Do you know who Chandler Bolt is?
If you’re an online marketing nerd already, like me, you probably do.
But, if you’re part of the other 99.9% of the world, who isn’t super hyper about this “internet marketing stuff,” you’ll probably have never heard of this man.
So, what the hell is he doing with this headline on Business Insider?
business insider
(here’s the full story on BI)
How did he get on there?
Is he rich or something? Yes. Yes indeed.
That’s part of the beauty of online marketing.
This 21 year old kid has made hundreds of thousands of dollars, from his kitchen table.
No need for fame, magazine interviews, talk show visits or acting classes (you know, to act in a blockbuster movie).
Even though you have no clue who Chandler Bolt is, not only has he made tons of money, but he’s also helping others do the same.
His company, Self-Publishing School, helps people publish books on Amazon and make a living from it.
If you’re an introvert, that’s a cause to celebrate!
Less than 20 years ago, extroverts had way better chances of becoming rich and successful.
Why? It involved a ton of networking.
You had to hire employees and build a huge company or, for a career in arts, music, movies etc., get every person in your industry to know you.
While connections are still a huge deal, today you can get them right from your couch.
couch
(or from your living room floor, in my case)
As a single individual, you can build a huge business from the comfort of your home, after work, during your afternoons and on your weekends.
I don’t think I’m being overly dramatic when I say that online marketing is your shot at the life of your dreams.
Trust me, I would know 😉
I want you to have as much fun at work as these guys and I do. So, today I’ll introduce you to this world with my online marketing guide.
Note: Even if you’re deep down the rabbit hole already, you can still learn a ton of new things from the following examples.
Definition
If you’ve read my previous guide on digital marketing, you already know that it’s different.
Not every digital marketing campaign is automatically an online marketing effort.
According to TNMedia, online marketing is “…any tool, strategy or method of getting the company name out to the public. The advertisements can take many different forms and some strategies focus on subtle messages rather than clear-cut advertisements.”
Want the drop dead simple version of it?
Online marketing is any effort to spread the word about your company that uses the internet to reach people.
Basically, anything that you do online to get more eyeballs on you and grab people’s attention and, hopefully, at some point, get them to buy from you.
There are 7 major sub-categories of online marketing that I want to cover in this guide.
Overview
We’ve already talked about search engine optimization (SEO) and I showed you all of the important aspects of it that you have to get right.
Next to SEO, there’s search engine marketing (SEM), which is simply the paid version of SEO.
Marketers pay for displaying ads together with Google search results and hope to drive traffic, or rather interested people (=leads), to their product landing pages.
Then there’s content marketing, where marketers try to create valuable media and content and distribute it to potential future customers. This is the good guy version of online marketing, where you mostly try to guilt people into buying.
Of course you already know social media marketing, where you use one or several social media channels to engage with customers, build relationships and then send them to your products and services.
Pay per click advertising (or PPC) is similar to search engine marketing, but not limited to Google and its competitors. Most social media networks let you create ads that integrate naturally into their feeds, allowing you to pay for clicks to your website.
Affiliate marketing is a kind of referral marketing, where you share profits with fellow marketers, in exchange for promoting each other’s products.
And, finally, there’s email marketing, which is already considered old school, but is still one of the most effective channels. Once your customers have given you permission to contact them, you can email them at any time, providing value and asking them to buy when the time is right.
You can already guess how big online marketing really is, as you know how huge of a space each of these categories is, taken on its own.
I mean, just think about how many social media platforms you can name, off the top of your head.
Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, Instagram, Vine, Snapchat, Tumblr, Google+, Youtube, Periscope, LinkedIn, Meerkat, Blab, Reddit, StumbleUpon…
Okay, you get the point.
I want to give you a good grip on all of these categories, just like in our beginner’s guide, yet not drown you in the vast amounts of information that are out there.
That’s why, in each category, I’ll give you one example of someone who absolutely crushes it in their niche, along with some great points to help you get started.
Ready? Set. Go!
