To attract new customers to your business and compete in a competitive marketplace, online marketing is essential today. Even small and medium-sized businesses can implement effective marketing strategies with limited resources and budgets to target, convert and retain potential customers over the long term. Online marketing offers a wide range of approaches and tools to support these goals. In this article, we present some of these approaches and software solutions that are particularly worthwhile for small and medium-sized businesses.
Website optimization, SEO and SEA
Website: The digital business card of a company
Today, hardly any company can do without its own website. The corporate website acts as a digital business card and is often the first point of contact for information about the company and its offerings. It is therefore crucial that the website not only represents the company in an appealing way, but also meets the needs of the target group. This includes relevant and easy-to-find content. It is advisable to regularly check whether the website meets these requirements.
Google Analytics
A helpful tool for website optimization is Google Analytics, a powerful web analytics platform that provides detailed insights into traffic, user behavior, and website performance. With Google Analytics, you can track all website traffic, user navigation behavior, purchases, form submissions, and other activities. The dashboards and reports provided provide a comprehensive overview of website performance and highlight areas for improvement.
Companies are increasingly using their websites to publish high-quality content such as articles, case studies and illustrations. The aim is to convince prospects and customers of the company's competence through informative and high-quality content, rather than through intrusive advertising. However, for content marketing to be successful, it is crucial that the website and its content are found on the Internet. This is where search engine optimization (SEO) comes into play.
SEO
SEO, or search engine optimization, has the main goal of optimizing a website for search engines such as Google, Bing or Yahoo so that it ranks as high as possible in organic search results for relevant queries. Better placement in search results leads to more visibility, qualified traffic, and potential conversions and sales. SEO is a continuous process that involves several aspects, including keyword research to identify relevant search terms and the strategic use of those keywords in website content.
SEO also includes creating high-quality, relevant and informative content, technical aspects such as optimizing website structure, improving load times, implementing schema markup, and optimizing meta tags and URL structures. User-friendly website navigation and a positive mobile user experience are also crucial for successful SEO. Building high-quality backlinks, i.e. links from other trusted websites, contributes to the credibility and visibility of your website.
SEA
The paid equivalent of SEO is SEA, or search engine advertising. With SEA, companies can place ads that are placed above or next to the organic search results. These ads are usually created and placed via platforms such as Google Ads. The placement and visibility of the ads depend on various factors, including the bid, ad relevance, and the quality of the landing page.
Unlike SEO, where traffic is free, SEA incurs a cost per click (CPC) or cost per impression (CPM) for ads. SEA offers the advantage of instant visibility and control over ad placement, as companies can target specific keywords, locations, and audiences. Both SEO and SEA are important components of search engine marketing and can be used together to increase your website's online visibility and success. While SEO aims for long-term organic results, SEA offers the opportunity to generate immediate attention and traffic, but at a cost.
Social media
Another way to increase your company's visibility is to use social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn. Similar to content marketing on your own website, it's all about grabbing the attention of your target audience through informative articles, inspiring images, entertaining videos, and useful how-to guides to demonstrate your expertise. Sharing content allows companies to get their brand message out to a wide audience.
An important aspect of social media marketing is to actively interact with your target audience. Companies can respond to comments and messages, answer questions, and gather feedback. This enables direct communication with your followers and fosters a personal connection.
In addition, social media platforms such as Facebook offer the opportunity to run targeted ads. Companies can select their target group based on demographic characteristics, interests, and behaviors and precisely target their ads to this group. This allows them to maximize the effectiveness of their advertising efforts and target potential customers.
Social media marketing offers numerous benefits, including broad reach, the ability to get customer feedback, sharing of content by users (viral marketing), and fostering customer loyalty and trust. By using social media wisely, companies can strengthen their online presence, increase brand awareness, and build long-term relationships with customers.
Email marketing
Email marketing is a proven and effective means of staying in touch with (potential) customers, promoting products and services, and building and strengthening customer loyalty. It is a form of direct marketing in which e-mails are sent to a list of recipients to inform them about news, offers and relevant information, to market products and services or to strengthen customer loyalty.
Email marketing offers many advantages, especially for medium-sized companies: It is cost-efficient, can be tailored to the target group and enables direct contact with customers. If you think email marketing is tedious because you have to send emails individually, you're wrong. There are numerous tools that make email marketing easier for you and quickly bring measurable success.
KlickTipp
One such tool is KlickTipp. With its easy-to-use interface, even less tech-savvy users can effortlessly create and manage effective email campaigns. Automation features let you automate email communications, including autoresponders and workflow automation, to automatically send personalized emails based on your recipients' behavior and interactions. Another great benefit of KlickTipp is its comprehensive personalization. Emails can be customized and personalized by using recipient data to create tailored offers based on user behavior. By segmenting your email list, you can send targeted campaigns to specific audiences.
KlickTipp allows segmentation by demographics, interests, or buying behavior to deliver relevant content and tailored offers. It also offers extensive tracking and analytics capabilities. Companies can monitor metrics such as open rate, click rate, and conversion rate to measure and optimize the success of their email campaigns. These insights help to continuously improve the campaigns. Last but not least, KlickTipp helps companies comply with data protection regulations, especially the GDPR, to ensure that recipient consent is obtained and that privacy settings can be easily managed.
Brevo
Brevo (formerly Sendinblue) offers even more extensive functionality than KlickTipp. It is an all-in-one solution that brings together email marketing, SMS and WhatsApp marketing, chatbots and CRM systems in one platform. Creating email campaigns works similarly to KlickTipp with a drag-and-drop interface. Numerous templates and design elements are available, providing room for customization. Contact lists can be segmented to send personalized emails to specific customers.
The platform also supports marketing automation to automate recurring marketing tasks. Users can create automation workflows to send emails and messages based on user behavior to improve customer engagement. Extensive analytics tools can be used to accurately measure the success of marketing activities. Key metrics such as open rate, click rate and conversion rate can be tracked and used to optimize campaigns. A handy feature of Brevo is the ability to create landing pages and sign-up forms via a user-friendly drag-and-drop interface. This allows you to attract new contacts to your list, and it's also DSGVO compliant.
Tips
For successful online marketing, a well thought-out and structured approach is crucial, especially for companies with limited resources and budgets. The ZAMUK method, consisting of the steps goal, analysis, measure, implementation and control, has established itself as a helpful guide.
Conclusion
Online marketing is indispensable for attracting new customers and holding one's own in a highly competitive market. Even small and medium-sized businesses can implement effective marketing strategies with limited resources. Website optimization, SEO, SEA, social media and email marketing improve visibility, reach and customer loyalty. However, successful marketing always requires a planned approach. We are happy to help and advise you on which online marketing tools and strategies are best suited for your business. Simply book a Date with one of our experts.
English 
German