If you’re a business owner wondering whether to invest in online marketing for your business, you’ve come to the right place. The answer is yes, but how do you know we’re not just saying that because we’re an online marketing business? Well, we’ve seen the benefits of online marketing from our own experiences, but we’ve also collected some data from our platform metrics to show you how our customers benefit from it. Read on to understand the benefits of online marketing for your business, the evidence that supports it, and tips for reaping those benefits.
To get started with online marketing for your business, try one of the free templates from Six Sample Marketing Plans (free download).
General Benefits of Online Marketing
Connect with Customers
Online marketing equips businesses with automatic, real-time, and highly efficient ways to connect with the people most likely to become customers.
Save Time
With online marketing platforms, you can collect data to measure your performance and optimize your campaigns. You can spend time on what’s working and spare yourself from what’s not.
Scale Up
Numbers don’t lie. Once you know what works, you can build on and expand on your most successful strategies, amplifying your success.
Systematize
Online marketing consists of many different channels, but because they’re all online, they can be integrated with one another to form a system for your business that self-perpetuates.
Market All the Time
With online channels, your business can be marketing itself even while you’re sleeping. With mobile devices, customers can find and interact with your business wherever they are, whenever.
Benefits of Specific Online Marketing Channels
Benefits of Blogging
Blogging started off as a web log—a personal platform or digital diary. Individuals and influencers still use blogging in this manner today, but businesses also now use them for online marketing. A blog serves as a home for all of the information and expertise you have to offer your audience, which:
- Frees your main website pages from being too superfluous
- Demonstrates expertise in your field
- Builds trust with your audience and customers
- Helps your website to get found by online users searching for information related to your business.
The Evidence
ThriveHive users who blog get 73% more website visitors per day than users who do not.
How to Get Started
For help incorporating blogging into your online marketing strategy, check out these posts:
- Why Your Business Needs a Blog
- 10 Tips for Starting a Successful Blog for Your Business
- How to Write Your First Blog Post
- Business Blogging 101 (free eBook)
Benefits of Social Media
Social media is a popular online marketing channel due to its cost (free), convenience (easy to use), and versatility (supports text, images, videos, and more). Not only is social media relatively hassle-free, but it also brings immense benefits to your business. With social media you can:
- Build your brand identity and reputation
- Improve your prospect and customer relationships
- Increase the visibility of your website pages and blog posts
- Expand your reach to a relevant audience
The Evidence
ThriveHive users who post to social media get 56% more website visitors per day than users who do not.
How to Get Started
For help getting started with social media for your business, check out these posts:
• How to Create and Carry Out an Effective Social Media Marketing Plan
• Social Media Posting Guide
• Social Media Pocket Guide (free download)
Benefits of Email
Email is another online marketing channel that might feel a bit outdated. However, just because it’s been around for a while doesn’t mean it’s ineffective. In fact, email is the most effective online marketing channel today. Through email marketing, you can:
- Nurture leads according to their stage in your funnel
- Get more in-store visitors by promoting coupons and sales
- Drive traffic to your website
- Promote your content
The Evidence
ThriveHive users who use email marketing get 33% more website visitors per day than users who do not.
How to Get Started
Are you looking to get started with email marketing for your business? Start with these posts:
- Email Marketing Best Practices
- What Makes a Good Marketing Email
- How to Create an Email Newsletter
- Email Marketing for Business Owners (free eBook)
Email accounts for the smallest percent increase in website traffic compared to blogging and social media, but this does not mean it is a less effective marketing channel. This information means that email marketing does work to drive traffic to your website, but improves that traffic less so than does blogging and social media.
How to Amplify the Benefits of Online Marketing
Coaching
Getting professional guidance—such as through a consultant, an agency, or other marketing service—helps to increase the impact of each online marketing channel for your business. In our case, coaching is an added feature of our Guided Marketing Platform. Coaching helps our customers to improve the success of their digital marketing efforts because they:
- Are experienced in helping countless business owners and provide one-on-one, individualized guidance.
- Spare you from time wasted by trial and error, as they’ve already learned a lot of the dos and dont’s
- Make sense of your data so that you can compound your success
- Help you integrate your online marketing channels to work together
- Educate and equip you so you can continue to grow your business
The Evidence
ThriveHive users who use coaching get 67% more website visitors per day than users who do not.
How to Get Started
If you’re looking to get set up with a ThriveHive Marketing Coach, click here.
Combine Blogging with Other Activities
The Evidence
For our customers who combine blogging with email, social media, and coaching, this is what we see:
- Those who use both blog and email get 132% more website visitors per day than those who do not.
- Those who both blog and post to social media get 171% more website visitors per day than those who do not.
- Those who use both blog and receive coaching get 191% more website visitors per day than those who do not
How to Get Started
There are many ways to combine blogging with other online marketing channels. For example:
- Promote your blog posts through social media posts and marketing emails.
- Turn your blog posts into eBooks that website visitors can download in exchange for providing their email address.
- Print out blog posts into physical guides you can hand out at events.
- Insert calls to action or even contact forms in your top performing blog posts.
- Start a blog subscriber list so readers can receive new posts in their inboxes.
Combine Social Media with Other Activities
The Evidence
Among our Guided Marketing Platform users:
- Those who use both social media and email get 111% more website visitors per day than those who do not.
- Those who use both social media and coaching get 165% more website visitors per day than those who do not.
- Those who use both social media and blogging get 171% more website visitors per day than those who do not.
How to get Started
Social media’s aforementioned versatility makes it an easy online marketing channel to integrate with others. Here are some ways to do this:
- Print out fan posts to hang on a fan wall in your physical location.
- Promote your social media accounts in your marketing emails and on your website.
- Include screenshots of posts from events in your email newsletters.
The data out there and the data we’ve found here is more than enough to suggest that not only does online marketing work, but also that combining online marketing channels amplifies their benefits to your business. There are many other forms of online marketing, such as review sites and directories, search engines, landing pages, and more, but if you’re just looking to get started, do so with a website, blog, social media, and email.
One last note: This doesn’t mean that print, direct mail, and other traditional forms of marketing are obsolete. Online marketing has its own set of channels but can (and should) be used to supplement and optimize offline channels.
For more guidance around your small business marketing, try one of the plans from our free templates:
