When you hear “online marketing” it sounds super simple - just promote your organization online, right? Then it’s time to actually do it and suddenly you feel over your head. It’s a totally valid feeling and you’re not alone there! Let’s figure it out together, shall we? First we need to figure out what “online” means, which is the easiest part, then we figure out what kind of online presence you already have, and finally we can make a plan to start marketing online in a way that makes sense for your unique organization.
If you have to open a web browser, it’s online. There! Done! I told you it’d be easy! So let’s skip on to your web presence:
- Your email address
- Your social media platforms
- Your website
- Your blog or any third-party websites that you actively direct your audience/customers/donors to in place of a website
- Search engine results that return your organization
That wasn’t so bad, nothing shocking or unexpected on the list. You’re probably even saying, “duh!” right now. So let’s get down to the nitty gritty, starting with your email address:
Your email address
Almost everyone has an email address, and it’s the backbone of email marketing - it’s why you’re here with Constant Contact! You collect email addresses and then you send those contacts content that you think they’ll like and engage with. Your content promotes your goods/services/cause and with the help of our beautiful, pre-designed templates and maybe even a bit of our AI content generator, you’re getting sales and donations. You want your email address to be recognizable, so it’s great if you own your own custom domain (think leigh@sewingstudio.com and not sewingstudioleigh@gmail.com), but if you’re just starting out and aren’t ready yet, you can still carry on with email marketing and verify a new email address later. Getting your own domain is ideal, and is going to be evidence that you’re growing and becoming more reputable. (It might even make your original pre-domain contacts feel a little smug that they were there with you on the ground floor.)
Your social media platforms
Whether you have a website or not, social media is a way to reach a large audience very quickly and easily. You set up an account and then you start posting to engage your friends and followers. You can create and share social posts through your Constant Contact account (our AI content generator is there to help too!), and include links to your social media profiles in your emails. When you send your emails, you can even share the email on Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn too. If you have your own website, you can share your domain in a post and link it in the bio or “about us” section of your social profile. If you don’t have your own website, you can create a landing page to share instead! We have a few different kinds, one for collecting new sign-ups (and it’s SMS compatible!), one that you can customize with whatever content you want: a mini website, a list of different ways to connect with you, a pitch for your sales or donation campaign, you name it, and one for surveys.
This is a good start, but the people you’re engaging with on social media aren’t really your contacts, and you don’t have much control over how you can market to them because they haven’t given you permission to contact them through email or SMS. It’s time to start working with social media advertising. We’ve got two types of Facebook and Instagram ads, one for collecting new sign-ups, and one that you can use to point people to your website or a carefully designed landing page. Bonus points if your website or landing page has an opt-in mechanism for your contact list! Ads let you target the demographics that matter most to your organization, and set a budget. Small budgets can do big things here! In short,paying for ads has a further reach towards your target audience than you can ever get when you create posts on your own, even if you post multiple times a day.
Your website or your blog and third-party sites
If you don’t have an official web address yet:
It’s okay not to have your own website when you’re first starting out. They can be expensive until you can justify the cost, but they also add tons of weight behind your web presence, and the cost will eventually be worth it. In the meantime, our sign-up, custom, and survey landing pages that you can create and share. Each page can be customized based on the unique audience where you’re planning on sharing it, and the URL for each page can also be customized to add some branding. Then when you’re ready, you can move onto purchasing your own domain! (Don’t give up on landing pages completely though - they can be handy even when you have a website!)
If you have your own website with a custom domain:
Your website is a powerful asset! It officially represents your organization in the online space and you have total control over everything from how it looks, how you navigate it, and what kind of messaging you share. It goes without saying that your URL can be shared in your emails and social posts, but since your website is also found organically by others, it’s a great place to embed sign-up forms to further grow your contact list.
Search engine results
So far you’ve been doing all the heavy lifting. You’re creating content and sharing it, you’re leveraging your online presence to drive traffic to your sign-up form, you’re managing your brand’s web presence. Now it’s time to boost your online search rankings using SEO tools and Google Ads, and you have come to the right place! We can scan your website and give you some tips to best optimize your website so that it shows up more often in search results. We’ve also partnered with Kliken so you can purchase targeted ads that appear to Google search users based on their location and keyword search terms.
Ok, that’s a lot of words. Probably more than you were expecting for a “simple” question. But I hope they make online marketing not feel so scary and give you a good idea of the tools you have to work with as you grow. Now it’s your turn! Tell us how you dipped your toes into the waters of online marketing - we want to hear all the trials, tribulations, obstacles, and of course, and most importantly, the successes! What worked for you? What did you grow into? What surprised you? We’d love to hear from you!
