How do you know what platforms and types of online marketing are right for your business? What does each of them really do? And how much is too much? These questions and many more keep new online marketers awake at night. This session will try to answer them to some satisfaction. The truth of the matter is, though, that every business is unique, as is every business owner. Marketing is an organic, living thing, and trying to put it in a box or template doesn’t work. What works today may not tomorrow. What works for me may not for you. The best way we can think of to answer your questions and get your feet on the right path is to ask you more questions. The answers to those will help answer the others. Let’s begin, shall we?

1.)    What is your target audience? Who are your customers? What customers do you want to attract? Knowing the answer to this will take you a long way in online marketing. Some sites, such as Facebook and YouTube, are relatively easy to use and have a wide, general audience of all ages and groups. Twitter and Reddit, however, tend to cater to the trendier, younger crowd. Pay per click campaigns like AdSense can cost a good bit of money, but when aimed at the right audience, can have great benefits. Social media marketing is mostly free, but can have much slower returns. You need to know who you want to reach, and how you want to reach them. Answer that, and you’re on your way to beginning your online marketing career.

2.)    Do you really need a website, or will a blog-site do? Blog sites are blog based websites, like you see with Blogger and WordPress. The site IS the blog and the blog IS the site, essentially. These can be easier and cheaper to establish and maintain. However, if you have a large catalog od product, or want product and not content front and center, then a traditional website may be what you need. Both are now seen as an acceptable choice for business, so there’s no stigma for having one and not the other. What’s more important is knowing where and how to build your online home.

3.)    What’s your budget? Some forms of online marketing can get quite pricey, like Pay Per Click and banner ads. However,social media marketing is typically free. The drawback is that you have to do the marketing yourself. So, perhaps hiring an online marketing or social media marketing professional might be more reasonable, if not for your budget, than for your sanity. Next question, slightly related, is whether you can run a successful campaign on your chosen platforms with the budget you have. Blogsites are typically cheaper than traditional ones, social is cheaper than paid advertising, but will it do the job you need it to do?

4.)    What’s your limit? Doing it all yourself can get pretty time consuming. However, certain platforms can only take minutes a day. Or you can find yourself devoting an entire day or afternoon each week to your marketing endeavors and enjoying it. You won’t know the answer to this one until you’ve tried it, but it’s a great learning experience for the future, I can assure you. You have limits – mental, physical, emotional – as well as time and money, and you won’t know how much is too much until you’ve reached that point, unfortunately. But once you do, you’ll have a base line to work from and you’ll have a clearer picture of just what you’re capable of doing.

http://www.advertisingblender.com/online-marketing-103-choosing-whats-right/