Seniors Online - Marketing

“Creating your brand presence online, that’s the goal.” - Neil Patel, Online Marketing Guru

Years ago, as part of my business studies I was given this big marketing textbook. All I remember about that course was how heavy the book was. Back then, for me marketing equalled selling. Yes, the end goal is to make sales and lots of them, but marketing is more than that. Marketing is solving a problem for your customers. Solve their problems, make sales. Simplistic, but to me that’s the essence of marketing.

Digital Marketing

Digital marketing is marketing that uses digital tools or channels to communicate your message to your audience, an audience of potential customers. YouTube, Facebook, Instagram are all examples of digital platforms that help you connect with your audience. Post on any of these platforms you will have a potential audience of one or many thousands. If they chose to follow you, it is because the content you created has helped fill a need in their lives.

The most common digital tools used in marketing strategy are. 

• Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), 

• Content marketing (this blog is an example), 

• Social media like Tik Tok or YouTube videos, and 

• Email marketing. 

SEO is still relevant although for how long is up in the air. Artificial Intelligence is already making an impact. It’s easier to ask AI; Gemini, Perplexity, Chat GPT or Deep Seek, a question. AI will have an answer quicker than you can think, without you having to search for answers by SEO. Read Phil’s series of blogs to get real insight into how AI has already made changes in our lives.

An email list may seem dated but for most businesses, email is how the business world communicates with each other and people like you and I. Businesses leverage all these tools to communicate with their audience. By testing each tool, we can find what works best for ourselves. It could be all of them or just one. Getting to know one marketing tool well before adding another seems to be a good strategy.

Here's a list, by Copilot, of the best marketing books to read:

• Upstream Marketing.

• CMO to CRO.

• Crushing It!

• Invisible Influence.

• Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion.

• Made to Stick.

• The ONE Thing.

• Good to Great.

Wind Up

There is much to learn about marketing, how to attract people to your funnel, what offers to make, who is your niche, the psychology of it, key words, what ads resonate with your audience, how to understand data your platform provides, the list goes on.

Learn one step at a time, read and study, it’s an ongoing process. Don’t be discouraged, just keep ploughing ahead at your own pace. I’ve been at this online business coming up to 12 months, I know more now than ever. Financial and time commitment are both required to create an online income. I have had not a single R.O.I. dollar to date. I expect to sooner, not later, in 2025. Keep following and together we will see how it turns out.