What to Know About Internet Marketing and Brand Awareness

Adaptability constitutes an essential part of owning a business. The ability to embrace and conform to the habits, trends and lifestyle of the 21st century’s second decade is, indeed, a quality that any company should aspire to in order to survive and thrive. Online marketing – or Internet marketing – is undoubtedly a step in the right direction when it comes to reaching the new generations and appealing to them.

Internet use on part of the youth has reached a 99% share in the USA in 2021, but the not-so-young audience is quickly catching up by manifesting its presence more and more in the virtual world, as well. It is only natural that companies would want to gain more visibility and establish a stronger presence on the web: when online marketing is involved, the chances of making a profit can very well skyrocket with considerably reduced expenses, compared to traditional marketing.

A brief explanation of Online Marketing

Now, as the name suggests, Internet marketing is marketing in online form. While traditional marketing uses TV, newspapers, magazines, billboards or flyers for the advertising of products and services, online marketing implements different, digital tactics to achieve that same goal.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Search Engine Marketing (SEM, or Pay-Per-Click), Social Media Marketing, Lead Generation, Email Marketing, Content Marketing are among the main ways in which marketers promote a brand on the web. But before you start investing your time and money in any of these strategies for your business, it is highly recommended that your company has an official website. Nowadays, it is pretty much expected for any brand to own a site, which will make it seem more professional and trustworthy. Also, a business website plays a key role in the marketing aspect.

Once you’ve set up your company’s website, start learning something about the useful online marketing strategies mentioned above to grow your business; you can check out this article for starters, but this one could be of interest, too!

Some of the main Online Marketing strategies

In order to succeed, your business needs a solid Internet marketing campaign. Set realistic goals, start small and don’t blow your budget all at once to purchase a bunch of tools that won’t be of any use. To put it crudely, “throw everything at the wall and see what sticks”. Let’s check out some of the most favoured online marketing strategies:

Search Engine Optimisation

Search engine optimisation – or SEO – is often considered “organic marketing”, meaning that it uses natural processes to promote your website on the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs). SEO ensures that your site is “optimized” from the search engines’ standpoint. A website that complies with SEO rules has better chances of being ranked higher on SERPs. Including certain keywords on a page can help with that, but also making sure that your website is organised in a clear and easy-to-use structure is another important factor.

Search Engine Marketing, or Pay-Per-Click advertising

Services such as Google Ads can help you promote your business through advertisements that appear on search engine results pages. Companies can pay to have their specific text ads appear whenever customers search for a specific term on Google, for instance. PPC advertising has an immediate effect compared to SEO, but it is costlier.

Social Media Marketing

Try spreading your business across the most relevant social media platforms around – Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, etc. – by creating a profile for your brand. A social media business profile will give you the chance of promoting your products and services, interacting with your customers and expanding your domain through posts, shares and much more. Apart from having a business profile, you could also start advertising your company by using paid ads that, when clicked on, redirect the user to your website. And, if you feel like it’s a good investment, reach out to popular influencers and social media personalities in order to start partnerships: this trend proved to be quite profitable for many companies!

Source: Google Ads

Brand Awareness: make your business known to the public

With that said, a good, well-thought-out Internet marketing campaign will surely increase Brand Awareness, something you – as a business owner – should always strive towards. What is brand awareness, exactly? This term refers to the extent to which a certain brand is recognized by its target audience, and to how well said audience remembers it. The more your potential customers are familiar with your brand, the more aware they’ll be of it. Gaining more public awareness in regards to your brand goes hand-in-hand with increasing its visibility, which can be achieved through the implementation of a winning marketing strategy.

When a potential customer – let’s call her Sarah – gets bombarded week by week with social media ads and influencer sponsorships about a given brand, Sarah will register the existence of said brand, and start giving it more attention and thought. The brand’s name will linger in Sarah’s mind throughout the day, and will pop up at the most random times. Eventually, Sarah will give in and purchase from that brand she keeps seeing everywhere, just to find out what the fuss is all about. This is a good practical example of effective Internet marketing that leads to wider brand awareness.