Marketing and Selling on Internet
Marketing on the Internet involves online advertising to reach out to potential customers. It requires creativity like designing, development and technical aspects like marketing and advertising. Affiliate marketing, email marketing, search engine marketing and interactive advertising are all different facets of Internet marketing. It also includes sales, public relations, information management and customer service. Ever since the advent of Internet, it is widely used for all kind of purposes. Among the advantages of Internet, some helps in doing business, shopping, etc, from the comfort of the house. According to a research, a quarter of the Internet users shop online. It has also helped grow electronic commerce and Internet marketing is a part of electronic commerce.
Direct marketing techniques like radio and television commercials, mails, and newsletters are the inspirations for Internet marketing, which involves direct response marketing strategies and is rapidly growing. Business-to-business, also known as B2B, and business-to-consumer, also known as B2C, are the two business models to which Internet marketing can be linked. B2C companies were the first to start when Internet marketing originated. They are companies that sell directly to the customers. B2B companies are meant to do business with each other.
Websites built for Internet marketing are slightly different than others. There are peer-to-peer modeled websites which are used to exchange products and services between each other. Other is name-your-price, where the customers have to specify their price range that they can spend and select products that fall in that price range. Priceline.com is an example of such a website. Amazon.com is a website which is based on find-the-best-price model, where customers can find the lowest prices. Last are online auctions sites, where items are bid. Ebay.com is an example.
The companies who use Internet marketing are at an advantage. They don’t need to put in huge amounts of energy and time in Internet Marketing like other traditional methods. With the help of only few resources national and international markets can be reached. Because of very low investment, even small businesses are turning to online marketing. Websites and blogs have been developed for this purpose. Internet marketing is advantageous in the sense that the data is easily available on the Internet. Newsletters can be directly sent to customers and if it doesn’t contain the information they are looking for, they can search for information about the product online, make a decision and purchase it online itself.
One of the factors that hinder the growth of online marketing is delayed loading of the page. The web pages that take a lot of time to download test the patience of the consumer. To add to that, if the businesses design complex web pages with lots of graphics and animations, it will slow down the speed even more. Another minus point of online marketing is that the customers cannot feel, taste, smell or try products in order to make a good decision. To over come this, some of the online stores have created liberal return policies with the help of which the customer satisfaction is guaranteed.
Another biggest threat of online shopping is identity theft. Paying online using credit cards, e-checks are susceptible to hackers and information can be stolen and used. Many hackers and websites have been caught who were involved in buying and selling of personal information. Most of the websites have taken measures and incorporated good security on their websites. One of the best methods is encryption. When the data is being transferred between two computers; there is a possibility of a hacker intercepting it. So the data is changed by applying some encryption algorithm and is sent through the network and upon receiving, the decryption algorithm is applied to bring back the data to its original form.
Online selling is influencing all kinds of businesses like banking, advertising, music, etc. Instead of going to a store for buying cassettes and CDs, music can be bought online. Bank transactions like depositing, withdrawing, transferring funds, and paying bills are all performed online. Billions of dollars are invested every year in online advertising alone.
Targeted Internet Marketing Strategies—Converting Traffic into Money
Internet marketing is one of the most powerful and consistently-expanding industry presently, which has gained a lot of popularity these recent years. Thus, it resulted to thousands of business that prefer to endorse and sell their products and services through the Internet, aiming to learn, develop, and use the latest Internet marketing solutions.
The battle has shifted from another field, yet the concept of running an online-based business is still the same as of the traditional businesses. Marketing is still the most important aspect of running a business. It is evident on famous brands over the Internet that are spending huge amounts of money just to have the most elegant and eye-catching online advertisement. These huge brands realized that these online ads, just like the typical ads that they make in broadcast and print media, provide huge contributions to the increased marketability of their products and brand awareness.
Thus, it is not surprising to see different kinds and formats of online ads posted on different websites around the web. For online businesses and companies, the same concept still applies; especially since the competition in the Internet is now fiercer than before. To sustain competition, Internet marketing companies must have a definite and flexible marketing plan that is aimed not just on attracting more traffic to their websites, but also convert this traffic into increased sales.
They will achieve this through targeted Internet marketing or targeting potential clients who are in need of their products.
There are various targeted Internet marketing strategies that can be used to increase traffic to your website. However, getting more traffic to your website is useless if you cannot convert it into sales. Getting individuals who will not find any use of your products is good as saying that you are still “invisible” on the Internet. The objective of your targeted Internet marketing strategies is not just to get traffic—you need to convert them into real money.
What are these targeted Internet marketing strategies? Take a look on the following items and follow the strategy that you think will work for your Internet marketing business’ advantage.
• Identifying markets- you can concentrate your marketing efforts into the core market that has a use for your products. For instance, your online business is about children’s toys. You can place online advertisements on websites that offer free pointers about children care.
• Exchanging links- you can exchange links with other websites that are related to the products that you are offering. This can help you increase the visibility of your online business to individuals who need your products.
• Article writing- you will just drive away your potential clients of they will just see images of your products, a brief description, and their tag price. You must provide initial information about your online business as a whole through writing articles. You can post these articles on sites that offer general pointers about a wide range of products. You can also submit it to article directories and have it republished in high-traffic websites. This will further increase your business’ visibility among clients who are looking for information about the products that they want to purchase.
• Online forums and bulletin boards- getting involved in online forums and bulleting boards is a highly effective strategy, since you can encourage potential clients to visit your site if they are looking for advice and help on the products you are offering.
Getting noticed on the Internet is the best way of becoming successful in the Internet marketing industry. Moreover, anyone that you will convince to visit your site, as much as possible, must be transformed into your long-term product evangelizers. Traffic alone is insufficient to help you grow your online business and your bank account. It takes some courage to say to your clients that you “badly need them” and their “business with you is the lifeblood of your business”. That is what targeted Internet marketing is all about—getting as much clients that you need and patronize what you are offering for sale.
Internet marketing is a huge marketplace. But with right-targeted marketing strategies, you will see how great and easy it is to earn money on the Internet.
