What is online marketing?

Online marketing, also defined as web marketing, is a market strategy applied to the world of the web with the goal of attracting visitors interested in one's products or services visible online. It includes social media, search engines, blogging, videos, and email. Its activities start from creating a web project for the development of a website, then continuing its promotion through various channels.

Web marketing integrates through the activities of:

• Web marketing management: an organizational discipline that focuses on the practical application of marketing, that is the techniques and methods within companies for managing resources and marketing activities.
• Web marketing strategic: a process through which a company determines the most suitable competitive strategy to achieve its medium-long term objectives.

 Why is online marketing so important?

Because web marketing is not an expense for its own sake, but rather an investment in order to increase visibility, contacts, and sales, always keeping an eye on your market statistics.

Its benefits include:

• Reduced costs: using the internet to connect with your target customers is less expensive compared to promotion through traditional media such as TV, radio, print.
• Multiple options: advertising tools are varied and offer a wide selection.
• Marketing 24/7: with web marketing, your advertising campaign can operate 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and advertisers don't have to worry about opening and closing times or paying overtime to their staff.
• Reaching customers is simple and fast: consumers can access products and services without any expense. This eliminates the costs associated with travel for purchases, and allows users to make a purchase from the comfort of their own home.
• Market targeting: with the help of online marketing, it is possible to direct ads based on the target audience you want to hit, thereby easily creating an advertising campaign.
• Customer data collection and personalization: compared to the normal market, web marketing makes it easier when it comes to collecting customer data based on their needs, by saving the pages visited by customers or through surveys, getting straight to the point of advertising without being disturbed by other types of ads.

 How to do online marketing?

Doing online marketing means taking care of different aspects of communication on the internet.

To start doing Web Marketing, the first thing you need is a platform where you can insert the marketing materials you are going to create.

The main platforms are:

• Facebook;
• Website;
• Blog;
• Youtube;
• Autoresponder.

Depending on the strategy you want to adopt, you can choose from the different platforms I have just listed.

After that, you can create a blog with which to write marketing articles by starting to write advertising articles that are of interest to the target audience you want to hit.

With a blog, you can "train" yourself in writing copy.

To be truly effective, a website needs to combine an appealing look with a solid business model that can include the following options:

• selling physical or digital products on the site;
• generation of income through advertising revenue;
• increase in sales for a brick-and-mortar store;
• offering a paid section reserved for subscribers;
• sale of affiliate products.

Once your own website is created, it's necessary to define the marketing strategy which is very important for the successful sale of the product:

• In communication, it will be important to highlight aspects that the target audience is most sensitive to and to evaluate channels based on specific criteria;
• Targeted information campaigns, that make clear the qualitative difference of the product compared to the average ones usually available in large distribution centers;
• Educational activities, such as recipe books, guides;
• Offering the possibility to subscribe to an informative newsletter;
• Integrate online and offline;

It is important to also take targeted courses to develop the autonomy of marketing strategies.

Lastly, the core of web marketing is the customer; everything revolves around their needs, their hobbies. If you manage to hit the right target, you can run a successful advertising campaign.