Online Marketing Strategies (Essay Sample)

Online Marketing Strategies
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Introduction
The current market environment is very competitive and faces enormous economic challenges owing to the existing global economic recession. To that effect, most organizations have developed viable interventions to curb this existing menace by effectively adopting online marketing interventions. Basically, online marketing is a form of advertising that makes use of the internet to convey promotional marketing messages to customers. These strategies include; Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Content Marketing, Social Media Marketing, Mobile Advertising, and Email Advertising. The online environment is so diverse and unpredictable due to the ever changing nature of virtual interaction and communication in the business front (Parkin, 2009). It is therefore lucid for the most authentic and appealing method of online marketing to be adopted for an organization to stay competitively active in the prevailing online environment. Therefore, this paper gives a critical analysis of various strategies used for marketing products and services in the online environment.
Discussion of Online Marketing Strategies
Online marketing has significantly changed in the recent past thus attracting the interest from huge numbers of business organizations. Research shows that; the following strategies are used to convey marketing information to the online environment:
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
The Search Engine Optimization improves a given website’s search rankings by increasing the relevance of its search terms. It has the capability to update algorithms on a regular basis thus penalizing sites of poor quality from increasing their rankings. In this regard, this strategy is widely used in the business environment to pass promotional information to the target market.
Content Marketing
Content marketing involves online advertising of the content pertaining to a given company in order to build a desirable brand image, and eventually inspire confidence among consumers. This form of online marketing is an old concept, which was utilized as early as 1895 by John Deere to convey information about an agricultural magazine by the name “The Farrow." Prior research shows that, when individuals read a custom publication about a given company, they establish a strong customer attachment with that particular company (Chaffey, 2009).
Social Media Marketing
Social media is currently one of the most effective ways to share content among friends and families. Social sites such as Twitter, Facebook, Stumble Upon, and Google+ enable consumers to share precious marketing content with other individuals within their network. It is evident from previous studies that, people often trust the information they are given by their close friends. Besides, social media has a large number of followers, which makes it the most appropriate method to share marketing information within a large population. However, in order for individuals to utilize social media marketing, they need to provide the information in a highly professional and interesting manner.
Mobile Advertising Mobile marketing is a form of advertising by means of wireless mobile devices like smartphones, tablet computers, or feature phones. Mobile marketing may take the form of static display ads, mobile search ads, or Short Message Service ads. Due to increased awareness on mobile applications, mobile advertising has increased significantly, and for that reason, most businesses are utilizing this basic device to increase their market viability.
Email Marketing
Email marketing involves sending advertising messages to the recipient through the electronic mail. Financial sites such as PayPal and Pioneer often use this form of marketing to advertise some of their products and services.
Relationship of Online Marketing Strategies with Online Consumer Behavior and E-Business
E-business involves all business transactions through computer networks. The aforementioned online marketing strategies have a unique relationship with online consumer behavior and e-business to a larger extent. First and foremost, most retailers see the internet as the best opportunity to meet diverse consumer needs. However, in order for online retailers to meet these unprecedented demands, they ought to ascertain critical consumer behaviors pertaining to e-business. In this regard, the aforementioned online marketing strategies fundamentally determine the buying behavior of consumers by influencing the decision making process of buyers. Besides, online marketing strategies provide a great convenience for con