The Tools of Online Marketing (Basics #1)
What is online marketing and how does it work? Our new series about online marketing explains the basics of this complex topic in easily digestible morsels. It's not for nothing that single areas often are the work content of a whole agency. However, not every area fits every business sector. The reason for that and how a online marketing strategy may look like will be determined during this series. For that, we start with a definition and a short overview of the different instruments available.
The company website represents your company in the world wide web and is the headquarter and target of online marketing, as here is where the target audience is supposed to generate revenue. You will only have the necessary control over design, data and execution on your own web presence, as it is the only part of the web where you are in complete control. That is the reason why websites are the pivotal point of most successful online marketing strategies.
Moreover, the success of all actions taken in that regard is determined by the structure, design and contents of the website. Even if you manage to draw as many visitors to your site as you intend to, you will only profit from that fact as long as they then do what you want them to (buy products, subscribe to a newsletter, make contact with you etc.).
Search engine marketing is split into search engine optimization (SEO) and search engine advertising (SEA). The objective is to establish yourself as close to the top result as possible in the search result pages or the placed advertisements when it comes to the terms that are searched for most often, and thus guide the searcher to your website.
This should then result in a desired action on your website. Good search engine marketing aims for the most relevant search keywords of the respective industry. In that, SEO and SEA complement each other – among other things, in regard to data collection. How often which term is searched for in which region can be investigated beforehand (in rounded numbers). This step and the perpetual evaluation are the decisive factors for every successful SEO and SEA strategy.

1. What is Online Marketing?
Online marketing is not that much different to marketing in general though only a few really get what it is about. Most have a hazy idea, but nobody knows the particulars. Marketing is advertising. Somehow. Sort of. Or maybe not quite, but something like that … So, online marketing should naturally be advertising on the web, plus maybe something else. Or something like that ... Vague concepts like that naturally are not that helpful. There is a simple way to define the scope of online marketing, however. This is it: Online Marketing tools care for covering every action one may take to draw attention to a particular website. Meaning, for example, that you employ search engine optimization (SEO), social media marketing, video advertising and more to generate visitors to your website. You may ask yourself at this point why it should, of all possible things, be just the website? The online presence does not necessarily have to be the objective of online marketing measures. But in most cases, it ought to at least be part of the range. The reasons for that will be explained in the next part of the series working-titled "Online Marketing Basics Part 2: Three reasons why your website should always get the highest priority."2. The Tools of Marketing on the Web
The objective of online marketing is to generate a steady stream of visitors out of your target audience for your website. To accomplish that, there is a number of tools available. Almost anyone has by now heard of terms such as search engine optimization (SEO), social media marketing (SMM) or content marketing. Below, these tools are given a short introduction and explanation:2.1. The Website

2.2. Social Media Marketing
Using Facebook (FB), Twitter, Linkedin and so on means building a network or community. This is great for the development of brand awareness and image building, as well as customer retention. The classic social networks and fora are the very emblem of the modern web. But even on your own website, you can employ social media marketing. e.g. by integrating a blog. You cannot conduct business dealings on Facebook and Co. (or not without restrictions, at least). Therefore, a Facebook page can not replace an actual online presence. Furthermore, you would become entirely dependent on a network you have no control over. All data and information (of customers) would remain in their hands. If Facebook wanted to, you would not be able to access it from one day to the next. Or maybe the design of the site or the general terms and conditions change for the worse. A well-known and likely expensive example for the turn from a self-owned website to a pure Facebook presence is the German men's magazine FHM. The publisher decommissioned its website in 2010 and used the domain solely for linking to its Facebook page. A year later, they were forced to return to the usual dual approach.2.3. Content Marketing
Content Marketing is based on the web mechanism that is usually condensed to the idiom “content is king”. Good content is shared – throughout the entire Internet: through blogs, Facebook posts and the myriad of other ways of sharing knowledge through the web. With good content you can establish yourself as an expert and first reference point on a subject and ideally create a viral effect. This tends to generate direct traffic as well as good links for search engine optimization.2.4. Search Engine Marketing

I think you’re missing mobile; advanced targetting / analytics / big data; co-branding; game-ification (incl. contests) and freemium.
Well spotted on coupons, they are way too often overseen and defo drive massive conversion.
All these measures are really helpful in promoting your product or service. If one has to make their product visible on online market then these Digital Marketing techniques are definitely going to help.