Partner Article

What is online marketing?

It’s online marketing week on Bdaily. Here’s Cat Yaffe shares her thoughts on the evolution of the online marketing space.

Online (or Inbound Marketing) is about attracting your target market to you by making sure you’re on the platforms that your prospects are using to search for their wants and needs. Since 2006 it has been increasingly taking a prominent role in businesses that realise ‘outbound’ methods such as cold calling, direct mail and print advertising were becoming less and less effective.

The decline in print advertising spend has been happening for a number of years, and just recently it was announced by the Daily Mail publishing group that they have seen print ad revenue drop by £5m. Major magazine publishers such as Bauer and Immediate Media have both taken the decision to close publications such as Pregnancy and Birth, Junior and Practical Parenting, whilst favouring the online versions of the magazines. Part of the reason was being down to a drop in circulation as well as advertising revenue decline.

But it’s not just footfall and awareness that has changed. The way a purchasing decision is made has also changed extensively, and that doesn’t just apply to consumer products or services, it affects industries too.

Historically brands could tell their audience how great they were, put together a special offer or promotion then hit the newspapers, magazines, leaflet droppers and expect a response – a return on their investment. Then came the internet…. then intelligent search engines and social media platforms. Suddenly Mr/Mrs Consumer were able to access a whole host of information in a completely different way. They were no longer waiting to be told how great products were, they were jumping online and finding out for themselves. They were asking friends and colleagues, reading reviews and making an informed choice on where and who they spent their hard earned cash with.

So what was the answer? Well, brands started to learn that interruption marketing was no longer working and the way to be remembered was to move to permission based selling i.e. appearing on platforms where the target audience were already looking online such as Facebook, Google, Twitter.

It’s down to the brands to reach out to them, and this can be done in much more creative ways than a simple static message.

Blogging

The increase in the blogging market is huge. Blogging is now considered by some to be a new form of journalism. A good, well run blog can reach more people in one day than in the entire lifetime of a newspaper or printed leaflet. PR agencies often run blogs on behalf of their clients, knowing that a newly published post will be more influential on a purchasing decision than a press release in a newspaper. Then there’s guest blogging, where a hugely successful blogger will allow brands to send them ‘samples’ and they’ll review the product, write the review as a blog post and publish it to their readers, again reaching huge circulation figures.

Social Media

With over 1 billion users, Facebook has changed the way we operate. Their philosophy for being a more open and connected world has become a reality and whether your product is consumer focused or not, having a presence on Facebook is almost certainly a must have. Since being floated on the stock market they have tried their hand at different revenue models – some successful, some not. There’s the impending launch of Graph Search looming too, which allows users to conduct entirely bespoke searches without leaving the Facebook platform and the results from the search engine ‘Bing’ will be delivered back to them. Great if you’re a restaurant, hotel or venue, it could bring you lots of potential new customers and revenue. Not so great if you have a couple of disgruntled diners who left a not so nice post on either their newsfeed or yours – Facebook will deliver these results too.

This puts more pressure on brands to get it right first time, or to invest in paid online advertising!

Twitter is great for driving awareness and building relationships, and though Google+ has been slow to really take off it’s now starting to gain popularity, even if only for the search engine optimisation benefits.

Tripadvisor and Review Sites

These kinds of platforms have propelled in popularity in the last 12 – 18 months. It is estimated that at least 40% of consumers will not book a holiday, eat in a restaurant or visit a place of interest without reading a review first. As this is again consumer driven, it’s important for brands to be aware that this is now a huge part of the decision making process and if they are not online being proactive with engagement, and being genuinely interested in what’s being said about them then they will lose out.

Whilst online marketing is still relatively new, the methods for reaching new, target audiences will be in flux. New platforms, forward thinking developers and the rise of the Y generation taking control will almost certainly lead us to new ways of communicating, and if you’re not actively embracing these changes now you’ll only get left behind.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Cat Yaffe .