The world of online marketing is dynamic and challenging. It can also be curiously satisfying with the right knowledge, application and results. Those new to the ever-changing field of online marketing, need knowledge about it for simple and basic promotional tasks. Basic  idea about the subject also helps in formulating a framework that you can use to transform your marketing knowledge with the changing needs of your business and the internet.

Make a Strategy

It is easy to get swayed by tons of options at your disposal when you are a newbie in the online marketing scenario. It is a good point to remember when you become a seasoned marketer from your humble marketing beginnings.

Begin by identifying the needs of your business. Understand your target customers, their age groups, demographics and preferences. Customers for consumer brands (families, seniors, youth, teens, middle-aged men/women and so on) will be markedly different from B2B businesses (CEOs, managers and other businesses). You can see from the different customer bases that you can’t have an online marketing campaign that is one-size-fits-all kind of a strategy. You want your online marketing to provide you solid return of investment (ROI) and it will happen as you build your brand and register sales.

Acquiring Traffic

The sole purpose of your online marketing strategy is increasing your brand’s visibility, which in turn will drive your sales. Traffic acquisition is a process best achieved through both free and paid traffic drivers. As a beginner online marketer, learn about the tools to drive relevant traffic to your site.

• Search Engine Optimization (SEO): Learn about SEO and how you can use it to build your company’s visibility in various search engines. You don’t have to do it all by yourself as you can hire experts to launch a good SEO campaign for your business. However, the basic knowledge will help you understand the concept and how effective your SEO is proving for your brand. Have relevant content on your website that links with the keywords so that your visitors leave your site with a favorable impression of your brand and decide to come back for more.
• Content: Blogging is a great marketing strategy that helps build brands and you can do so by offering useful information to your existing and potential customers. Videos can be used for product launches and discount offers. You can write guest posts on popular blogs with a link to your website. The good thing about content marketing is that you can create it to tell whatever story you want to tell your customers. So why not use it build genuine relationship with your customers to keep them coming back to you. Content doesn’t have to be only informational blogs. You can offer your prospects educational content through videos or online classes. Build them around your products or services or make them relatable in some way. The idea is to offer value to your customers, but in a way that helps your business too. Every marketing technique you use should translate into leads or sales or increase your brand value. If it does not, the strategy may be calling for tweaks or even major changes.
• Social media: Use various social media tools to enhance your brand’s presence on the internet. Use platforms relevant to your business and rely on them to share information related to your products or services like new launches, discounts, tips and resources, with your customers. Social media is also a great way to learn about your customers’ expectation from your business, what they are looking for and use the information to expand your business and its reach.
• Email lists: Having an email list helps as you can use it to connect to your customers with offers and free trials. Use interesting email templates with short and succinct messages and include a call to action that asks your customers to visit your website.
• Paid advertising: Take into account paid distribution methods such as banner advertisements on websites, marketing campaigns on search engines and creative content. Pay-per-click (PPC) is quite common for businesses for traffic acquisition.

Conversion Optimization

All beginner marketers need to understand the concept of conversion optimization and ways to do it right. It is a way to retain your traffic. Just bringing traffic to your website won’t help you if it doesn’t translate into new sales. There are few steps you can take to maximize sales.

• Make your website visually-appealing.
• Keep the navigation simple and avoid use of graphics that can bog it down.
• Schedule regular updates so that your website doesn’t look outdated.
• Use content to your advantage. Focus on quality over quantity.
• Create a home page that is inviting and encourages visitors to explore your site further.
• Utilize A/B testing and analytics to know the effectiveness of your conversion optimization. A/B testing is checking two web pages with different designs to see which one is producing better results for conversation rates. Analytics is about using data to analyze what’s working and what is not.

Gathering Knowledge

For beginners it is important to gather information on topics related to online marketing. Even if you hire professionals to manage your company’s online marketing, it helps to know about internet marketing tools and processes and how to best utilize them to build your business. Keep your learning curve constant to become an astute online marketer. Read expert blogs related to marketing, research your competition and how they are using online marketing tools for their branding, apart from going through industry news and other relevant information on the internet.

As a beginner marketer, it is best to take it slow and focus on each area of online marketing before learning about another process. Over a period of time you will have identified the best resources for your business on the web and how to utilize them for your learning. Not all online marketing tools are for all businesses. As you gather knowledge on each process, you can best know what works for your business. The key is to take it slow and keep at it.