In this article we will indicate the main online marketing channels, each of which has its own rules and tools. As a summary, we see that online marketing is divided into 8 main channels, 9 if you include it when you use offline marketing to promote our online actions.
1. Search Engine Marketing (SEM): The main objective of SEM or search engine marketing is to increase visibility in search results of search engines by including ads that are paid when the user clicks (pay per click or CPC). The major search engines have their own platforms to manage advertising, even when the country may change. The main platforms are Google AdWords SEM, Yahoo Search Marketing (YSM), Microsoft Advertising and Ask, with AdWords and YSM being important in Spain.
2. Search engine optimization (SEO): The goal of SEO is to improve the position on our pages that are shown in the natural results that search engines show for certain searches. In this case, users click on the results at no cost to companies, but it does not mean that they are free either, since in a competitive market it is necessary to hire SEO specialists to achieve good positions.
Importantly, we show only a “handful” of keywords, while in advertising we show our ads on tens of thousands of keywords, and it just didn’t meet the SEO after months of hard work, so if you need results fast, will recur For SEM on a permanent basis it is advisable to combine both strategies so as not to lose market share in the search for our products.
3. Display ads or Rich Media: All the ads that we see in online media can be grouped here, although for example the Google AdWords network includes display in most of the media that is managed from within Google AdWords. Said advertising includes all types of formats commonly called banners (static or dynamic images, flah, video ads, interactive ads, …)
4. E-Mail: Email marketing is a strategy that turns email into a powerful marketing tool to obtain instant results, which, when well managed, allows highly advanced segmentation. It is important to differentiate what is a good email marketing (periodic communication strategy aimed at users to send personalized offers that are really interested) from the mass mailings of spam e-mail that can scratch or in many cases are really annoying as it can. offering our customers products that they are not interested in, that already have or are priced higher than what they bought, which is a good definition of “Anti Marketing”.
5. Partners and Sponsors: Affiliate programs are the dream of any sale, allowing you to have a wide commercial network (websites with all their possibilities) that are paid only if they meet the objectives set (for example, for sales or lead generation ). Because sponsorships are an excellent tool to generate brand image, especially after a web analytics study we see which are the best places to sponsor a particular web service.
6. Directories: Specialized directories, but in general, and with few exceptions, tend to have low traffic volume, they are excellent for directing us to a niche of the industry that interests us. Directories come in all types and in our product or service we must select the mix that interests us the most (thematic directories, local search, price comparison, etc.)
7. Social Media Marketing (SMM): Booming since the birth of YouTube, Twitter and Facebook, but it is not exclusive to these platforms, since there are dozens of tools that must be handled for a successful SMM (blogs, communities, aggregators of content, etc.) Additionally, there are advertising opportunities and promotional tools to highlight our presence and products on these social networks.
8. Social Media Optimization (SMO): It is the optimization in online social networks or positioning in online social networks by participating in talks, creating profiles, incorporating content, etc.
9. Offline media: Here we collect all the actions in traditional media (from print, radio, TV or events … even our business cards, etc …) that we use to promote and launch our online marketing efforts.