Online Marketing Concepts – Definition and Challenges

The emergence of new companies, including exciting product ranges, has no end. Over a million registrations annually happen, which are due to commercial or freelance self-employment. Appropriate planning is also necessary for online marketing concepts so that new ideas can also be sold.

Uncover the fundamental concepts of online marketing and understand the dynamic interplay between marketing and branding. Dive into the strategies, tools, and techniques that drive digital success and learn how to harness the power of Marketing Vs Branding for optimal results.

At the beginning of a company, in particular, the greatest challenge is probably the acquisition of a customer base. While in the past expensive advertising and large billboards made the difference, the selection of usable channels is now much broader and enables even lower budgets to meet demanding requirements. In the age of digitization, well-thought-out online marketing concepts are increasingly the first choice for this project.

The Essentials in Brief

• An online marketing concept is used to promote products and services. The advertising measures are used exclusively on the Internet.
• The creation of an online marketing concept requires special expertise. General knowledge of marketing, knowledge of applicable tools, and corresponding user skills are basic requirements.
• Before an online marketing concept is implemented, a sufficient planning phase is necessary. This should also include a self and market analysis as well as the formulation of goals.

Definition: What is an online marketing concept?

An online marketing concept is a strategic tool that can be used for existing and newly founded companies. It encompasses various sub-areas that serve to achieve selected goals. Parameters such as sales figures, target groups, and the like can be defined in this way. However, the special feature is the advertising tools used.

As part of an online marketing concept, advertising materials used exclusively over the Internet are used. Due to the increasing interest and growing market, a wide variety of possible instruments can be used here. With these options, industries that may be less likely to advertise posters or newspapers can target their products and services to potential end-users.

Counselor: Questions you should ask yourself before you think about online marketing concepts

The creation of an online marketing concept cannot or should not be initiated without answering important questions. In order to provide you with a better understanding of this, we will then go into a little more detail on key areas of focus in this context.

What knowledge do you have to create an online marketing concept?

Basically, you can get online marketing concepts up and running relatively quickly. Choosing a few tools, placing advertisements, and starting individual campaigns does not take up any time – if you do this without the relevant expertise.

As soon as you have the necessary knowledge, you will sit in front of the screen for much longer and ponder suitable strategies. Before starting, you should polish up your knowledge in the following aspects:

Knowing about marketing channels:

In order to create the right online marketing concept, the selection of the right channels is a basic requirement. However, if you only know a limited selection of options, this may be more difficult than necessary. With mere knowledge, you will not get very far. You will only be able to lay the foundation for a successful strategy if you have sufficient knowledge of the strengths and weaknesses of the respective tools.

Basic knowledge of online marketing:

In online marketing, a risk management approach is vital. Understand your target audience, competition, and market dynamics. Implement strategies cautiously, monitor outcomes, and adapt to changes. Stay proactive to tackle challenges and ensure your online marketing efforts lead to success.

Not only as an offline marketer but also as an internet strategist, you are dependent on the basic cornerstones of marketing. What is meant by the marketing mix is ​​just as important as knowledge of other forms of marketing? In order to be successful with your own concept, you should also be familiar with the difference between marketing and advertising.

Hard skills:

Even if you know a lot about marketing channels, you also need user knowledge. Maintaining regular customer contact primarily includes emails. Dealing with the necessary program, for example for sending newsletters, is therefore an important prerequisite.

The operation of a so-called “Customer Relationship Management” program should ideally appear under “Skills” in your CV. If you want to use the tools of the channels you have chosen yourself, the same applies here: the mode of operation should not be unknown territory for you.

Soft skills:

Mastering various software and marketing tools is only really effective if you have the right feeling. It is particularly important to be able to proceed analytically correctly. If you want to find out the needs of your target market or evaluate the mistakes of an unsuccessful campaign, the right answers must be available. This step is basically due to a few sub-sections, which we will describe to you in more detail below.

Read our detail article “Marketing Strategies to Find Coaching or Consulting Clients” 

What are the requirements for implementing an online marketing concept?

Before throwing the idea of ​​an online marketing concept into the room, you need to take a closer look at the current presence of your company. Before the actual planning, the following aspects are very important

Self-analysis

In order to create promising online marketing concepts, the situation of your own company must first be analyzed. The first step is to clarify your own market position. How you assert yourself in direct competition and what impression your target group has of you is essential.

In this combination, business analysis is also important. Sales, profits, contribution margins but also data on your delivery system are important parts of this analysis.

Take special consideration of market psychological aspects. Your company’s image may not match positive numbers. If this is the case, in-depth research may be necessary.

“In the context of self-analysis, the so-called “SWOT” method has also proven to be useful.”

The strengths and weaknesses of the company are contrasted with possible opportunities and risks of the desired market environment. Due to the narrow concentration of these factors, you can answer the following questions much more easily:

• How can our strengths be used optimally or even better?
• What important measures to compensate for our weaknesses?
• Which steps are suitable for the current and future situation of the company?
• Which challenges of the target market affect my company in particular?

Competitor analysis

Not only your own environment but also important to examine your potential competitors for possible strengths and weaknesses.

Two to three direct competitors, who can demonstrate ideal benchmarks in various areas, need to be examined more closely. Ideally, you won’t miss a single channel used by these competitors. Possible strengths, but also weaknesses, of those companies, can often be seen very clearly at first glance.

This includes the website, channels on social media, and also entries in industry-specific portals. Selected analysis tools such as “Similarweb” can also determine whether the competition has used paid search or advertising ads for its strategies. checkout Five Steps To The Perfect Competition Analysis.

Define goals

Creating an online marketing concept won’t do you much good if you don’t specify the desired effects in advance. In this step, it is important to be particularly thorough or detailed. When formulating your goals, you can also use the so-called “SMART” formula.

• Specific: At what points should optimizations take place? Is it primarily about sales or is it about acquiring new customer segments?
• Measurable: To what extent should changes take place? Is the desired increase in sales by 10% or 15%? 
• Acceptance: Do the employees agree with the goals? Is the necessary manpower available? Do I need another specialist or two?
• Realistic: can the goals actually be implemented? Do I ask myself and my employees too much?
• Scheduled: When do we start the campaign? At what time should evaluations take place? When does which section begin and end? When is the campaign completely over?

Taking this approach into account, there are various options for which an online marketing concept can be created.

Above all, economic goals such as acquiring new customers, triggering follow-up purchases, and increasing the market share should occur in the planning phase. But you cannot miss out on goals that are less connected to economic aspects.

Ask yourself whether you want to make the following changes, for example:

• Make the positioning of your company more visible
• Present important information about a new product
• Increase your awareness of social media
• Collect information about your customers
• Create transparency about the processes of your company

Formulating goals is also about who you would ideally like to address. To do this, create fictional people who roughly represent your target group. Factors such as age, gender, interests, occupation, or even the living situation or previous health problems should not be missing.

In this way, you can better find out in which channels you best address potential customers. In order to obtain usable data here, it is also useful to orientate yourself to previous entries in your customer database.

Create Topics

After completion of your analysis and goal selection, it is time to start. Specific statements based on these findings are the key to a frequently completed “customer journey”.

Using so-called topic blocks, you should summarize your products and the strengths of your company. Ideally, your sales messages should combine both factors.

Not only the special features of the product but also the expertise of your company clearly emerges from the messages conveyed.

Cost planning

Online marketing concepts can be relatively expensive. For this reason, it is important that you set a maximum amount before choosing appropriate funds. You should weigh up your own interests and the resources of your company and ask yourself how much your goals are ultimately worth to you.

As soon as you have chosen the advertising measures, the focus should be on the variants that you hope to achieve the most success with.

What steps are required to create an online marketing concept?

As soon as the analytical aspects have been fully implemented, you can finally start implementing your concept. The technical, necessary aspects not only serve to create advertising material.

Bring the website into shape

certain sub-steps are necessary if you found your own website during specific product research. However, before turning around cocky, an understanding of the potential customer who is looking should be created. For this purpose, a so-called “keyword research” is the best way.

In this way, you can improve your product searches. They provide the basis for adapting your website.

Important required aspects:

In this context, already use the first tool. Changes to the website should in principle reflect the desired content but also meet the requirements of search engines such as “Google” and Co. As part of search engine optimization, various aspects are required, which you must take into account:

• Required security: By using an SSL certificate, you signal that security is very important to you. 
• Mobile optimization: So that your website is as high as possible in search results, the criteria for mobile use must also be right. In addition, create a version of your website that meets the requirements of these devices.
• Onpage optimization: The components on your website should be chosen carefully. Multimedia content such as videos is just as important as internal links and also useful metadata.
• Loading speed: If the page takes too long, not only the user experience is clouded. Search engines also tend to rank such websites below. When selecting multimedia content, you should, therefore, proceed carefully and as effectively as possible.

However, these subsections represent only a few of the many factors that are necessary for the best possible search engine ranking. However, the largest player “Google”, for example, provides answers to specific questions with its regularly updated guidelines.

Maintenance of the website also includes content analysis. If there are still missing content or landing pages that should lead to the sale of your products, you have to take care of the setup. Since search engine algorithms evaluate the usefulness of the content so you should not proceed halfheartedly.

Create accounts

If you have decided which social media or tools are used to achieve the goals, their use must also be guaranteed. If you register your company on “Facebook”, “Twitter” or similar platforms, you should follow the same requirements in terms of content as for your website. Here, however, the presentation must be correct. Those platforms can also be used as a springboard to landing pages on your website.

Select tools and secure usage

Now that you have all the necessary information and requirements for the implementation, the time has finally come. Only select the right tools for the implementation.  Apart from search engine optimization and paid advertising on social media, there are also:

• Search engine advertising: Paid search ads on “Google” and Co.
• Display advertising: advertisements in the form of images on various websites
• E-mail marketing: communication with existing customers and sending out to acquire new customers
• Video marketing: advertising in video format on websites such as “YouTube”, “Dailymotion”, etc.
• Influencer Marketing: Partnership with internet personalities who have the greatest possible reach.

To be able to implement your campaign accordingly, suitable tools or software must be selected. Since there are several offers in many areas, it makes sense to take advantage of possible test periods. Before you set up your ads and start the campaign, you can take this step in terms of effectiveness and cost planning. As previously indicated, the maximum expenditure for each sub-aspect must be determined before the campaign starts.

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What opportunities and challenges does the creation of online marketing concepts entail?

The chances of online marketing concepts mainly relate to the accessibility of the customers. Due to the constantly increasing versatility and optimization of the various tools, there is an opportunity to address customers more and more specifically. Although “programmatic advertising” already allows very special displays in this context, this aspect will certainly take on even more detailed forms. Another opportunity is to link with “offline” elements. QR codes on product packages and similar approaches enable customers to be addressed more directly or more interactively.

“A major challenge when creating online marketing concepts is the fast pace of the digital world.”

New approaches such as voice-controlled search are constantly presenting websites with new challenges. Furthermore, you always have to stay on the ball with regard to the given framework. Search engines such as “Google” continuously adjust their specifications and therefore have to be checked continuously during your campaign for timely adjustments.

“Digitization: definition, challenges, studies”

How can an online marketing concept be subsequently optimized?

Proper control is essential to implementing an online marketing concept. Analysis programs such as “Google Analytics” allow you to determine whether you have achieved your desired key figures or can still achieve them. Those programs show factors such as daily traffic to your website and average shopping basket sizes in combination with your products. Such control must therefore always be in place before, during, and after the campaign.

Conclusion

An online marketing concept these days can target just about any corporate goal as specific as possible. The number of possible instruments is growing steadily and their accuracy leaves fewer and fewer wishes unfulfilled. However, the strategic design is accordingly more extensive than analog advertising measures. The implementation will, therefore, take significantly more time.