From Marketing to Web Marketing. What changes and how to act.

[mdabuhasan]

Let's talk about the evolution from the old marketing that was based on paper, word of mouth and references to the current one that starts with the internet and all the tools related to the web. Everything changes and in this article we try to explain how marketing has evolved and how to act.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Before web marketing and marketing, we use referrals and word of mouth.
5 Ways to Leverage Web Marketing
1. Acquire every signal
2. Follow market trends
3. Evolution of marketing
4. Understand the motivations behind a search
5. How to act
Conclusions
Before web marketing and marketing, we use referrals and word of mouth.
Web marketing was born after references and word of mouth.

These 2 marketing channels were born at the dawn of marketing and have been widely used since the beginning, very often providing excellent results to companies and traders.

Over the last 2 decades, with the spread of the Internet, websites, search whatsapp number list engines and above all the simplification of the ways to obtain information, prices and contacts, several others have been added to the historical channels.

A new branch of marketing was thus born, commonly called web marketing .

Web marketing does not replace traditional marketing, but rather supports it, increasing its potential.

Many people make a distinction between online and offline, but in fact they are both one and the same thing: simply “marketing”.

Web marketing has added new communication channels through all those advertising and customer care activities that have developed thanks to the Internet and new electronic tools.

In numbers, it must be said that today web marketing has ousted traditional marketing in many sectors because it offers access to a much larger audience of potential customers (theoretically with global coverage) and because it offers various possibilities for interaction with the consumer both before and after the purchase.

The ease of access to information and improvements in the visibility of each of us has also brought a downside: it has in fact caused the lowering of barriers to entry which, thanks to lower entry costs, has given many ease of access and therefore competition.

Today many entrepreneurs could exploit the potential offered by web marketing, but only a few decide to really focus on it.

Today, standing out is more complex than before, so even though it may seem counterintuitive, to achieve good results you are sometimes forced to spend more than before.

Thanks to new communication tools and the spread of the Internet, smartphones and PCs, leadership in every sector (even at a local or neighbourhood level in the case of small local businesses) has been put into crisis because the rules of the game have effectively changed.

Those who were previously chasing may have had the intuition and ability to anticipate the competition or have discovered that they are better at exploiting the potential of new tools, becoming the best option for potential new customers.

Web marketing has effectively changed the rules of engagement, increasing the number of competitors but also the potential for new customers.

5 Ways to Leverage Web Marketing
Below we try to summarize in 5 short steps some small strategies to ride the wave of change offered by web marketing.

1. Acquire every signal
New web channels have increased the tools available, but people have not changed: their needs, motivations and purchasing methods are always the same, while only the approaches and methods of acquiring information have changed.

It therefore becomes important to listen and acquire every signal we receive from our customers, using the new tools before others and trying to better understand the information that the new tools available offer us.

For example, asking for and listening to our customers' reviews (verbal or written online) is an excellent tool to improve the defects of our business and modify our work in the direction of market and customer demands.

2. Follow market trends
One of the great potentials that the network offers is that of acquiring information on market trends and therefore of having an immediate vision of how to move to obtain the best results.

For example, the evolution of the web has led to several trends that have favored those who were able to read them in advance.

To give some examples, great results have been achieved by those who:

in 1997 it opened its first website;
in 2002 he opened his own e-commerce;
in 2004 he started selling on eBay;
in 2005 he started using Google Ads (formerly Adwords);
in 2006 he opened his own YouTube channel;
in 2008 he started developing an iOS mobile application for iPhone;
in 2009 he opened his own Facebook page;
in 2009 he started practicing funnel strategies on Facebook and created an automatic marketing with the sale of scalable products (for example video courses);
in 2012 he started developing new concepts for websites by creating them as single and complete landing pages so that each single page contains everything needed to convert;
in 2014 it made its website responsive and therefore accessible from mobile;
In 2015 it started using SSL security protocols on its websites (today, sites without SSL display the words “not secure”).

These are just a few examples of opportunities that web marketing has created thanks to the evolution of the market (smartphones, social networks, reduction of contracts for smartphones and increase of monthly GB for surfing the internet) and those who approached the new tool in the initial phase were certainly able to obtain better results.

Those who move when the instrument is already mature, saturated and widespread, risk finding a wall of competitors and very few opportunities for success.

3. Evolution of marketing
Today the consumer is more emancipated and can acquire a large amount of information in a very short time. Thanks to online searches, it seems that he already knows everything even before asking us.

Our customer has plenty of choice, he jumps from one supplier to another in a couple of clicks, in just 3 seconds he will decide whether or not to continue on our website (and we will have to be good at letting him know quickly if he is in the right place: for more information see the creation of premium websites ).

He has also developed dozens of automatisms so that he does not believe the usual clichés, does not consider offers excessive, is allergic to newsletter subscription popups that appear after 5 seconds, gets irritated if he does not immediately find what he is looking for.

4. Understand the motivations behind a search
To help our potential customer choose us , we need to adapt to their needs, responding appropriately to their perceived needs.

So we have to try to intercept who is looking for us and understand how to solve the problem that the consumer has at that moment. Some searches can be informative, that is, the customer is not yet ready to buy and is browsing to understand how to solve their problem.

Responses to informational searches can take the form of a blog post, a video tutorial, an ebook, or simply a brochure that outlines the benefits and features of a product or service.

Other searches can be of a more advanced type in which the customer is already ready to purchase and is therefore evaluating which supplier offers the best solution: in this phase the consumer relies on the knowledge acquired in the information phase and therefore tends to choose a product or service whose characteristics he has already been able to verify.

The final stage, where the fruits of the sowing are reaped, are transactional searches in which the customer is ready to purchase.

He may do the final research to evaluate options and prices, but he will probably always give priority to those suppliers whose qualities he has already learned to appreciate in previous searches.

This is because he needs to feel more confident about the purchase, so he will definitely focus on those who have offered him more information and trust.

5. How to act
While previously we were forced to wait for the customer to intercept us, today we must be the ones to be found , trying to demonstrate right away that we are better than our competitors.

We must be prepared and give the potential customer all the information and confidence he needs even before meeting him, so that he can understand and reassure himself before purchasing or contacting us.

The rest is up to us using our proven sales strategy , with the only difference that it will be more effective if updated to current market tools and trends , then trying to operate in a more digital way than before.

Conclusions
Marketing and web marketing must therefore evolve, indeed they are in continuous and constant evolution. They are different than 5 years ago and will change again in the next 5. Today they can no longer be product-centric but must be friend-centric.

We must no longer treat customers as buyers but think of them first as friends. We must give advice, help them in their choices, without improvising, having the courage to say "no, I'm sorry but I don't have the characteristics to solve your problem".

You have to earn their respect, you have to not disappoint them, and you have to dedicate time to them even if they don't buy. Maybe we can only earn a "like" or a review, which seems like little, but in today's connected world it is almost worth a gold nugget.

Web marketing today is very powerful, but also more “dangerous” so we will also have to be good at taking care of our reputation because if the web can give us 10, in the same way it can also take away 100.

In the next chapter we will talk about 6 digital marketing tools you should know about where I will describe how they can help you improve your goals.