To get ahead in today’s internet-based world new marketing strategies are needed.
Companies need to focus on using websites and search engines to market themselves.
Gone are the days when all you needed was a listing in the Yellow Pages, a few flyers and a couple of ads in a newspaper or a magazine.
The world uses the Internet for everything and you should be there to capture its attention.

Your clients, or potential clients, are increasingly media and technology-driven. They are used to having any information they want at their fingertips. They demand instant results and instant access to information and they use search engines to find what they are looking for. This is relevant to you, since this is where Online Marketing plays a part.

But what is Online Marketing? 
Simply put, when you engage in Online Marketing, you are using the internet to advertise and to generate a response from your target market. At no other time have you had the potential to expose yourself and your company to such a wide audience. World-wide exposure was something that only multi-national corporations could afford.

Online Marketing involves using paid for listings, your own website and social media to promote your brand or company. Online Marketing is also called e-marketing and should not be confused with e-commerce. E-commerce involves using your website to complete any form of online transaction.

Online Marketing is a good way to effectively target your market. The most popular platform for Online Marketing is search engine marketing (SEM). Search engine marketing involves using paid for advertising on a search engine to target specific keywords. Your ad will only appear when a user types in a specific keyword into a search bar, thus turning them into a potential client. 

In terms of search engine marketing, the biggest and most popular platform available is Google’s AdWords. This offers a user friendly way in which to target your potential clients since Google is the world’s largest search engine. Online Marketing offers multiple channels through which you can interact with your existing and potential clients. 

You can use plain text ads or even get a little creative and use animations, videos and images to create your perfect and striking online advertisement. The only requirement is that you have a website for your company.

With the rise of social media, your company now has even more chance of exposure. By creating a Facebook, Twitter or even a Google + account for your company, you now give people another channel to use to communicate with you. Since most people spend more time on the internet than they do on the phone, using a social network to promote yourself makes sense. It is easier, in the fast-paced world we live in, for someone to write on your wall or tweet at you than it is to pick up the phone and call for information.

But what do you get out of Online Marketing? 

Here are some benefits of Online Marketing to consider:

The benefits to your customers include convenience and instant access.
As has been mentioned before, many of your customers and potential customers just don’t have the time to come to your company and look around.
They need to be able to place an order or get information whenever they have the time, very often after normal business hours.
To combat this, you could stay open later.
Or, you could invest in Online Marketing and watch your business grow.

The benefits for you are numerous.
You can decrease your advertising costs while increasing your ad reach.
Your return on investment is exponentially better than that of your print or television marketing.
With Online Marketing, you have the potential to see almost immediate results which makes you feel like all your hard work has paid off.

Another benefit is that you can track statistics and user trends in real time, thereby allowing you to adjust your marketing strategy according to the statistics you can see. With Online Marketing, you can ensure that your ad is seen by people who are specifically looking for your products or services and that makes market targeting easier. Your ad time is hardly ever wasted and you very rarely have ‘false positives’.

From a time saving point of view, Online Marketing is extremely beneficial. The time saving benefits are even more apparent if you hire a professional company to run your marketing campaign for you. All you have to do is sit back and enjoy the benefits.

The most important benefit of Online Marketing is that you can prospectively out-perform your competition. By knowing that your biggest market competitor is not using an online platform, you can out-sell and out-perform them to your benefit. Online Marketing also gives you the opportunity to compete with big names in your field more efficiently and cost-effectively.

The question you have to ask yourself is why are you not using the internet to market your business?