Five years ago, it was common to hear the following response from business owners when asked if they considered investing in online marketing:

“Online marketing? My customers know how to find me, I don’t need to invest in online advertising”.

Nowadays, you’ll be lucky to hear any executive or marketing professional state that they do not need online marketing. In fact, many business owners are jumping into online advertising before doing the requisite market research to understand how their consumers search for products and services on the web. Reaching your audience in a continuously evolving digital age is essential, and without leveraging the right channels, your marketing messages will fall to the wayside and not help you achieve your goals.

Determining which channels should garner attention can be difficult; in fact, I’d say that a lot of mistakes both SMBs and large corporations make when it comes to online advertising is investing in too few or too many online marketing channels without understanding where they can engage with their targeted audiences. Recently I was asked to prepare a presentation based on educating university students on the basics of online marketing and provide pertinent information on search engine optimization, social media, and paid advertising. I developed the guide below as an introduction into the different types of online marketing, exhibiting how certain channels complement each other (social media and email marketing for audience development, for example) and how to determine where to allocate marketing budgets for promotional activities. Included in the presentation are the main statistics and benefits of the following channels:

1. Search Engine Optimization
2. Search Engine Marketing (also known as PPC or search advertising)
3. Display Advertising
4. Social Media Marketing
5. Influencer Marketing
6. Content Marketing
7. Email Marketing
8. Mobile Advertising

More than ever, it’s becoming imperative for businesses to invest in online marketing, especially with mobile platforms becoming more popular for search, advertising, and social media engagement. Partnering with the right agency that understands the latest trends in online marketing and how to develop a mobile presence could mean the difference between an ROI of 5% and 500%.

Online Marketing 101: How to Grow Your Audience in a Digital Age from Jonathan Berthold