Online marketing refers to the leveraging of web-based channels to spread a message about a company’s brand, products, or services to its potential customers. The methods and techniques used for online marketing include email, social media, display advertising, search engine optimization, Google AdWords and more. The objective of this form of marketing is to reach potential customers through the channels where they spend their time reading, searching, shopping, and socializing online.
Widespread adoption of the internet for business and personal use has generated new channels for advertising and marketing engagement. There are also many benefits and challenges inherent to online marketing, which uses primarily digital mediums to attract, engage, and convert virtual visitors to customers.
Online marketing differs from traditional marketing, which has historically included mediums like print, billboard, television and radio advertisements. Today, anyone with an online business (as well as most offline businesses) can participate in online marketing by creating a website and building customer acquisition campaigns at little to no cost. Businesses marketing products and services also have the ability to experiment with optimization to fine-tune their campaigns’ efficiency and ROI.
There are a number of tools that can be used to build and maintain a robust online marketing program: