Internet Marketing: Beginner’s Guide for Business Owners

The internet is a big deal worldwide. In fact, there are over 4.66 billion active internet users, which is more than half of the earth’s population!

Naturally, businesses have latched onto this phenomenon and started to use the Internet as a tool for marketing. Nowadays, you’ll be hard-pressed to find a successful business that doesn’t engage with Internet marketing – they don’t exist!

Generally, internet marketing is low-cost and allows you to reach huge global audiences that you otherwise wouldn’t be able to. Therefore, you should prioritize internet marketing – whether you’re a small or large business owner.

Here are some important beginner tips that will help you to make healthy progress.

Use the Cloud

Before anything else, your business needs to enter the world of the cloud.

Cloud computing is when you use different software and apps exclusively over the internet. This means there’s no hardware involved.

One of the best cloud app applications around is Microsoft 365. It comes with tons of useful tools for businesses, ranging from Microsoft Word to Microsoft Teams. These tools are essential for creating internet marketing content and holding important video conferences.

If you’re totally clueless as to how the cloud works, don’t worry – avepoint.com can help you. No matter how tech-savvy you are, they’ll guide you through how to get the most out of Microsoft 365 and the all-important Microsoft Teams.

Create Social Media Business Accounts

If you think of any major brand in the world – such as Coca-Cola or Apple – they’re all active on social media. Even further down the chain, smaller businesses are reliant on social media. For example, 71% of small to medium-sized businesses now use social media as a marketing tool, highlighting how important it is.

To begin marketing on social media, you will first need to create your accounts. Ideally, you should make accounts on:

• Facebook
• Instagram
• Twitter
• TikTok
• YouTube

This will allow you to expand your reach, connect with different types of consumers, and gain access to different tools (for example, you can sell products through Facebook but not through Twitter).

On these platforms, you should then launch marketing campaigns with the aim to promote your brand and products.

Apple launched the infamous #ShotOniPhone campaign, which is still going strong to this day. This campaign aimed to showcase their new products (such as the #iPhone12Pro) whilst engaging their consumers. If you take a look on Instagram, the hashtag #ShotOniPhone has been used more than 16 million times. People of all ages love to post selfies and impressive visual shots coupled together with this hashtag – making it a genius marketing tactic.

Create an Email List

Believe it or not, email marketing is more powerful than it’s ever been (just check your inbox – it’s probably flooded with emails from companies whose services you’ve subscribed to).

Therefore, as you take your first steps in the world of Internet marketing, you should make it a goal to build an email list. Your email list should consist of customer and client email addresses that you have gathered in an organic way.

Here’s how you can build your email marketing list:

• Opt-in pop-ups on your website (make sure your pop-ups have effective call-to-actions, such as ‘enter your email address to join our subscription service and get 10% off your next purchase!’
• Conduct surveys and giveaways (online) that require an email address to enter
• Collect customer email addresses in-store when they make purchases at the checkout

If you want to take a faster route, you can work with an email marketing company that will help to fast-track your email list.

Once you have an exciting list to work with, you can begin to send out marketing content. Within your emails, you can advertise new products, draw attention to upcoming sales you have, and much more.

Make your Website User-Friendly and Mobile-Friendly

A lot of your internet marketing will be done through your website. This is why it’s important to make your website user-friendly (easy to navigate and accessible) as well as mobile-friendly (a website that can be displayed on mobile devices). If not, you’ll risk losing out on a lot of sales.

Use SEO

Lastly, you should use Search Engine Optimization (SEO) to grow your online presence and boost your website up the search ranking results. The key to effective SEO is posting helpful blogs and guides on your website, including industry terms and attracting headings. SEO can also be increased by targeting the right keywords and by also improving your website.

Some of the best ways to improve the SEO of your website is to ensure that there are no broken links or redirects, that the sitemap is complete and accurate, and that it performs well on all of Google’s Core Web Vitals, which were introduced late in 2021.