If you’ve heard of digital marketing and are unsure of what internet marketing could possibly be, don’t worry: they’re quite similar with just one slight difference. While digital marketing encompasses marketing strategies that use both online and offline technologies, internet marketing focuses on just the online side of marketing using the internet.
This subset of digital marketing has one main objective: building an online presence for a brand, promoting their products or services to various audiences. As you know, digital marketing uses strategies beyond the internet to meet business goals, but today, we’re going to focus on internet marketing and how these specific strategies can help your company.
Digital Marketing vs. Internet Marketing
Before we get any deeper into internet marketing itself, let’s clarify exactly what separates internet marketing from digital marketing. Both include marketing efforts such as email marketing, PPC advertising, SEO, content marketing, social media advertising, and web design, but digital marketing also encompasses TV ads, digital billboards, radio spots, and SMS texts, while internet marketing does not.
As with basically any comparison within marketing, the exact right choice for you will depend on your specific needs; make sure you carefully determine your business goals and objectives to create the right marketing plan for your business.
Types of Internet Marketing
As we mentioned above, there are various types of marketing that fall under the sphere of internet marketing; let’s take a look at a few and see if any resonate with you and your goals:
Content marketing focuses on creating valuable content like blogs and videos to attract and engage the target audience, ultimately driving brand awareness and conversions.
Social media marketing utilizes platforms such as Instagram and LinkedIn to connect with audiences, manage brand presence, and foster community engagement.
SEO marketing seeks to optimize content for search engines to increase website visibility and drive organic traffic.
Product marketing involves promoting and positioning products to meet customer needs and ensure successful launches.
Paid marketing manages paid advertisements on search engines and social platforms to increase visibility and generate leads.
Email marketing focuses on building targeted campaigns to engage customers directly through personalized email content and drive conversions.
With a better understanding of the possible paths within internet marketing, let’s discuss how internet marketing differs from traditional marketing and why each of these differences brings a positive effect on your overall marketing strategy.
Internet marketing mediums
As you can tell from our list above, there are quite a few options available to you when it comes to choosing a medium to promote your brand. And the best part about using internet marketing techniques is that you can use demographic targeting on different mediums to specifically target the audiences you’re trying to reach on each medium.
In traditional marketing or even digital marketing outside the internet when using mediums such as billboards, it’s much more difficult to target a specific audience, meaning you could be limiting yourself by reaching the wrong audience or not being able to find new ones.
Internet marketing costs
Using internet marketing is an overall cheaper way to reach audiences than traditional techniques, which can help you both save money and have more money to spend on targeting specific audiences or creating innovative content.
Internet marketing tracking
Tracking internet marketing campaigns is very easy and straightforward, which is very important for checking how your campaigns are doing. With tracking, you can see the following data:
Impressions: how many people saw your content on their feed
Clicks: how many people clicked on your content and went to your website
Conversions: how many people who saw your content became customers
Demographics: how many people from specific demographics interacted with your content
With this information, you can see exactly what content is resonating with your audience, what audiences are seeing your content, and what qualities successful content has. And while campaign tracking is possible with traditional marketing or offline digital marketing techniques, it’s much more difficult, expensive, and time-consuming to remain constantly aware of how your content is performing.
The Benefits of Using Internet Marketing
As you can see, having a clear understanding of your content’s performance, the audience you’re reaching, and what’s working can be incredibly beneficial when it comes to optimizing your marketing efforts. In addition, there are other benefits of internet marketing that shouldn’t be overlooked:
Internet marketing reaches global audiences: in the era of internet marketing, there is truly no limit to the reach your brand can have. With the ability to reach audiences across the world and even target specific groups for specific products, company expansion has never been easier.
Internet marketing is further advanced by user interaction: your marketing campaigns can be promoted even further–and by no effort of your own–through creating a strong internet presence with loyal customers. Online, customers can share your content, engage with the brand, and ask questions–spreading the word about your brand at no additional cost or effort to you.
Internet marketing is no longer just an option—it’s a necessity for businesses looking to thrive in today’s competitive landscape. With its cost-effectiveness, ability to target specific audiences, and capacity for real-time tracking, internet marketing offers unique advantages over traditional methods.
Whether you’re aiming to expand globally or deepen connections with your local audience, embracing these strategies will help you stay ahead of the curve and achieve your business goals. Now is the time to harness the power of the internet and propel your brand to new heights.
If you're looking to enhance your skills in digital marketing, check out Ironhack’s Digital Marketing Bootcamp to get started today!
Further Resources
📰What’s the Difference Between Paid and Organic Marketing
📰Debunking Myths: The Most Surprising Things About Working in Marketing
📰 Top 7 Benefits of Working in Digital Marketing
📰 Learn Digital Marketing with Ironhack’s new Bootcamp
📰 The Rise of Internet Marketing: Why Every Business Needs Digital Marketing Services
About the Author:
Juliette Carreiro is a tech writer, with two years of experience writing in-depth articles for Ironhack. Covering everything from career advice and navigating the job ladder, to the future impact of AI in the global tech space, Juliette is the go-to for Ironhack’s community of aspiring tech professionals.
