Marketing is the process of turning a consumer into a customer. Marketing tools are used to realize this task. Conventionally they can be divided into four groups: price, products, sales, advertising.
Let’s consider in detail:
- Price – this includes the cost of production and sale of goods, the range of products, the criteria for selecting CA, the political and financial situation in the country. Often it is the cost of goods that determines the level of demand.
- Sales – this category includes tools that increase consumer demand. For example, bright packaging, in fact, is a seller of goods. Discounts, promotions, and other measures to stimulate customer interest are also used. The participation of products at exhibitions and fairs helps to promote new goods on the market.
- Advertising – online and offline channels to promote goods and services. For comprehensive business development, it is desirable to use two channels. The first one works faster and more effectively with consumer demand; the second one is indispensable for company branding.
Let’s dwell in more detail on the tools of Internet marketing:
Contextual advertising. This is a display of text ads in the search results of Google and Yandex. The advantage is the speed of attracting quality traffic through relevant texts. The disadvantage – a paid form of promotion. The cost per click in competitive niches can reach up to 1,000 rubles (real estate, cars).
SEO. Optimizing a site for search engines. According to statistics, the first page of the search results for any user request generates 95% of the traffic to the site. Of these, 60-70% of clicks are sites in the top 5. Promotion in search requires many times more time than contextual advertising, but the result is of higher quality.
SMM. What is marketing in social networks? It’s primarily interesting posts, viral publications. Usually, a company opens a group or a social networking community and posts there information about products, promotions, news and conducts contests. The main principle of marketing in SMM is unobtrusive, nativeness.
Targeted advertising. This tool is based on pre-selection of the target audience (analytical function of marketing) and showing them relevant advertising. Marketers study CA behavioral factors, demographic characteristics, geolocation of users, collecting retargeting lists (browser cookies). Targeting is as effective as contextual advertising, and even surpasses it in budget savings.
Banner and teaser advertising. One of the most low-cost tools to promote products and services with payment for clicks on the proposal. Typically, banners are placed on the partner sites of Google and Yandex. The task of banners is not so much to sell as to increase traffic to the selling page.
Viral Advertising. A form of native promotion. Viral post on social networks or video on Youtube channel causes an active response from the audience – the publication likes, tells his friends and acquaintances, comment. All this naturally increases brand awareness in the network.
Content marketing. This tool is often called “guerrilla marketing” because it suits even startups without a budget. To promote a company, goods use sales texts, collect customer reviews, recommendations. In short, they create a maximum of benefits around the products, so that potential buyers can evaluate the benefits and make their choice.
Retargeting. A tool that allows you to work with users who have left. With retargeting technology, users who have recently visited the resource are sent an offer relevant to their interests. Advertising is often accompanied by a discount or bonus.
Promotion in aggregators of goods and services. Marketplaces are platforms that collect multiple trade offers from different companies and show them to potential customers. Such resources usually have high attendance rates, so you can find your audience.
Push messages. A new and quite effective marketing tool. The peculiarity of push notifications is that the user “without problems” agrees to receive notifications and he does not need to fill out a form to do so. It’s enough just to sign up for notifications in your browser.
Messengers. Similar to social networks, messengers bring tons of quality traffic to the site. The main advantage is convenience. Accounts in messengers are easier to create than in social networks. Users are always with their gadgets, which means you can reach CA faster.
E-mail marketing. Mailings to e-mail – one of the “ancient”, but no less effective marketing tools. The main condition for the effectiveness of mailing is the presence of a base of clients with e-mail addresses.
Mobile applications. Today every phone has at least 5 applications from Google Play or App Store. These handy programs are, in fact, providers of customer data. Using them, marketers build a portrait of their target audience, which allows them to sell more.