"What are the different ways to market online?"
This depends on the business, the complexity of the offering and the cost as these variables may eliminate certain options below. When deciding, it's important to remember that revenue generation determines whether the investment is justified.
Take a look:
- SEO (search engine optimization) - Organic traffic that finds you with high quality relevant and targeted content appropriate to your offering.
- PPC (pay per click advertising) - Includes anything from Google Adwords (most expensive, most relevant and most human traffic), banner ads, pop-up ads, affiliate networks (networks that have affiliates that have influence over traffic with certain demographic criteria they advertise to)
- Social Media Marketing (LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, PInterest, Instagram, Periscope, YouTube, Vevo, Vimeo) - Generating content on a regular and frequent basis targeted at the appropriate audience with the intent to drive traffic immediately to their website or build a following first and have the traffic trickle through as it grows.
- Intelligence / Rating Platforms (G2Crowd, ITCentral Station, Cloudswave, Quora) - Providing questions and opinions to common questions pertaining to tools and solutions. This provides an opportunity for the individual / entity to showcase their value.
- Forum posting (same premise as intelligence platforms)
- Blogging (on platforms or hosted on your own site) - Generate content showcasing value to a relevant audience on a relevant topic to the offering.
- Freelancer platforms (Upworks, Guru, PeoplePerHour, Freelancer) - Bid on projects currently available as it relates to a variety of business needs (writing, technology, sales, marketing and more)
- Whitepapers / Ebooks - Intent is to create downloadable content of value with the exchange of acquiring email information.
- Email marketing - Market to a list you have created and grown with the intent to get them more familiar with your value or stay top of mind for existing customers to generate repeat / referral business.
- Cold Email Marketing - Called SPAM, but people still do it. Sending unsolicited messages to people who don't know you and if you are smart to people that your message may be relevant to.
- Webinars / Videos / Vlogs (video blogging) - These may or may not be hosted on social platforms but provide a visual opportunity to connect with content.
- Podcasts - An opportunity to provide audio content regularly to grow a following with the intent to sell them greater value content later.
- App stores (Itunes, Google Store, E-Commerce App stores) - Provide either free, trial or paid subscription offerings on a platform in exchange for a revenue share agreement to be on the platform.
- Native Advertising - This is where you pay someone that has a following to do a piece that is disguised as news or content but is actually content designed to advertise an offering. In essence, it's a way to advertise without people knowing they are advertised to since when done well, it's really difficult to tell the difference. Very effective when done properly.
Anyway, it's entirely possible I missed some avenues and advertising is such a dynamic space, but overall I believe this provides a comprehensive perspective.
Remember, marketing begins with a proper strategy.