay the publisher each time your ad is clicked. Google Ads is the most common type of PPC, where you pay for the top slots on the search engine. However, Google isn’t the only site that allows paid ads— so does Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
SEO (Search Engine Optimization)
SEO marketing is limited to search engines, but it’s one of the most effective forms of digital marketing. SEO uses keywords on your website to get it to rank higher on search engines like Google.
#4: Recruitment Marketing
Recruitment marketing is a type of marketing strategy that doesn’t target consumers but targets job seekers instead. You market towards consumers to create brand awareness and drive sales, and you use recruitment marketing to market towards job seekers to recruit the most qualified individuals to apply to work for you.
Recruitment marketing strategies create a brand identity for your business that appeals to job seekers. This is different from the brand identity that appeals to consumers because you’re not trying to sell your products to job seekers— you’re trying to sell your work culture and values as they relate to a workplace.
Recruitment marketing also uses digital marketing strategies, such as PPC and social media marketing. Digital marketing allows you to reach the biggest consumer audience, and also the biggest (and most talented) audience of job seekers.
As an entrepreneur, you should at least have a working knowledge of these four marketing strategies. However, for more success, it’s best to hire an expert who’s knowledgeable in each of these fields. Hire a digital marketing agency or expert who’s knowledgeable in many forms of digital marketing, and also hire a recruitment marketing agency to help you attract the best talent for your business.