With global internet users reaching almost 5 billion in 2024, internet marketing is one of the easiest and most affordable ways to reach the right prospects. It doesn’t just help you gain visibility but is also one of the best ways to interact with your potential customers, generate leads, and convert them into sales.
But with all the different channels out there, figuring out how to do online marketing can get tough. That’s why we’re here! In this guide we’ll give you an internet marketing overview, taking you through everything you need to know - including internet marketing uses, different channels to market your products online, and some great examples to help you get started!
Index
- What is internet marketing?
- The role of internet marketing
- Types of internet marketing
- 15 internet marketing ideas (with examples) to grow your brand
Pro-tip: Did you know video marketing is one of the best ways to advertise your brand? Videos get twice as many views on social media and can grow revenue almost 50 percent faster than other internet marketing channels! You should consider prioritizing video in your marketing efforts and to create stunning marketing videos quickly and easily, you can use a tool like InVideo.
What is internet marketing?
Internet marketing, also known as online or digital marketing, is the promotion of a brand or its products using online platforms and tools. It’s usually used as an umbrella term that covers a wide range of marketing channels and activities, which can include anything from social media marketing to Google Ads.
What’s truly unique about web marketing is the ability to interact and form connections with people spread across the world, which exponentially increases your potential audience pool! Digital platforms also offer a depth of data and analytics that will help you get to know your customer and the type of internet marketing content that works best for them.
Let’s now take a look at internet marketing uses and the role it plays today.
The role of internet marketing
Before we look at how to market on the internet it’s important to understand the role internet marketing plays in your overall marketing mix, as it will help you reach the right audience and design more effective campaigns.
Simply put, there are two internet marketing uses - to attract new customers, and to retain and engage previous ones. Let’s learn a little more about how internet marketing can achieve this.
Attracting new customers
Internet marketing is a great medium to attract new customers and promote your brand online. You can use social media to get your brand in front of potential customers using ads (both Facebook and Instagram ads can be customized to target consumers based on their demographic, interests, location, and a host of other parameters to get you in front of your audience niche.)
You’ll also need to maintain a powerful SEO presence to make sure your pages appear on the first page of Google or other search engines. One of the internet marketing musts is to have a mobile-friendly website that is attractive to customers. This way, when users land on your page after searching, they'll want to stick around.
Here’s an example of a social media ad Dunkin Donuts posted on Instagram to attract customers to their new product.
Let’s not forget that videos are one of the best ways to grab the attention of new customers - so if this is your goal, you want to prioritize video content over other types! You can use InVideo’s online editor to do so, which lets you create videos for all marketing use cases quickly and easily.
Engaging previous customers
For any organization to remain sustainable you need a loyal, long-term customer base. It also costs five times more to attract a new customer than it does to keep an existing one - so you’ll want to focus a large amount of energy on this. Web internet marketing plays a key role in staying in touch with customers and keeping them engaged with your brand.
Many brands use email marketing, content marketing, and social media to start conversations and interact with their customers and keep loyalty high. Personalized emails and offers (like birthday discounts!) can go a long way to achieving this.
Here’s a great example of a personalized email Airbnb sent to one of its customers. Notice how not just the name, but the content itself that’s personalized to the customer. Airbnb sends Jimmy options of houses in a place he’s already been looking at - which also increases their chances of him booking a place through their site.
If you’re looking to grow your email campaigns, you’ll need a solid list. Here's how you can build and grow an email list.
Now we’ve understood the role, let’s figure out how to do online marketing on different channels.
Types of internet marketing
With so many different internet marketing products and channels out there, things can get confusing. What type of internet marketing should you invest in? Where will your online products sell? How many channels should you be active on?
Experts who know how to market online make calculated decisions about each of these aspects of internet marketing to maximize their visibility and sales. But before you begin an analysis of the channels, we’ll take you through an internet marketing overview and look at the various types of internet marketing out there.
In this section, we’ll cover the following types along with some examples, which should give you an idea of how to do internet marketing for your brand:
a. Social media advertising
b. Organic social media marketing
2. Content marketing
3. Email marketing
4. Search engine optimization (SEO)
5. Influencer marketing
6. Paid advertising
7. Affiliate marketing
Let’s get to it!
1. Social media marketing
Social media marketing is probably one of the most effective types of internet marketing available today. Top social media channels have an audience of close to 5 billion people, with millions visiting and interacting on these platforms every single day.
For instance, more than 200 million Instagram users visit a business profile at least once a day, and 81 percent of them use it to learn about new products from brands. From creating brand awareness to selling products, social media marketing is useful at every stage of the buyer journey, so developing and maintaining a social media presence is crucial to your marketing strategy.
Let’s take a closer look at the two main types of social media marketing brands use today: organic social media and paid advertising.
a. Social media advertising
Social media advertising is a relatively inexpensive way in which to get your brand in front of new audiences. This is what makes it an especially powerful internet marketing channel for smaller brands and businesses, who can easily find and establish their niche.
What’s more, social media ads can target users based on a large variety of categories as they collect a huge amount of user data for the benefit of advertisers. Because of this, you can select audiences based on their geography, demographic, age, gender and interests, and a ton of other criteria.
You can run ads that target different types of audiences that might be relevant to you and even set aside a budget for A/B testing. Once you figure out what works best, you can increase the budgets on the high-converting ads you’ve placed.
While it might be tempting (and easy!) to use the same ads on all your social media platforms - this isn’t always a good idea. Focus on a few platforms where your intended audience interacts the most. Ask yourself how these different channels align with your business goals and select a few that seem will bring you the most benefit. This is especially important for small businesses with limited resources. This will bring you more bang for your buck and help you choose the most effective marketing channels.
Also, when designing ads, remember that every social media platform serves a different purpose and more importantly, presents your brand and its products differently. What works on Twitter may not work on Instagram, simply because the user interface of both these platforms is created to fulfill different needs. Don’t create a long video ad on Twitter since most people don’t spend time viewing long-form content here - Facebook might be a better option instead.
Learn more about social media advertising in this in-depth guide:
Internet marketing tip: Whether you’re doing paid or organic social media, make sure to include videos as much as possible, since videos get twice as many views on social and can boost your brand’s visibility! And if you want to make stunning videos in minutes, you can use InVideo which has over 5000 social media templates for you to choose from!
b. Organic social media marketing
While paid advertising is the best way to get in front of new audiences, you’ll also need to create engagement on social media that helps you grow organically — you can’t post ads and lead audiences to a dead social page! What your existing and potential new users are looking for is a connection to you and your brand.
Organic social media marketing is all about building long-term relationships by interacting with your customers. These channels of marketing were originally built to foster interaction - not sell products - and that’s still at the heart of all social media. Engage potential customers by reaching out to them in a personal and authentic fashion. Develop a clear brand voice and tone so that your followers will enjoy interacting with you regularly and develop an emotional connection with you.
And when new audiences land on your social pages from your ads, they’ll be able to see this! This is why companies that thrive on customer relationships post around two or three posts per day. It is one of the best ways to promote your business for free.
Lululemon’s Twitter replies are flooded with encouraging messages to devoted customers. Even with over 1 million followers, this brand commits to replying to as many customers as possible, creating excitement and emotional human connections with their community. Take a look at this example of how they engaged with their audience during a community-run:
Social media marketing works best when integrated with other marketing strategies and should be a part of your overall marketing mix. You can boost different marketing channels, like content marketing, word of mouth marketing, and influencer marketing through your socials - so make sure you integrate your other marketing efforts with social media whenever possible.
And to ensure you stay consistent on social media, you can take the help of various tools that make it easier for you to plan and execute your strategy.
2. Content marketing
Content marketing is the process of creating, publishing, and distributing content to attract and engage your target audience. By creating internet marketing content that delivers value and solves your customer’s problems you can establish yourself as an authority in your field and reach new customers in the funnel.
One study found that internet content marketing can cost 62% less than traditional marketing and generates three times as many leads! Companies use content marketing to build or position a brand, generate leads, retain customers, increase sales, support SEO and establish their reputation.
Here’s a content internet marketing overview of the different types of content that you can create to attract different audience segments of your market.
#1 - Videos
Video marketing is one of the fastest-growing content marketing channels and arguably has the most potential today. Video can boost conversions, generate leads, improve ROI, and establish a stronger emotional connection between your brand and audience than any other medium.
When creating videos though, you want to keep them short and super engaging to cater to the shorter attention spans on social media platforms, while still providing a ton of value.
Short-form video content is a great way to advertise your products, raise brand awareness and help potential customers learn how to use your products. Short-form content works best on platforms like Instagram and TikTok so if you’re using these channel types make sure you create a ton of quick videos that will get your audience excited and coming back for more.
You can also use longer-form videos to position yourself as an expert in your industry and share knowledge with those who are eager to learn something from you. Longer videos are excellent if you want to share in-depth expertise, talk about your brand's journey, post how-to videos, recipes, listicles, and more! These types of videos work best on platforms like YouTube or Vimeo.
Learn more about video marketing in this in-depth guide:
Pro Tip: If video is something you struggle with, you can take the help of an easy-to-use video creation tool like InVideo which offers thousands of video templates to help you make super engaging content within minutes.
#2 - Blog posts
Blog posts are one of the most common platforms to deliver effective and useful internet content for your audience - and it’s something you can’t ignore. Blogs provide a ton of ways to boost your SEO and get people to visit your site organically through search engines (i.e. without you paying for an ad). They also keep your website current and provide opportunities for audience engagement.
When writing blogs make sure you do SEO research and include keywords so that your articles appear on the first page of search engines. Update your blog with new content regularly, and link to authoritative sites to broaden your reach. You can also interlink to different blogs to keep your audience on your website longer and boost your website stats.
Blogs are a long game. Once your audiences see that you’re delivering consistent value and providing them with content they’re looking for, they’ll not only be loyal to your brand but also be more likely to buy your products or pay for your services. While this does take a longer time, the customer loyalty and deep emotional connection that blogs can build can pay off for years to come!
While blogs are primarily written content - make sure you include as many visuals to keep your audience engaged. In fact, including videos on your blog is a great way to do this. You can create videos for your blog using InVideo’s online editor and then simply embed them. It helps break up the content and deliver expertise in multiple formats so audiences can choose how they want to engage with you.
See how Hubspot does this on their blog on email marketing.
While they first list the benefits in writing, they switch to a video to deliver email marketing tips. Note how they emphasize the video is under a minute so people will be more likely to watch.
#3 - Industry reports and Ebooks
One of the best ways you can use internet content marketing to position yourself as an expert is by creating industry reports and ebooks. Industry reports provide your audience with an in-depth understanding of your industry or area of expertise. While this is more useful for B2B companies who market to other businesses, you could also create reports for customers who want to learn more about a particular topic or improve their knowledge of a certain skill.
Producing your research or analyzing trends and publishing these in a report will not only make you an expert but could also result in other industries or companies quoting you in their reports or linking back to your website and results pages. This will help generate even more leads and raise awareness about your brand organically. In fact, other industries sharing your reports or ebooks also provides validation - so their customers and audiences are more likely to trust you!
Try coming up with interesting statistics or new findings that others may not have so that everyone will want to share your results!
Finally, once you’ve created your report you need to make it shareable. Not everyone will read the entire ebook - break it up into short videos, infographics, or even blogs. You can even create a video report and share this on social media to grab some more attention. You can create these videos with customizable templates on InVideo.
#4 - Infographics
Infographics are a great example of internet content marketing that delivers complex information in a format that’s easy to understand. Through charts, pictures, graphs, and illustrations, infographics break up the monotony of text by providing a fun, colorful visual for readers to digest and share valuable content. You can turn your industry reports into infographics to summarize the key points and give audiences an overview of the report.
Most infographics break up complex information visually and summarize it in an easy-to-understand format. Because they’re so eye-catching and simple to follow, you can present some really valuable information in a way that’s easy for people to grasp. Anyone who sees this kind of image can learn, at a glance, the important aspects of the topic being discussed.
Take a look at this example, which explains the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs):
You can use infographics in your blogs, and presentations or even convert them into videos!
We’ve already talked about how videos can keep your audiences engaged - so imagine the power of an animated infographic! And it’s super easy to do using infographics templates on InVideo.
#5 - Case studies
Case studies are another super impactful form of internet content marketing.
A case study is an in-depth, detailed examination of a particular case within a real-world context. Think about this as a detailed story of something your company did. It includes a beginning conflict, an explanation of what happened next, and a resolution that explains how the company solved or improved something.
For example, if you’re a marketing expert you might want to create a case study on how you helped a client convert 30% more customers with your help.
Check out this case study on transforming an airport experience by IDEO:
By providing concrete evidence of a brand’s effectiveness, case studies help build trust and earn business and are a great way to provide authoritative content to inform and inspire their readers.
Case studies are similar to industry reports but talk about one particular ‘case’ (or example) as opposed to a report which looks at a broader view and analyzes overall trends.
#6 - Podcasts
A lot of internet marketing content can be difficult to go through. Not everyone has the time to read through detailed industry reports, case studies, or blogs. And while videos are a super engaging format to convert larger reports into easy chunks of information, you can’t watch videos while driving or walking.
This is where podcasts come in. Podcasts are a great way to share information and expertise in an easy-listening format. With 16 million Americans who identify as “avid podcast fans,” they’re also a super effective way to reach a large target audience.
You can use storytelling techniques to share useful information, conduct interviews with other experts in your industry, and keep people engaged. They’re also a great way to add a level of personality and branding to your marketing. Podcasts give your brand a ‘voice’ in a much more concrete way - and ensuring your hosts (and their scripts) convey a consistent brand voice is important. Podcasts can also humanize your brand, putting a name and a face to your company as listeners will become familiar with your podcast hosts and get to know them as the voice of your brand. This can help you build more meaningful relationships with your followers.
And while podcasts are for listening, many companies also produce videos while recording so people can watch a video of the podcast if they like! This way your audience can connect with the same content in multiple formats and choose what they like.
Check out this podcast video from InVideo to see how it’s done:
#7 - Webinars
One of the most interactive ways of generating internet marketing content is through webinars. A webinar is a great way to get industry experts together and encourage debate and discussion about topics your customers may be interested in. It’s also a great format to encourage new audiences and people who might not have heard of your business since they will be drawn by the experts and topics, and learn about you during the webinar.
This is why it’s a good idea to plug in your company and mention it, either while starting or ending the talk - or use examples from your brand to illustrate a point. This will get people curious about what you do while also positioning you as an expert on a topic. You can either host webinars yourself or get invited by other brands to participate in them.
Once a webinar is complete you can use the information to create even more internet marketing content by converting them into a video and sharing this on your YouTube channel or creating a blog or animated video out of it!
Internet marketing tip: InVideo has a great feature that allows you to convert your text into super engaging videos! You can turn important bits of content from your webinar into a great video in minutes. Try it out here.
3. Email marketing
Email marketing is one of the oldest types of web internet marketing channels out there - and it’s not going anywhere! Why, you ask? Not only is email one of the most effective channels for communicating directly with people, but it also has one of the highest returns on investment (ROI) of any of them. To compare, email marketing has an ROI of $38, more than four times higher than social media, direct mail, and paid search!
Email also remains unaffected by third-party developments like social media algorithms and reaches 85 percent of the people you send it to. Over 22 percent open emails on average - miles beyond the engagement rate of 0.6 percent that the Big 3 of social media (Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter) share.
Add to this the fact that over 91 percent of American internet users have an email account, and you can’t ignore email as one of your main channels to market.
There are tons of different types of email marketing campaigns you can use to grow your business:
- Create newsletters to share relevant information or educate audiences
- Follow-up emails to remind website visitors of abandoned items in their carts or acknowledge their purchases with receipts
- Welcome emails for new customers
- Send promotional content announcing new launches, special events, discounts, or giveaways
- Ask for reviews and get feedback
The brand Article uses the email marketing channel to keep its existing customers engaged:
Here are a few tips to help you make the most of your email marketing:
- Create short videos to include in your emails. This will make your emails stand out and keep engagement rates high. You can do this by creating short video snippets with InVideo and converting these videos to GIFs (since you can’t embed a video directly onto an email).
- Write a compelling subject line that will get subscribers to open your email. Make sure it accurately reflects what’s inside the email and if you’re running a sale or promotion - highlight this in your subject!
- The best emails are short, to the point, and easily scannable. Break your text up into easily readable chunks and include some images. Include only what customers need to see and nothing else.
- Don’t send emails too frequently because you’ll risk annoying your customers. The best thing is to have a consistent schedule and send emails out every two weeks, monthly or quarterly.
- Use email segmentation to group subscribers and send them more personalized or relevant emails. For example, if you’re selling vitamins, then you could segment your list according to those who purchased specific vitamins (and advertise for those) or those who make regular purchases and send them special promotions.
- Track your email opens, clicks, and other engagements to understand what your subscribers like best and replicate the content with the most engagements. You could also use A/B testing to send different emails to the same group of people to see which worked better with your audience.
- Use automation to easily send welcome, thank you emails, or receipts after subscribers have purchased something from your store.
Internet marketing tip: If you want to create super engaging GIFs use our video to GIF converter which will help you create GIFs to add to your emails in minutes!
4. Search engine optimization (SEO)
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process of trying to expose your website and content by appearing on the first page of search engine results for a certain term or keyword. This is an ‘organic’ method of getting discovered, that is, you don’t pay for an ad to appear on the search engine page. Correctly using SEO techniques can also help your YouTube videos get discovered.
Like any effective marketing strategy, SEO takes time and effort. But when you realize 62 percent of consumers use a search engine when they want to learn more about a new product or service, and 41 percent use a search engine when they’re ready to buy - it’s well worth the effort!
For example, a search for “dropshipping” on Google, and Shopify pop up as the first result. They’ve even claimed Google’s featured snippet. You can see that an average of 450,000 people are searching this term each month, and the first thing they see is Shopify's page. That’s a lot of exposure and traffic!
While the rules for SEO can change depending on the search engine platform you use and new trends and technologies that arise, there are a few key fundamentals that change very little over time. These are:
- Crawlability: Can your content be found by search engines?
- Site structure: How do search engines prioritize and organize your content?
- Keywords: What is your site’s content about?
- Backlinks: Does your content provide reliable information on the topics you write about?
That said, remember search engines change what they value regularly, so be sure to keep up with your optimization. Just because you’re ranking well now doesn’t mean you’ll be ranking well in six months or a year.
For more, here’s a quick introduction to SEO for beginners by expert Brain Dale:
Here are a few tips to help you make the most of SEO as a promotion channel:
- Use keywords to build a truly successful SEO strategy. Keywords are what Google (and other search engines) use to index your website and content, and how searchers find it. You can use tools like Chrome extension Keywords Everywhere, Google Search Console, Ahrefs Keywords Explorer, and Google Keyword Planner to research and select the best possible keywords that will drive targeted search engine traffic to your website.
- Keep your content fresh. Without high-quality content, your website can’t fully realize its SEO objectives. Content is how you incorporate all your keywords on your website - so the more helpful your content is, the more people are likely to share it. The more shares, the more likely the search engines will think your website is important, and the higher up your search rankings go.
- To make sure all your content is optimized for SEO and conforms to the latest guidelines, use tools like SEO Review Tools, Yoast, or SEMrush to make sure your content is easily searchable and more likely to rank.
- Optimize your website for mobile. People are spending more time on their mobile devices, so you’ve got to ensure your site’s design, structure, and speed are conducive for mobile browsing. This means faster load times and information that doesn’t look crowded on a smaller screen. Google now has a mobile-first indexing policy, which means that Google will use the mobile version of your content for indexing and ranking your site.
SEO content can be used to attract, educate, convert, and retain your customers - which means it influences the entire marketing funnel. So make sure you spend some time and effort optimizing relevant channel types for SEO!
Internet marketing tip: Search engines rank videos higher than any other types of content so make sure you include videos on your website since it might make them appear higher in the results! Google also allows users to search directly for videos, giving you even more opportunities to be found! Use Invideo’s online video editor to create super compelling videos in minutes and boost your ranking!
5. Influencer marketing
Influencer marketing is a super effective advertising channel that gets your products in front of a highly engaged target market. But what makes it so effective?
Influencer marketing uses what we call ‘social proof’ to get people to buy products and services. That is, people are more likely to make purchase decisions when hearing about it from someone they trust. Influencers usually have a large following of loyal and engaged followers who trust them implicitly, will listen to their opinions, and act on their recommendations.
When you engage with influencers to market your brand, you’re leveraging the trust which influencers have built.
There are six key ways in which you can use influencer marketing to benefit your brand:
- Ask influencers to do a sponsored video or post on their promotion channels
- Launch collaborative products or content
- Solicit reviews by sending influencers freebies
- Run competitions and giveaways - and advertise these through influencers or add your products to their giveaway contest
- Get an influencer to “takeover” your social platforms
- Engage influencers as long-term brand ambassadors
Influencers can make your brand feel more approachable and relatable, help you gain new high-quality followers, and communicate your brand message effectively.
While high-profile influencers can get you a lot of visibility. Huge follower counts aren’t the only thing that matters when it comes to using influencers as an advertising channel.
Just because someone has a million followers doesn’t mean a million people are paying attention - or that they’re the right audience for you! If you have smaller budgets, you could also work with nano or micro-influencers - who have between 1,000 and 10,000 followers. Influencers with smaller followings tend to be super niche but are usually more engaged, don’t demand large fees, and have strong followings which lead to more meaningful interactions. Even brands with huge budgets often engage with micro-influencers to draw some of their highly engaged audiences to their pages. Collective Bias found that only 3 percent of shoppers are influenced by celebrity endorsements, while a massive 30 percent of consumers are likely to buy a product recommended by a non-celebrity blogger.
Check out how Under Armour teamed up with nano-influencer Jennifer Rochon to bring their audience home workouts that feel more authentic than a highly produced workout video. This was part of their #ThroughThisTogether campaign launched during the COVID lockdown when everyone was doing home workouts - so their audience could relate!
Here are a few more internet marketing tips on how you can select and work with influencers that best suit your brand:
- When selecting an influencer, research their expertise, reach, and audience demographics. Make sure they are authentic and their followers are the right target group for your product or service.
- Choose an influencer who shares the same values or beliefs as your brand represents. For example, if one of your brand’s core beliefs is body positivity, you shouldn’t engage with someone who is hyper-focused on thinness. Your influencers should be people who would also normally use and benefit from your product or service. This will also make their posts seem more authentic.
- Give influencers the freedom to create their content - you’re banking on their content to get your brand more attention, so let them do what they’re good at. Your job is to guide, not control how they create content.
Pro-tip: Make sure your influencers create a ton of video content as this is most likely to get you the most views and engagement on social media! You can use an online editor like InVideo, to edit these influencer videos as per your brand guidelines using customizable templates to create stunning videos in minutes!
6. Paid advertising
People who click on ads and come to your website are 50 percent more likely to purchase something as compared to organic visitors. That should tell you that paid ads are an extremely important tool in your digital marketing arsenal. Paid advertising has a very high ROI and can be a great tool to get more leads and sales in.
However, to know how to market online with paid ads, you’ll need to do some research. There are multiple types of digital ads that you can run for your brand including remarketing ads, pay-per-click ads, social media ads, and more. To understand the different types of ads you should create for your brand and how you should run them, check out this in-depth guide.
One thing you should consider, however, is creating video ads for your brand. Video ads have a higher return on investment and are better received by the audience. Running targeted video ads on Facebook, Instagram, and other social media channels can be a great option to create brand awareness and generate higher sales. You can announce discounts and offers, new product line launches, show off various product highlights and features, or unbox videos through paid video ads.
Check out this great Instagram video ad by Samsung that fulfills all these parameters:
To create your video ads, you can use choose from over 5,000 amazing templates on InVideo to get started.
7. Affiliate marketing
Affiliate marketing is a reward-based system that encourages partners to promote your products in exchange for a commission. This is a great thing to do if you are a beginner at learning how to online market your products. Your affiliates will help you increase brand awareness, build loyalty, and improve credibility with little to no effort on your part!
Usually, an best affiliate programs will pay via a flat dollar amount or a percentage of the total sale, but you could also include incentives like free or discounted products. Target, for example, gives affiliates exclusive sales and promos, in addition to a commission. Amazon offers a percentage of the revenue on affiliate sales.
The way to go about affiliate programs is to collaborate with influencers, industry experts, or small celebrities who usually have a sizable audience that they can drive to your product by posting about it.
Here's a marketing promotion example of an influencer advertising the lifestyle and fitness brand, Fab Fit Fun. The custom promotion code also helps brands measure the effectiveness of their programs and compensate affiliates accordingly.
You can also launch referral or loyalty programs in the same vein. While not as structured as affiliate programs, these allow customers to become your brand ambassadors. You can do this by simply sharing a referral code with your customers after they purchase something from you. You can give them cash back, discounts, or loyalty points for referrals with their code or link. This is an effective way to nurture relationships with consumers and provide them value beyond the products they purchase from you. What’s more, this cashback or discounts can lead them to come back and shop with you to claim the offer!
For instance, check out streetwear brand Nicce. They have a special loyalty program where spending 1 Euro is equal to 5 Nicce coins. Each coin is equal to a 0.01p discount on the website and app. Tasks like creating an account, referring a friend, and performing special promotional tasks are worth a large amount of N coins.
The Nicce rewards include loyalty points and corresponding vouchers which allow you to get more discounts.
15 internet marketing ideas (with examples) to grow your brand
In this section, we’ll cover some great internet marketing tips and ideas to help you grow your brand and figure out how to do marketing online.
So get ready for some inspiration!
Here are the ideas we’ll cover:
1. Conduct video tours of your space like Planet Fitness
2. Repurpose longer-form content to create snackable videos for your socials like InVideo
3. Run giveaways on social media like Ilana Cosmetics
4. Make sure your mobile website experience is seamless like Equinox Fitness
5. Use Google My Business to promote new sales and offers like Whole Foods
6. Get personal with your email marketing promotions as Birchbox does
7. Build a strong online community like Apple
8. Run an affiliate marketing program like New Chic
9. Use PPC campaigns like Snickers to get the word out about your brand
10. Make your brand more about the experience like Hello fresh
11. Use influencer marketing to up your sales like GymShark
12. Stand out with minimalist ads like Babbel
13. Put your products front and center like Fashion Nova
14. Create ads that feature client testimonials like Hush Blankets
15. Grab attention with compelling ad copy and bright colors like MAC
Let’s get to it, shall we?
1. Conduct video tours of your space like Planet Fitness
Video ranks #1 on our list of internet marketing ideas because it is by far one of the most versatile tools you have in your arsenal. If you have a shop or a gym or a business with a physical space, videos will allow you to give your viewers a real-time experience of what it is like. They also help build trust, because users will get to see your space before they sign up or commit to visiting.
Planet Fitness, for instance, did this well. They created a virtual tour video of their gym while also talking about the benefits members receive when they join this health club. Check out their ad here:
By showing potential clients what their gyms were like, Planet Fitness gave potential gym-goers a clear idea of what to expect and boosted their sign-up lists. Video tours like this work especially well with spaces like gyms or spas or hair salons because you’re giving people a clear idea of what to expect before they arrive.
But before you hit that record button to start shooting your videos, make sure to develop a powerful video marketing strategy. First, you should understand your objective of creating videos and then identify your audience. This will help you create a video that answers their questions and is tailored to address specific challenges they face.
To create a similar video like Planet Fitness, use this InVideo template and add a talking-head video explaining why people should sign up for your business. You can also include testimonials that justify your success and weigh your offer.
2. Repurpose longer-form content to create snackable videos for your socials like InVideo
Filling your content calendar every month, for all the different platforms can be a tough ask that many content marketers (especially in smaller teams) struggle with a lot!
The secret is to create a content mothership and repurpose it across all channels. A content mothership is long-form, value-adding content like blog posts, podcasts, or explainer videos. These can then be turned into snackable videos, social media posts like quote cards, behind-the-scenes photos, and informative carousel posts.
So, how do you repurpose all of this content on your own, even if you’re not a pro at editing and you don’t have so much time on your hands? Well, here’s how we do it! Let’s take a look at an example of our show - Just Between You & Me.
Our show is an online live podcast that was hosted on multiple platforms like Facebook, YouTube, and our website. It has industry experts like Jordan Platten and Sue Zimmerman diving deep into marketing insights and practices that have worked for them - thus making each episode a content mothership.
Not everyone will consume the entire show, only an audience that is invested in our business will and so - we repurposed the podcast into many content pieces that are easy to consume and add value to our audience on social media.
For example, we created this explainer video that quickly summarizes one of the discussions we had on the podcast. It gives our audience quick and actionable insights and also catches their attention to watch the full episode if they’re interested in the topic.
From a single video, we were able to create multiple Instagram posts, and shorter videos and repost the longer-format video on YouTube, giving our marketing team a ton of content that they could publish for weeks after the episode dropped!
If you want to create your videos from a larger content piece, InVideo’s online video editor is very intuitive and super simple to use - you’ll be creating a month's worth of content from a single live video in no time. With InVideo, it takes less than 15 minutes to create scroll-stopping videos! You can choose from over 5000+ templates and 12 million+ stock images and videos. Not only that - you can add effects, texts, stickers, and music to make your video stand out!
3. Run giveaways on social media like Ilana Cosmetics
Social media giveaways are one of the most popular ways for brands to engage with customers while also gaining more followers. Hosting a giveaway is an excellent way to build brand awareness and increase your website traffic and memberships momentarily. You can also use it to boost conversions or get new buyers more interested in your products.
The reason it works so well is that appeals to the desire of wanting to win at something and motivates potential customers to participate, engage, and check out your website or social media pages. One way to do this is to host a contest or a lottery to give away free merchandise if followers answer a question and tag 3-5 friends who don’t already follow your account.
Here’s a great example of a giveaway by Ilana Cosmetics. They took the giveaway to the next level by tying up with other companies to boost their traffic even further! If you plan to do this make sure your partner companies have similar audiences so they’ll be more likely to convert into customers.
If you can get existing audiences excited about your giveaway this is guaranteed exposure. Think about adding your most popular or highly rated products to the giveaway or getting rid of excess stock by adding it to the gifts. You could host a single giveaway or give multiple people the chance to win.
Not only do giveaways increase your business’s reach on social media, but it also increases awareness of your brand among your ideal customer base - and quality followers are a goldmine!
If you want to boost your engagement even further, consider creating a video of the products you’re giving away by adding your content to this giveaway template by InVideo. More people are watching videos than ever on social media so you’re sure to grab even more attention with a video instead of static images.
4. Make sure your mobile website experience is seamless like Equinox Fitness
Mobile-friendly websites are becoming increasingly important, not only because most users view sites on their phones more than on any other devices - but search engines are now also prioritizing mobile sites in their search results. A mobile-friendly site will not only make potential customers have a great website experience when logging into your site - but a cleaner, more well-organized site structure can affect how you rank in the SERPS and make your website more discoverable!
And in such a competitive environment, you need an effective site that makes you stand out in front of your competitors and evoke them to take action.
For instance, check out this website by Equinox. The interface here is excellent. It contains all crucial information, including reviews, showcasing the facility, a gym finder page, and member benefits, in addition to stunning visuals that immediately catch your eye. It also loads super fast and has easy navigation so that mobile users won’t get frustrated when they view the website.
To create an effective mobile website that helps you attract new members, it should contain all the essential elements that Google recommends. Like your business's full address and contact information, your about section, and your services. You could also include call-to-action buttons that help users quickly get in touch with you. Don’t clutter your interface with too many elements and confuse prospects.
Lastly, check for the responsiveness of your website in different modes and for different mobile and tablet devices to make sure it works seamlessly no matter what device your viewers are on.
Pro-tip: Consider creating an introductory video for your website! This can grab attention and keep users on your website for longer. Check out these great intro templates from InVideo to make super engaging videos in under 15 minutes!
5. Use Google My Business to promote new sales and offers like Whole Foods
Did you know that you can run promotions on your Google business listing?
Take a look at this Google My Business promotion from Whole Foods advertising-free deliveries and $10 off. This is a great promotion to put right in the search option since people searching for whole foods are likely to want to buy something from there and this incentivizes them further.
88% of users who search for a business on their mobile phones either call or visit the business within a day! So adding offers to your business listing can help tip people over the edge and get them to visit your store or order online!
The Google My Business dashboard allows you to create four different types of social posts: Offers, Updates, Events, and Products.
Use the ‘Add Offer’ option to announce a deal or offering right on your Business Profile. This allows your promotion to reach customers who find your business on Google Maps or Search, which is often when they have the highest intent to buy.
After you have set up and claimed your Google Business page, the next step is to optimize your account by filling out all the relevant information.
To make your listing stand out, let Google index all the relevant information about your business. Don’t forget to ask your existing customers for reviews and testimonials.
You can also use videos on your Google business page that are up to 30 seconds long. Use this space to put out professional videos of your service and facility or include video testimonials from customers. You can use one of these cool templates from InVideo to make things pop!
6. Get personal with your email marketing promotions as Birchbox does
Personalized campaigns are extremely important to build more engaged audiences who will keep coming back with new orders. Many brands use coupon codes, gift cards, or exclusive discounts that shoppers can spend online or in-store.
For example, if a customer purchased an item from a certain category, you can send them a personalized discount coupon for 10% off the same category on their next purchase. This will encourage customers to come back and finish their purchase before the discount code expires!
Take a look at how Birchbox does this:
Personalization is one of the best ways to encourage conversions and reduce the incidence of shoppers abandoning their carts. While this requires careful set-up, you can configure your email marketing software to send reminders to shoppers when they’ve abandoned their carts - along with a discount code to re-engage them and get them to buy. You can also personalize what they buy next by sending them a discount coupon for related products or categories based on their last purchase with you.
To boost your campaigns even further, including a customer’s first name, can help with increasing sales. Besides abandoned cart emails, you can also send customers special prices or discounts on birthdays!
7. Build a strong online community like Inkbox
The high level of competition that most brands face today means that they need to stand out more than ever before. To do this, brands are increasingly looking for innovative ways to grab attention.
Community building might not be a top priority for many but it’s one of the best long-term internet marketing strategies you can use.
A brand community is a group of people — ideally, your customers and target audiences — who come together because of their attachment to a product or brand. A large engaged community of people invested in your brand and excited to buy your products is the holy grail of marketing. And it doesn’t come easy!
If you’re looking for a brand community that makes you feel like part of the family, look no further than temporary tattoo makers, inkbox. Their original products were inspired by the indigenous tribes in Panama, who have been tattooing for thousands of years as a function of family and community. To echo these values of inclusivity and togetherness, inkbox’s inkfam community is built around making sure their community members know just how much they’re valued.
With their #tattoosfornow hashtag, they let their community members submit photos of their freshly applied tattoos to be featured on the brand’s website and social channels. By showing each member of the inkfam that their engagement and belonging in the community are valued, inkbox shows exactly the kind of brand they are. That desire for belonging is exactly why over 1000 photos have been tagged with the hashtag, meaning they have a lot of customers that love their ink and love being part of the inkbox family.
Community building takes time, effort, and investment and cannot just be about marketing your products, but engaging with customers and building a strong brand character, culture, and aesthetic that will genuinely make people feel like they belong, allow them to build connections with each other, and make them stick with you (and your products!) for years.
To do this you can reach out to your community for feedback, beta-test your products and show them some love by giving them early access to new product releases as a way to keep your community involved in your brand. Think about starting a Facebook group to give people a chance to gather and interact with each other and your brand. If a Facebook group doesn't seem like a good fit for your business, however, there are other ways to create a sense of community — including via social media, or through a branded newsletter.
Community building takes a lot of time and effort because you’re working to build long-lasting connections. If you want quick results, this isn’t the right option for you! But if done right, a strong community will consist of your most engaged customers, and their input is an irreplaceable resource as well as a strong revenue stream.
8. Run an affiliate marketing program like New Chic
As we mentioned earlier, affiliate programs can get your brand a lot of exposure for little effort on your part. Fashion eCommerce brand New Chic has a super robust affiliate program which gives them exposure to a ton of new people through the various audiences of the affiliates and influencers they engage with regularly.
They pay affiliates anywhere between 18 to 50% commission on sales. As a result, they can feature various product videos and posts by influencers on their social media pages. Check out how they do this on Instagram:
Pro-tip: You can also work with influencers and affiliates to create compelling videos of your products to make them stand out even more! Check out these product templates which you can use to make your video in under 10 minutes!
9. Use PPC campaigns like Snickers to get the word out about your brand
This web internet marketing idea is more about inspiration than anything else. Snickers did a truly unique PPC ad campaign that targeted users who misspelled words.
They launched an ad campaign called You’re Not You When You’re Hungry. With the help of an ad agency and Google, they were able to obtain a list of the top 500 search terms. Then, using a clever algorithm, they generated a list of 25,381 different misspellings of these terms.
Like in the example above, they created a ton of different ads using these misspellings and linked it to a landing page that advertised a snickers bad. In just two days Snickers reported 558,589 ad impressions with a click-through rate of 1.05%, and 5,874 visitors made their way to the campaign's mini-website yourenotyouwhenyourehungry.com.
We are still not sure how the ad agency got Google to approve the campaign considering it’s against Google’s ad policies to run ads that do not use commonly accepted spelling and grammar, but this campaign captured audiences to another level.
While you might not be able to replicate something like this, a good takeaway is to make your PPC ads as compelling as possible. Think about what would grab an audience’s attention. Since you only have 160 characters to make your point - make sure your ad copy is as engaging as possible so people click on your ads!
10. Make your brand more about the experience like Hello fresh
Hello Fresh, the meal kit delivery company, is all about the experience of the brand rather than just the products. They don’t try and position themselves as the hot new thing in the food industry.
Instead, their market strategy is to claim a market space by offering not just a great product, but an overall experience – that of cooking new recipes with your family. By centering on family and community people are drawn to Hello Fresh more because of what they represent than the products.
Take a look at one of their ads, that market the experience to potential customers:
People who identify with this experience and take joy in it, will become subscribers or buy their products because what they want is the experience that Hello Fresh is marketing. Competition, especially in the food industry, is super high - associating your products with an experience is what will make you stand out more and get people to buy your products!
Did you know videos are a great way to establish an emotional connection and build brand loyalty? If you want to get new audiences excited about something - you should think about creating a product marketing video that emphasizes the benefits of your products and talks about the experience to customers. And it’s never been easier to create compelling brand videos - just check out some of InVideo’s awesome product templates to get started.
11. Use influencer marketing to up your sales like Gym Shark
The easiest way for brands today to gain credibility and trust is by partnering with influencers. Influencers are valued as much as celebrities because of their vast reach and high engagement on social media.
GymShark engages influencers super well. They tied up with fashion blogger Emma Hothersall (@whatemwore) who created this cute video of her wearing a bunch of their gym outfits on Instagram.
The video features a bunch of gym outfits by GymShark Women. We see Em trying out the whole collection and sharing her favorite in the description. As is evident with her emphasis on fitness and sharp outfits, Em can provide authentic information and honest reviews about the clothing. She also mentions a comment about how the material is great for gym wear.
This is an effective way for GymShark to reach the right people who are probably interested in similar outfits and fashion through Em’s account. You can go one step further and give influencers a discount code they can share with their followers. This also allows you to get a return on your investment in sharing your products with influencers.
Pro-tip: When working with influencers, get them to create videos of your products as much as possible since they receive much higher engagement rates and can give viewers a sense of what your products look like! And you can bring them all together using InVideo’s online editor.
12. Stand out with minimalist ads like Babbel
Customers are constantly bombarded with ads to the point that most of them don’t stand out anymore since everyone’s used to seeing them all the time. Babbel, a language learning company, decided to do something different and stand out to their customers by creating a really simple ad.
The single question and the logo are all the text that appears on the ad - so their product - the Babbel app stands out front and center. Users were also more likely to see the one question as it stands out among all the other images and text on their social pages and were more likely to pause and take note of the ad because of its minimalist approach. Check it out here:
13. Put your products front and center like Fashion Nova
As a brand, your products are what matter most. Fashion Nova certainly knows this because they created a series of video ads that highlighted their products and showed off their features in great detail.
Check out their Facebook ad for their super stretch jeans:
FASHION NOVA #2 from K6 on Vimeo.
The fashion brand understands its target consumers well and created a video that highlighted features that directly appeal to them. For example, the ad shows off how their product fits and stretches. It also highlights how the jeans show off your curves - an insight that Fashion Nova customers value and care for.
They also have a clear goal with this ad - promoting their product with a discount code. This makes for a great mix, as they can deliver the right message to relevant consumers and it’s all about their product and nothing else.
Video ads are one of the best ways to do this as you can feature your products and give users a sense of what they look like! Create your video ads that place your product in front using these great InVideo templates!
14. Create ads that feature client testimonials like Hush Blankets
Testimonials are a great way to personalize your product and gain the trust of your audience, and that’s exactly what Hush Blankets has done with this Instagram ad. They filmed the first reaction of a customer using their 20lbs weighted blanket and then added a simple CTA at the end of the ad.
Hush Blankets Instagram ad from K6 on Vimeo.
Testimonials are great because customers always trust the opinions of other customers before they trust the brand. And using the first-time reaction from a consumer provides honesty and transparency, and generates the trust of the audience in the brand.
At the end of the ad, they add a simple yet powerful CTA saying ‘Change the way you sleep’, after which they prompt the user to order their Hush weighted blanket on that day itself. This inspires the audience and piques their curiosity into considering purchasing their product.
If you have something similar in mind for your Instagram ad, you can use InVideo to edit a simple testimonial ad where all you need to do is add your video footage, the subtitles, and your CTA. Here’s a simple guide to testimonial video ideas if you want to explore more options!
15. Grab attention with compelling ad copy and bright colors like MAC
In the fashion and beauty space, it’s sometimes really hard to stand out. Dynamic colors and a good copy can go a long way to making this happen! Take a look at this promotional offer ad by MAC Cosmetics.
It is great for catching the attention of the viewer with its electric colors. It’s very to-the-point in offering a discount for their Black Friday Sale. By saying ‘The holiday season dream deal is here, they play to the holiday cheer and capitalize on the holiday shopping market. Then in bold, they mention ‘Buy 2 Get 1 Free’ – making sure that that is the most attention-grabbing part of the ad. They also show off some of their most popular products, thus making a well-rounded ad full of bright imagery.
Along with this, there’s a ‘Shop Now’ swipe-up link to the MAC Cosmetics website that acts as a CTA along with the offering statement itself. By flaunting some of their most popular products like their lipsticks and foundation, they also prompt the audience with little reminders of what can be bought when they do swipe up.
To make an ad inspired by this one, you’ll need to have your ad copy ready and a good picture of your best products. If you want to make your ad a little more vibrant by adding animation, try out this customizable template on InVideo! Check out our guide on how to edit templates in InVideo’s editor.
And we’re done - you now have some great ideas on how to market online!
And that’s a wrap!
Internet marketing uses vary between channels, with each channel having its benefits and uses. Businesses that know how to do marketing online are selective about their channels and use them more strategically to meet their business goals.
But one of the internet marketing musts is that you need to engage with audiences via multiple touchpoints. Your audience won’t be active on a single channel, so make sure you’re using at least 2 to 3 types of internet marketing to reach them. No matter which digital marketing channel you use, be mindful of how you use it.
If you want to learn more about how to online market on specific channels you can check out our guides to Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn Video marketing!
Or if you prefer learning via video, definitely check out our YouTube channel where you’ll find some great internet marketing tips and tricks to help you grow your brand!
And if you're looking to create gold-standard videos for your brand in minutes, sign up for InVideo today!
FAQs
What is the meaning of internet marketing?
Internet marketing is also more popularly known as digital or online marketing. When we talk about how to internet market, we usually refer to using online channels like email, social media, websites, and search engines to reach an audience.
What’s great about internet marketing is that it allows you to reach consumers directly and encourages interaction, which creates better long-term relationships with your customers.
You can use internet marketing products and platforms to generate leads, drive traffic, and boost sales.
This post was written by Rachel and edited by Adete from Team InVideo
