Internet Marketing: Definition, Types, and Strategy

These days, so much of marketing happens online that the phrase “internet marketing” feels almost redundant.

While outdoor advertising and in-person events can still be highly effective (Heyday Canning Co. and HATCH have both had success with the latter), it’s tough to launch a business without a serious internet marketing strategy. Events generating buzz do so in part because attendees shared their experiences on social media.

In this article, we’ll provide an overview of some of the most popular types of digital marketing with real-life examples from business owners and marketers who use them successfully.

What is internet marketing?

Internet marketing is the promotion of goods or services online, including on social media platforms, websites, and search engines, and via email. Promotion can range from digital advertising to organic content.

Content marketing vs. traditional advertising

In the past, most marketing consisted of buying ad space in publications and on TV billboards. Traditional marketing tactics can still be effective, but costly, and there’s no guarantee that potential customers will actually see your ad.

Content marketing is a type of internet marketing that focuses on creating and sharing engaging content on digital channels to attract and retain customers. High-quality content marketing comes in many forms, such as blog posts, infographics, videos, images, and helpful guides.

Content marketing is a long-term digital strategy that can take months or even years to produce results. But, when done right, it can be a very effective way to grow your business.

Types of internet marketing strategies

• Social media marketing
• Influencer marketing
• Email marketing
• Content marketing
• SEO
• Online advertising

An effective online marketing strategy includes efforts across multiple digital platforms. Here are a few different types of internet marketing to consider:

Social media marketing

Social media marketing involves promoting your business on social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and X. There are lots of ways to leverage these platforms, including creating your own content (organic social media marketing), partnering with influencers, and buying ads.

Skin care brand Dieux built a loyal following with its short-form videos created by cofounder Charlotte Palermino and shared on both Instagram and TikTok. Charlotte recommends creating your own social media content if you have a limited marketing budget.

“If you are starting a company and you don’t come from money and you don’t have that institutional money, get scrappy,” Charlotte says on Shopify Masters. “It’s incredible what you can do and build on your own. TikTok, for example, is like free marketing if you can figure it out.”

Rather than chasing the latest social media trends, Charlotte suggests focusing on your brand story.

“Algorithms are really fickle, so you have to stay on point with your storytelling,” Charlotte says. “For Dieux, it’s always about telling stories.”

Charlotte says one of Dieux’s most viral videos is one in which she discusses the environmental impacts of different types of product packaging.

“It’s just like a five-minute video about plastic and aluminum, and it’s doing incredibly well because it’s about storytelling,” she says.

Charlotte’s genuine interest in these topics comes through in her posts, which helps Dieux connect with its customers and increase brand awareness. She recommends creating content about something that you feel passionate about.

“If you feel like you could just talk about something for 10 minutes, then make a video on it and try to cut it down to two.”

Influencer marketing

When making purchasing decisions, shoppers tend to trust other people more than they trust advertisements. Influencer marketing can take many forms, such as partnering with a celebrity to create a limited-edition version of your product or sponsoring posts from a creator with a loyal following among your target audience.

Rachel Karten, social media consultant and author of the newsletter Link in Bio, suggests small businesses work with creators who have a standard format or recurring series.

“It’s a lot easier to plug into something that already gets views and that the audience is already obsessed with,” Rachel says.

CAVA, a fast-casual Mediterranean restaurant chain Rachel works with, used that strategy to partner with Sabrina Brier, a creator known for her relatable skits about friendship. “We worked with her and it was sort of like ‘the friend who gossips during the lunch break,’” Rachel says. “You can just plug into her style as opposed to trying something new or asking them to do something that their audience doesn’t really know them for.”

Affiliate marketing is similar to influencer marketing but has a different payment model. While influencers are typically paid a flat rate per post, affiliates who feature your product are paid by sales or by clicks when they refer customers to your site.

Email marketing

When a customer signs up for your email list, that gives you a direct channel to speak to them, which is why email marketing is one of the most popular types of internet marketing.

“I love email as a marketing channel,” Curt Nichols, Glade Optics founder and CEO, says on Shopify Masters. “Any time you have a channel like that—where you own the relationship with the customer, and you’re not reliant on a third party to get your message out—is always beneficial.”

The trick with email marketing is standing out in a crowded email inbox.

For Glade, what worked were very simple emails—“the body of the email is plain text, no photos, maybe one or two hyperlinks”—sent directly from the founder. “The email comes in looking like it’s an email from a friend or a family member,” Curt says.

“It’s a great way for me to develop relationships with people in our ecosystem. On top of that, ESPs [email service providers] actually recognize those emails as closer to friends and family emails, versus those from a brand.”

But he didn’t just dive into this type of email marketing on a whim; Curt conducted A/B testing to see which types of emails resonated with customers. Additionally, Curt sends a more traditionally branded welcome series of emails to new subscribers. The plain-text emails are for customers who are already familiar with the brand.

Content marketing

Content marketing is a digital marketing strategy that includes the creation and distribution of valuable content online to attract and engage potential customers. This can include social media, but more often it refers to a brand’s own blog, where you can share stories and case studies related to your products, industry, and other topics your customers may be interested in.

Content marketing can be an effective tool for educating and engaging with your customers, and it can attract a larger audience to your site when paired with a strong SEO strategy. Content marketing isn’t just a way to get new audiences to your website. It can also support existing customers.

Bicycle and outdoor gear company Retrospec publishes content ranging from tips for charging an electric bike to how-to guides for conducting a tune-up and fixing a flat tire.

“We’re using our guide center as a resource to educate our customers and make sure the post-purchase experience is one that’s pleasant,” founder and CEO Ely Khakshouri says on Shopify Masters. “And we also use that as a tool to gather information since we’re able to see which searches and queries we are not serving and use that as a cue to what content we need to be working on to address the most frequent requests.”

SEO

Search engine optimization (SEO) is a set of practices designed to make your website more easily found by search engines. One of the main advantages of SEO is that you can capture audiences from search engines without paying for ad space.

For Bluebird Provisions founder Connor Meakin, incorporating SEO best practices helped bring new customers to the bone broth company’s website.

“I started writing articles about bone broth, bone broth benefits, stuff about collagen as well. I found a process where I was able to get articles to rank on the first page,” Connor says on Shopify Masters. “Before I knew it, we were acquiring customers a couple months after this for free. It was unbelievable.”

Connor recommends ensuring that customers can easily find your homepage and product pages to start.

“The first thing I would say to store owners is to make sure you have the on-page SEO,” Connor says. “I call it the fundamentals. Make sure you have your website in check. Make sure it loads fast, or at least make sure it’s not obviously slow. Then you can invest in a third-party app to make sure that your title tags and everything are optimized for your search terms.”

Once your website is optimized, you can dive into SEO content marketing. Connor suggests creating content in clusters.

“The content cluster is essentially building a cluster of articles around one key piece of content,” Connor says. “In our case, it was bone broth.”

He started with a longer article on the benefits of bone broth, then created many shorter articles that linked out to the core article.

“From there, you’re basically answering questions that you are receiving or that someone would want to learn about when reading an article about the benefits of bone broth.” 

Online advertising

Even if your focus is on organic content, most businesses will invest some of their marketing budget into advertising. Here are some options:

• Pay-per-click (PPC). One of the many benefits of PPC advertising is that it typically allows you to track performance better than other platforms.

• Search engine marketing (SEM). Advertising on search engines buys your way to the top of search results. This tactic can be helpful when your website is new or you have a lot of competition for market share, as these conditions make it hard to earn a high ranking organically.

• Social media advertising. Paid social media posts give you the option to target potential customers based on demographics, interests, and behaviors, so you can reach those most likely to be interested in your products or services.

How to develop an internet marketing strategy

1. Identify goals and set metrics
2. Define your target audience
3. Devise a marketing plan
4. Execute and monitor

The internet is vast, and with so many different types of internet marketing to explore, getting started can feel intimidating. Before diving into every platform at once, take time to consider what might work best to build your online presence.

1. Identify goals and set metrics

Consider what you want out of internet marketing and how you will measure your success. Your marketing goals should align with business goals like increasing sales, traffic, brand awareness, or engagement.

You’ll also need to choose key performance indicators (KPIs)—the metrics that you will use to measure your marketing campaign’s success. Neil Hoyne, chief strategist of data and measurement for Google, cautions against building your marketing strategy around short-term KPIs like clicks and conversions.

“The metrics that a lot of companies use are not there because they were proven to work. They’re there because engineers could put them in a report,” Neil says on Shopify Masters.

Instead of focusing on conversion rates, Neil recommends using customer lifetime value (CLV)—the total amount one customer will spend during their relationship with your business—to guide your marketing strategy.

For example, if your goal is to acquire better customers, “look at the average value of the customers you acquired last month,” Neil says. “Let’s say they’re $500. The challenge that I’d have for any business is to, say, next month, see if you can make that number go up just a little bit.”

2. Define your target audience 

Your marketing campaigns will be far more successful if they are tailored to your target audience. Create buyer personas to represent the type of customer you want to attract. Not sure where to start? This is where CLV can again come in handy.

“You just get this understanding to say, ‘These are the people your business gets along with. These are the people that aren’t as interested,’ and you can start adjusting your marketing plans accordingly,” Neil says.

Once you’ve identified your best customers, determine what sets them apart. Where do they come from? What do they buy? When do they buy? The answers to these questions will tell you which channels to invest in, which products to promote, and when to promote them.

If you’re building a marketing strategy for a brand-new product or business, you can answer these questions based on market research. As your business grows, you can collect actual customer data to keep your campaigns relevant.

3. Devise a marketing plan

Now that you have your goal and buyer personas, you can create a plan to achieve your goal. If your goal is to increase next month’s average customer value, you can use the buyer personas you created based on data from high-CLV customers to decide which channels and tactics to focus on this month.

For example: “If I find one channel is bringing in better customers in another channel, I may say I’m gonna spend a little bit more with that channel to see if it can improve my customer mix,” Neil says.

Adjust your marketing budget accordingly, and create any new assets you may need for this month’s campaign. It can be helpful to change just one variable at a time; otherwise, it may be hard to determine which tactic or channel is responsible for any changes you observe.

4. Execute and monitor

Before implementing a new marketing campaign, make sure you have a way to monitor its success.

For example, let’s say your goal is to attract better customers by increasing your investment in the channel attracting high-CLV customers. You’ll need to monitor both the CLV and which channels your customers are coming from.

You may look at your monthly sales and attribute them to individual customers (rather than orders). You might use a combination of data reports from the channel you’ve invested in and your own post-purchase surveys to determine if the increased investment is working.

At the end of the month, you’ll be able to compare this month’s average customer value to last month’s, and you’ll know whether any change was connected to your strategy or something else entirely. Then, you can use the results to adjust your marketing strategy if needed.