What Industries / platforms / do online marketing well and what are those that fail? Why?

[opswealth]

Talking with an angel investor the other day about online marketing and he asked a question that I could not answer, but thought this community may have an opinion or insight.

A lot of platforms are now including SEO and SEM to varying degrees of success.  For example Big Commerce have a marketing platform that you pay a monthly fee for.  However, what is hard to understand is who does this well and who doesn't?

Also there are many industries such as electricians, dentists, carpenters, insurance agents, etc who may to varying degrees rely on online marketing to drive leads and keep the phone ringing. So if they do there online marketing well the phone does continue to ring.

So I have three questions if anyone hs any views.

1.) what platforms or industries or sectors do online marketing well?

2.) what platforms or industries or sectors do online marketing badly?

3.) is doing online marketing well or bad a function of the platform, industry, size of business, budget, knowledge, tools?

Thanks

[ChrisAshton]

1.) what platforms or industries or sectors do online marketing well?

Industries that do SEO well are always going to be the tough verticals. Because they're so competitive, the barrier for entry there is quite high; if you want to compete for the big terms in the accommodation industry but your SEO is only 60% there, you're probably going to be burried on page 5. That same level of work in a local trade industry may see you toward the top of page 1 because you have no real competition.

As for platforms, all the major ones (Wordpress, Magento etc) are going to be great. There are different senarios where one may be better than the other but as a general rule, they're on a reasonably even playing field with their respective pros and cons. Where they sometimes fall apart is low quality developers making the site. The platform itself may be easy to use but if it was designed in a way that requires a 10 minute process to update your page titles, you're going to have a bad time!

2.) what platforms or industries or sectors do online marketing badly?

The only industries I've seen where most players do it badly are things like adult products, gambling and pharmaceuticals.

I'm sure there are some good ones out there but they're exceptions to the rule from what I've seen.

By "badly", I mean they use black hat tactics and aren't opposed to destroying their competitor's link profile to move up another spot.

3.) is doing online marketing well or bad a function of the platform, industry, size of business, budget, knowledge, tools?

Being able to observe great SEO is a function of strong competition. _Doing _strong SEO is really a combination of all factors you mentioned. Really, you should have a platform that's easy to work with and offers good site speed, an industry suitable for your resources (if you're a sole operator doing your own SEO, competing with someone like Trip Advisor is possible... but probably not the best idea.). More budget and knowledge generally means you can work faster and climb those results at a more impressive pace.

Also there are many industries .. .who may to varying degrees rely on online marketing to drive leads and keep the phone ringing.

About the only industries that need SEO are those who exist almost entirely online. If you're running a small ecommerce store and nobody can find you online, it's going to be a struggle. Having said that, almost any business can benefit greatly from good SEO.

[Nayotanguyen]

Hi Sean,

About products, I have read that there are two kinds of online business: business who sell products that they themselves produce and manufacture, and people who purchase products from manufacturers and be an intermediary to receive benefit from difference in price. When you start business, the first thing to do is choose products to sell. It depends on your customer's needs, your budget and even your relationship. For example, you have a friend, who can help you to import laptop with cheap cost, you are thinking about it. However, you don't have enough budget and need to borrow, be careful. In my country, there are many online stores about clothing. Because capital is not too big and need of customer is high, especially clothing imported from foreign country.

About platforms, if you have less technical knowledge, you should choose some simple platform such as WooCommerce. It is quite to set up, design, add product and control. Moreover, it is cheap. On the other hand, you have monetary resources and technical knowledge, i suggest you to use Magento. It is really amazing with powerful features. Here is top 10 popular e-commerce platform in 2015, I think you should read to choose suitable platform for your business. Check it: http://blog.litextension.com/the-best-ecommerce-platform-of-2016/

About online marketing, it is quite difficult to say in some sentence.