In recent years , the promotion opportunities for SMEs have increased exponentially. There are dozens and dozens of tools available to companies to best develop their web marketing.
But what is meant by web marketing ? What are the features, but above all how should a company approach this world?
Let's find out together in this informative post that first of all wants to clarify what the main tools of corporate web marketing are.
What is web marketing?
Web marketing is a set of tools used with the aim of growing a company's business , selling its products and/or services.
Thanks to web marketing, it is possible to identify where to spend resources and time and which online communication campaigns to focus on.
The importance of web marketing has increased dramatically in recent years, since the internet has fully entered our lives.
With the advent of social networks, evolution has accelerated even more, bringing about a notable change not only in everyday life, but above all for companies and businesses .
Why is digital marketing important for businesses?
Web marketing strategies are important for companies because they are easily measurable in achieving the objectives set and are accessible to every type of company and product .
Furthermore, another positive aspect of web marketing campaigns is that they allow for quick and sudden changes in strategy in the event that the one implemented proves ineffective and inefficient.
However, traditional channels such as promotion and sales activities must also be taken into consideration. However, web marketing can provide the necessary support to make the company competitive again on the market through some tools, now let's see some of them.
The key ingredients of web marketing
SEA (Search Engine Advertising)
The acronym SEA stands for Search Engine Advertising and essentially consists of paid promotion activities through search engines (for example Google) and the advertising tools they offer.
The principle to follow is simple but effective: first of all you need to define a set of relevant words useful for the website to be advertised. By doing so you will be able to know which words users use when they search for products online similar to those of the company.
The next step is to create texts for the ads . Finally, you need to set a price that the company is willing to pay for the user's click (the so-called CPC, cost per click).
SEA campaigns are generally not a surefire success but require multiple tests to create a campaign that has the desired effects.
The advantages offered by SEA are the rapidly visible results and the wide scope of action allowed by search engines.
SEO (Search Engine Optimization)
The acronym SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization and is often considered the most technical part of web marketing.
The goal of SEO is to optimize web pages or entire sites to make them more search engine friendly, giving them a higher position in search results.
There are several important steps when it comes to SEO: the first is undoubtedly to build a website that is SEO friendly , using tools that allow us to know which are the most effective keywords and thus structure the website on them.
The second step consists in creating content that responds to different search intents : by doing so, the appreciated content will also be privileged by search engines.
The third and final step consists of staying constantly updated on changes to Google's algorithm.
Why is it necessary to carry out an SEO campaign ?
Because every day almost 6 billion searches are made on Google (Source: *Statistic Brain). This data gives us an idea of how much the search for information is one of the predominant activities performed by Internet users.
Being at the top of search engines means being in the right place at the right time, that is, right when the user is looking for information about our company or the product/service we offer.
Most users consider sites that are in the top positions on the search engines to be more reliable, thus improving the company image as well as the number of visits to the site.
SMA (Social Media Advertising)
SMA refers to the techniques and strategies of Social Media Advertising. They were born with social networks and represent a type of advertising based on text ads and graphic banners .
This type of service is offered by practically all the most famous social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin and Instagram. It is truly innovative because it allows you to have a high profile of the target users and show the "ads" only to users potentially interested in the company's products and services.
Social media marketing differs from other types of marketing because it allows companies to receive feedback, whether positive or negative, from customers.
This is a very important aspect because it changes the concept of the consumer, no longer seen as a mere passive spectator but as an audience able to give its own response directly to the company.
The inbound method and the sales funnel
Traditional marketing (called outbound) is based on the technique of interrupting the user's activity to make him see the advertisement.
Telemarketing, trade shows, and magazine ads are just a few examples of outbound marketing . The "old school" way of telling people about your business or product is expensive. TV commercials, newspaper ads, and radio spots are expensive. They make sense for advertisers who have a big budget and want to reach as many people as possible. In outbound marketing, success is proportional to the simplicity of the message and its repetition, which leads to a vertical increase in the cost of the advertising campaign.
Inbound marketing : it focuses on creating interesting content that attracts people to visit your social channels or your website. In this way, the customer will look for you and not the other way around.
This process goes through different phases and is represented by a funnel, better known as a sales funnel . This funnel aims to take the visitor from the first step, attention, to the last, action, where the conversion takes place.
Choosing to use inbound marketing or outbound marketing is not possible if you do not first understand 100% of the characteristics of each methodology. In fact, the incorrect use of one of these two approaches leads to frustration, due to the waste of financial resources or the high cost of sales opportunities that we could still generate.
Web marketing strategies not only allow you to find new potential customers but also to continue to offer them, after the sale, valuable and important content, as well as bring a competitive advantage to the company and increase brand awareness.
But to be effective, this strategy must be based on suitable content. But what content are we talking about?
Content creation
In the age of social media, it is essential for a company to publish a series of contents that are valuable and quality . At the base of the creation of this content there must be a marketing strategy that can reduce the workload over time and make the contents more effective.
The mistake that is generally made is to look, when looking at whether the content has been successful or not, therefore at the number of likes and comments.
In reality, even though we are on social networks, we should not structure a campaign on this data: likes and comments can be interesting indicators but they are not the ones that tell us whether the campaign was successful or not.
Instead, we should focus on metrics such as leads and traffic , which are also used in traditional marketing.
Depending on the different social networks we manage and our type of business, the content produced will also change: a tax consultancy firm will not create the same content as an artisanal ice cream shop. The choice must be studied and careful, because publishing the wrong content could lead to a real risk for the company itself.
But why do we have to create special content and not just a simple advertisement? Because people are now affected by such a high amount of advertising that they are no longer impressed by it and it slips away without any effects.
Content marketing has become a cornerstone for companies: data shows that in the US, 88% of business-to-business companies implement content marketing strategies. The reason is easy to understand: because content marketing can be a way to engage your audience more.
The social side
Facebook says that there are on average 1,500 posts that could appear in the feed of a single person. The selection of these, which are divided into two macro-categories, therefore becomes necessary for a correct user experience.
Organic reach is essentially that portion of users who view the content in question based on their passions, without the company having to pay to create (and pay for) an advertising campaign.
With the new Facebook algorithms, the organic reach of a post has dropped further, decreasing by about 20% in just one year*, so it is often necessary, especially to reach new potential interested parties, to resort to paid campaigns.
Paid reach, on the other hand, is the exact opposite. The trend of the last period is not to structure a campaign focused 100% on organic or paid reach, but to create a campaign that combines the two concepts together.
However, there are several strategies that allow the company to have a good organic reach without necessarily paying to have the post seen by more people.
One of these strategies is the creation of a profiled and active fan base , which reflects the company's buyer personas or which in any case comes close to the target audience.
Another strategy is to create more video content: Facebook itself openly declares the effectiveness of these.
However, these strategies change over time, as the world of social networks is constantly changing.
Nowadays, in fact, you can't think of selling online without advertising, but to be successful it is important to have a plan.
*https://www.statisticbrain.com/google-searches/
*https://www.matteopogliani.it/facebook-calo-portata-organica-considerazioni-e-possibili-soluzioni/