As the ways in which online marketers advertise products and services continue to diversify, we thought we’d take a step back and consider some of the early methods of online marketing that have stood the test of time and still draw results. Check out our list below for some inspiration of your own.
Get Blogging
Although arguably its heyday has passed, for those canny enough to incorporate blogging and paid bloggers into their marketing strategies, it can still make a big difference at little to no cost. No matter the size of your operation or the product you’re selling, you can find a blog – or better yet, write one – that will serve your marketing needs. Blogging is especially good for increasing your customer base and increasing your product’s search engine visibility.
Whether or not your blog is incorporated as part of your company’s website or a selected partner’s website, the best blogs are updated regularly (at best, daily), specialized, and replete with a good range of relevant keywords. Of course, the content published on the website should be interesting and engaging for your desired readers and ultimately prompt them towards purchasing your product.
Placements With Ezines & Articles
Closely connected to blogging, ezines and paid-for articles are excellent form of online marketing that’s often forgotten or ill-used. As with blogs, quality content is key and will help your product or brand name stand out amidst the crowd of competitors. Ezines and paid-for blogs often have an existing dedicated readership and a specialism, so be sure to make your article appropriate for a given audience. There are few things worse than submitting content to a site where it really doesn’t belong. You can find plenty of ezines and bloggers out there advertising their websites for partnerships and tie-ins. Oftentimes, the best idea is to contract them directly
Email Newsletters
Email newsletters might sound like a dated idea, but in practice they’re still an effective means of both reaching out to and retaining customers. As with plenty of online marketing techniques, the form itself isn’t necessarily outdated, but rather the manner of execution. Too often you’ll see email newsletters that don’t directly address the needs of a potential customer or contain content that’s liable to make them click. This is no fault of the form, but rather a lack of ingenuity on the part of most marketers. Today, it’s never been easier to set up your own campaign, with or without the help of an external agency. Successful, well-designed newsletter campaigns can still make a considerable impact on any online business and, given that newsletters are neither time nor cost intensive, you can see great returns for little effort.
Keep Using Social Media
Social media marketing is arguably now longer in its infancy and much has changed since the early days of Facebook and Twitter. However, many of the original techniques that made social media so revolutionary for markets haven’t changed in their fundamentals, if anything they’ve just gotten bigger and better. Just as with niche websites, leveraging online word of mouth via social media can be an incredibly effective marketing strategy. Put simply, your aim should be to build up a healthy fan following on Facebook and utilise this following to increase your revenue. Despite the naysayers, any business worth its salt has and should have a Facebook page and oftentimes it pays to have a Twitter profile too, so if you’re just starting out make sure that you’ve got your social media covered.
Find a Niche
This is perhaps less of a method, than a technique, but bear with us. Keywords and target audiences are still crucial for finding customers and a buying public. If you can find a niche website or blog with a large following, you can still profit considerably from an endorsement or partnership for your product. Of course, it pays to check out any potential partner beforehand, especially if you want to work with them for their traffic, so always take a look at their google rankings, visitor rate, and backlinks – all of which should be publicly available. If you’re satisfied with what you see, why not reach out and arrange a sponsorship deal of some sort? Publicising your product on a niche website is an old school technique that still brings results today.
