When you use the internet to promote your business, you engage in internet marketing. Other terms such as “digital marketing” and “web marketing” to refer to the same process.

Billions of people use the internet every day. So, you’re missing out if you’re not involved at least one form of internet marketing. To help you get the best results, choose from the following tactics.

Social media marketing

The world’s top social networks attract hundreds of millions, if not billions, of daily users. You can find practically any target market in such a large crowd. For this reason, businesses of every size can use social media to achieve their goals. So, regardless of whether you intend to build brand awareness, increase your website traffic, or generate leads, you can use social media to achieve your goals.

Simply creating a social media profile won’t guarantee your success. To the contrary, successful social media marketing campaigns require a lot of time and effort. After all, you must stay active and socialize in ways that keep your audience engaged. For example, you can create a good impression by promptly responding to comments and sharing their posts.

Generally, social media marketing comes in two forms. “Organic” efforts focus on building a community and developing relationships with prospects and customers. To do this, you can use their favorite social media platforms to establish the authority and credibility of your brand. “Paid” social media marketing leverages the advertising platforms provided by social networks. You can use these systems to use demographics and other attributes to target a particular niche.

Influencer marketing

You can leverage the clout of celebrities, industry experts, and micro influencers to expand your audience. To do this, you must attract the attention of people whom your intended customers admire. This tactic can also work by associating your brand with experts from your industry. Micro-influencers with fewer than 100,000 followers can also add credibility to your brand and provide access to their audiences.

In the past, only large corporations could enjoy the benefits of celebrity endorsements. Now, thanks to social media, you have access to an almost unlimited number of people who can boost your brand. As is the case with social media, you have two options for executing an influencer marketing campaign.

For starters, an “organic” strategy relies on your ability to expose influencers to your brand in compelling ways. In such cases, influencers may mention your brand or link to your website. Afterward, some of their followers may become your customers or refer you to their friends. “Paid” influencer strategies involve paying a fee to have an influencer mention, create a post about, or recommend your business and brand. Although paid influencer marketing may sound expensive, you may get good recommendations by simply providing influencers with a free sample.

Affiliate marketing

You can use the internet to recruit third parties to sell your products in exchange for a slice of the profits. When this happens, such people or businesses become “affiliated” with your brand. Essentially, this internet marketing tactic gives other people a reason to sell your products.

To build an effective affiliate network, you’ll need to have a high-quality product that consumers or business customers can use. In other words, a potential market for your brand must exist. Additionally, you’ll have to offer commissions that adequately compensate your affiliates for their efforts.

You can streamline the setup and management of your affiliate marketing campaigns using a cloud-based affiliate marketing application. Such a product can automate the onboarding process for affiliates and provide them with self-service options for performance reporting, requesting payments and accessing your downloadable marketing materials. Your software should also include other basic affiliate-management features:

• Tax forms.
• Accounting.
• Electronic payments.
• User-level access controls.
• Download portal.

In the end, your choice of internet marketing tactics depends on your preferences and the needs of your business and customers. As you work, assess your results, if one type of internet marketing doesn’t work well, try another. Also, be sure to ask for help when needed.