Business has come a long way. Today, marketing isn’t bound to brick-and-mortar institutions. It revolves around modern communication, mobile technology and evolving principles. In the online world, it’s all about eMarketing.
Of course, most businesses know this.
What they don’t know is how they can use it to their advantage. The reality is that eMarketing has democratised the market. Now even the smallest businesses can compete with major international brands.
Today, we’re going to look at everything you need to know. Let’s start with the basics.
What is eMarketing Exactly?
The definition of eMarketing hasn’t changed much since it was established. eMarketing is any of the wide-ranging strategies used to offer goods and services online. Often, business operators who embrace digital marketing also leverage eMarketing strategies.
The two are incredibly similar, but eMarketing removes the ‘online’ portion from the mix. It doesn’t require typical online promotions to influence sales, connect with customers and promote products.
eMarketing is more focused on customer relationships. So rather than putting the technology first, it is all about leveraging new technologies to create amazing customer experiences.
The Many Forms of eMarketing
To understand what eMarketing is, one must understand how it’s been responsible for developing new innovations. In modern business, eMarketing is an essential component of the marketing mix.
Modern companies are continuously allocating resources, driving them via eMarketing solutions and directing customers towards new options. Here are some of the most common eMarketing channels.
Email Delivery Services
Email marketing is one of the oldest eMarketing techniques around. Whether clients need updates, product information or service options, email marketing can help.
Email marketing tells buyers about future products, monthly newsletters and connects brands directly with consumers. Today, most people access their email on mobile.
In fact, the following innovations have made mobile-based email marketing more profitable:
- Short-code,
- Digital coupons,
- Website links,
- Location-based services.
Social Media Marketing
Social media marketing, while still growing, has a firm foundation in the eMarketing world. It’s the perfect accessory to any digital marketing campaign, and it’s responsible for a majority of online information retrieval resources.
Today’s online communities are sharing links, promoting brands, watching videos, and engaging the buying world with incredible speed.
Because social media networks, like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram are incredibly large, community managers, advertisers, and business leaders are working hard to offer substantial business opportunities to buyers.
Search Marketing Services
Pay-per-click, or PPC, marketing is one of the fastest avenues to garner sales, increase online visibility and advertise a website. The Internet is where people turn when they need just about anything.
To promote products and services correctly, a business must adopt PPC advertising strategies.
Successful PPC campaigns increase a business’s ROI, and—in some cases—can immediately spike consumer traffic.
Because the end-game of PPC strategies are to drive sales, business operators are crafting sophisticated campaigns centric to targeting conversion as an asset. A lot of PPC activity helps make consumer information transparent.
It reports search metrics back to the business, revealing information about:
- Website clickthrough,
- Page views,
- Shopping cart abandonment rates,
- Customer behaviours and trends.
Affiliate Marketing Programs
Affiliate marketing, meanwhile, helps online businesses grow via a partnership. It’s considered to be one of the online advertising’s ‘purest’ forms. Because it revolves around transactions, affiliate marketing relies on commission-based services.
In other words, with affiliate marketing, you offer to give independent marketers a cut of each sale you make.
As long as this cut doesn’t eat into your profit margin, everybody wins.
Search Engine Optimisation
You’ve probably heard about the importance of organic traffic. Search engine optimization, or SEO, naturally increases a website’s traffic by making sure its sitemaps, content, links and coding are presented in a digestible way.
More importantly, SEO serves businesses by ‘pushing up’ pages throughout different search engines.
This is the cornerstone of any effective eMarketing strategy, as it is the most sustainable and cost-effective way to get traffic to your website in the long term.
Display Marketing
Display marketing has come a long way. Often called CPM advertising, display marketing campaigns increase brand awareness, boost website traffic, increase sales and boost product leads. In the past, display marketing was bound to banner advertisements.
Now, it’s being incorporated into mobile technology, virtual reality apps and augmented reality services.
Display marketing, while more classic than many eMarketing approaches, is still responsible for inventory placement, inventory management, campaign optimization and tracking options.
How Has eMarketing Changed and Evolved?
Of course, like any other form of marketing, eMarketing is constantly changing, to respond to new strategies, consumer behaviour and technology. Here are some of the key ways the eMarketing has pivoted in recent years.
Funnel Marketing
The question, “What is eMarketing?” is changing, itself. In the past, display advertisements were king. Now, lead generation is a go-to strategy for many companies.
Lead generation tools, implemented across company websites, help consumers access mailing lists, read newsletters and redeem coupons. While lead generation is about traffic generation, it’s become the crux of modern digital business.
As more and more companies get better at marketing online, the number of user interactions needed to make a sale has also gone up. This means getting new users into a marketing funnel, rather than trying to make a sale straight away.
Response collection tools, first and foremost, are leading the way. These tools aren’t online polls and feedback forms, either.
They’re digital footprint trackers. It isn’t enough to find out what a customer’s favourite product is. Businesses need to focus on related products, favoured services and effective advertising methods.
Lead magnets are also used to convince potential customers to sign up to your mailing list.
Social Media Content and Cross-Channel Marketing
Above, we discussed the importance of Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram as marketing tools. It’s worth mentioning their ability to promote cross-channel travel. Digital advertising tools, like Facebook Ads and Google Adwords, target specific customer demographics.
For example, if a company utilizes Google AdWords to promote text advertisements, users are likely to encounter these advertisements via their Facebook Newsfeed.
Why? Because social media itself has become a marketing platform.
Today’s companies are promoting via 360-degree media, music video campaigns and YouTube affiliate advertisements. Text, too, is popular. If a business can promote an affiliate’s blog or eZine, they’re headed in the right direction.
To gain customers, you need to understand customer niches. A lot of modern advertisement revolves around inviting buyers to email lists, promoting coupons and utilizing instant access as a door-opener.
The Power of Mobile eMarketing
Because of this immediate access, business providers have turned to smartphones. Today, 55 percent of email is opened via mobile.
Mobile access isn’t simply a marketing amenity. It’s the future of real-time eCommerce, the foundation of modern eMarketing and the future of business innovation.
Today’s industries are flocking to mobile—and it isn’t a surprise. When customers can engage fully, with immediate access and on a rolling basis, the business has incredible visibility.
eMarketing is incredibly durable, too. We’re in the information age, and our access to technology isn’t going anywhere.
Likely, the future will present more opportunities via virtual reality display ads, quick-access mobile deals and highly immersive social media. As the customer’s demand for here-and-now products increases—so, too, does the world of electronic marketing.
If you’d like to learn more about eMarketing, contact ProfileTree today.
