What is Internet Marketing? Define Internet Marketing

What is Internet Marketing? In broad terms Internet Marketing refers to promotion of commerce or business through the Internet medium. It is the way in which products or services are promoted and sold over the Internet. Internet marketing, also called web marketing, online-marketing and even “i” or “e” -Marketing uses the Internet to deliver all types of media to a global and even local market. The relatively low cost to disseminate information to a global audience makes it very unique compared to marketing of the past.

The interactive nature of the Internet has forced the evolution of its marketing strategies to include specialist skills to deal with the instant response and eliciting responses now present with this unique medium. A device must be included in your Internet marketing system to accommodate this instant response.

The term is also inclusive of the post-sale relationship between a business and its customers because it encompasses digital customer data management and electronic customer relations. It is widely used in the business world today and referred to as ECRM – Electronic Customer Relationship Management. This makes the scope larger as it refers to the on-going relationship supported by the Internet, e-mail, and wireless media.

Internet marketing ties together the technical and creative aspects of the Internet including design, branding, promotion and advertising, as well as sales. Here are three main objectives to help define Internet Marketing:

(1) Deliver a company’s message or presence in a marketplace. Branding its culture, mission and value as well as educating or detailing its products or service via the computer screen.

(2) Collect data research not limited by demographics, individual preferences or past requirements of both existing customers and (different groups, classes, stereotypes, etc.) as potential new customers.

(3) The actual selling, collection of fees, tracking of distribution and follow up of goods, services, or advertising space over the Internet.

The way in which one reaches out via the Internet to its prospective client is through different strategies. The more popular Marketing Strategies utilized by Internet Marketers are Social, Content and Paid marketing approaches. Each has their own attributes as well as limitations or short-comings.

There are several Business Model terms associated with Internet Marketing.

E-COMMERCE (electronic-commerce) refers to business over the Internet. Web sites such as Amazon.com and eBay are all e-commerce sites. The two major forms of e-commerce are Business-to-Consumer (B2C) and Business-to-Business (B2B). So, while the neighborhood baker doesn’t sell his cupcakes on the Internet, he utilizes the benefits of the Internet to search and find the supplier with the best price for flour.

LEAD-BASED WEBSITES are organizations or groups of websites that create value by capturing prospective clients or sales leads from the Internet to be utilized by or sold to a third party.

AFFILIATE MARKETING is a process in which a product or service is promoted by many people or entities that receive a percentage of the profits when the product is purchased. The Affiliate did not develop or produce it themselves. The owner or producer of the product has authority over whom and how their product is sold and customarily provides the “affiliate” with marketing materials; i.e. Website links, capture pages, and banner ads that have encoded tracking – the device used to ensure the affiliate gets credit for the sale.

LOCAL INTERNET MARKETING is the process used by a company with a “local customer base” that traditionally sells by warm market referrals, signage, location visibility, and utilizing the Internet to find and cultivate relationships with potential customers to later interact with offline.

BLACK HAT MARKETING is a form of Internet marketing or search engine optimization (SEO) commonly referring to the practice of using unethical techniques or employing deceptive, abusive, or less than truthful methods to make your search rankings go up to drive more traffic to your website.

The birth and growth of Internet marketing has also made a mark on the “personal worlds” of many individuals. With Internet Marketing offering individuals infinite ways to promote and market themselves, products, services and opportunities, the world of home-based-business has exploded.

Initially for the person that desires to capitalize on this medium for their own person commerce, Internet Marketing can be confusing or even overwhelming for most. Each method seems to have its own language to decipher and obstacle to overcome. A system or platform to manage all of these strategies can be very useful if it includes support training. It’s best to only choose 1 or 2 initial strategies to focus on at one time. The best strategy for one person may not be the best strategy for you. Most important is that you discover the strategy that you like most and are comfortable performing. If you enjoy the process you will be certain to be better at it. And the better you are at it, the more likely you’ll become consistent with its implementation. You will find that the strategy you choose is much less important than your ability to do it consistently in order to achieve results.

I agree it can seem overwhelming at times, but actually the process can be quite simple if you focus on just one strategy at a time. There are unlimited training courses, Internet tools, websites and programs to help you be more effective and efficient in each category or strategy you choose. Having someone to help guide you through the process, pointing out which tools and programs offer the most help, not only will save your sanity, but also can save you hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars in the process.

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Hiring an Internet Marketing Service – Plan Before You Leap!

A frequent mistake that businesses make is hiring an internet marketing company too quickly — primarily based on price. Your website is a visual representation of your business and a poorly designed site can frustrate visitors, misrepresent your products and even lose sales. Before you hire a internet marketing firm, research the answers to these questions:

1. How Much Experience Does The Internet Marketing Company Have? Do They Have Any Special Qualifications Or Designations?

Longevity in the industry is a good indicator of stability and skill. Online marketing firms that have been in the business for a while and built admirable reputations are usually known for sound design work and customer service. Choosing an internet marketing company that has been around longer means they will be more likely to be around in the future for ongoing maintenance and updates to your website.

The answer to this question will give you a general idea about the skill set at the web company. Having a tertiary qualification is good. Having a lot of experience is better, and combining experience with a tertiary education is best.

2. How Many Staff Members Do They Have And What Are Their Roles?

Bigger is not necessarily better when it comes to effective web emarketing companies. Companies on average have one designer, a couple of web developers, analysts, and a few sales and support people. Some companies use Just-in-Time staffing, adding or removing staff as needed. This helps keep overhead low.

3. In Addition To Internet Marketing, What Other Services Does The Agency Offer?

Many prominent internet marketing firms are branching out and offering other services, including web development and design. SEO, Search Engine Marketing, Web Content Writing, Social Media Marketing, Blog promotion, and Google AdWords Management are services offered by many experienced online marketing companies. The key is finding a company that offers the services that you are looking for.

4. Does The Internet Marketing Firm Spend Time With You To Gather Business Knowledge And Give You A Formal Proposal?

It is good to select an web marketing company that will take the time to offer a custom solution for your website. Oftentimes, the online marketing firm will provide you with a questionnaire to fill out so that they can get a better feel for your goals, competition and overall website needs. Your website will play a large part in your overall brand marketing. Therefore, it is important that your internet marketing firm have a clear picture of your overall internet marketing goals.

5. What Are the Internet Marketing Company’s Payment Terms?

For anything from a small non-profit site to full corporate branding, most internet marketing companies will charge an upfront deposit and stage payments based on agreed milestones and deliverables. Be wary of any internet marketing firm that asks for payment in full before starting the project.

6. What Is The Internet Marketing Company’s Policy On Non-Disclosure And Privacy Of Information?

In order to create the perfect marketing plan for you, your internet marketing firm needs access to important information about your company — information you wouldn’t want your competition, or anyone else, to know.

This is particularly true if you are starting a new company. You don’t want others to steal your concept before you’ve had a chance to monetize it. Therefore, a solid non-disclosure and privacy policy will protect your information.

7. What Are The Average Timelines For Completing Your Web Design Project Including Ecommerce, Logo Design, And Corporate Branding?

If the company does both web development and internet marketing, ask what the firm considers a typical turn-around time for projects similar in size to your own. This should give you a fairly clear idea if the website designer/developer has time tracking and project management systems in place. If you have a hard deadline that you need to meet, be sure you tell the design company up front so that they can plan accordingly.

8. Who Will Be Your Central Point Of Contact For Your Internet Marketing Project?

It is important to have a single point of contact for your project to ensure nothing gets lost in translation. A Project Manager should be assigned to all web projects. If you are working with a small web company, however, the Project Manager may also be the web designer and/or web developer himself.

9. Does The Company Outsource Any Project Components To Third Parties Or To Countries Like India? If So, Which Components?

While outsourcing may be a valid business decision to save costs and keep overheads lower, you’ll want to be cautious with any internet marketing company who takes your project and out-sources large components to another country. If you have concerns about low quality, cheap labour, and remote project management issues when jobs are outsourced to India, be sure to bring them up before your project begins.

10. Can The Internet Marketing Company Help With Website Content Copy Writing?

SEO copywriting can make or break your website. Your website design may draw the reader in and focus their attention where it needs to be – but the words themselves do the selling. And if the content is optimized correctly, your website can be showing up on the front pages of the search engines for your chosen search terms.

Be sure the internet marketing firm you choose offers copywriting and ask to see samples — particularly samples of sites within your same industry. This will give you a good foundation on which to base your decision.

11. What Programming Languages And Operating Systems Does The Internet Marketing and/or Web Development Company Work With?

Ideally, your web development company should offer both the open source PHP/MySQL and ASP.NET programming languages. They should make a technical recommendation on which

Platform would best meet your needs and budget.

12. Do The Internet Marketing And Web Development Experts Build Websites To Web Standards?

Standards compliance, such as W3C and Web Standards Group are highly recommended industry practices. The main reason is consistency in how your visitors view your website on different platforms and future proofing.

13. What Is Covered In The Firm’s Website Testing/Quality Checking Phase? Are You Able To See The Website While It Is Still In Development?

Basic testing requirements should be browser testing, checking for broken links and general usability tests to ensure the website is easy for website visitors to use and interact with.

By seeing a development staging version, you will be able to check the website before the launch date and make any necessary adjustments.

14. Does The Internet Marketing Firm Allow Clients To Host Their Websites With Any Host?

Sometimes, for the sake of functionality or other good reasons, a web company may ask that you host your website with them, but this is not always the case. You may have existing commercial relationships with an ISP or web hosting company that you would prefer to use. It is important to know before hiring a internet marketing firm if they will require you to move hosting to them.

15. Do They Provide Any Training Once The Website Is Launched?

If your website project includes customized systems or software, it can be extremely helpful if your internet marketing company provides you with training documents for future reference. If your system is very detailed, it might even be optimal to arrange for a training program or ongoing customer support.

16. Is The Internet Marketing Firm Knowledgeable in Web 2.0? Is This Included In Your Quote, Or Are There Extra Charges?

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a science in itself; an experienced Internet marketing company should be able to offer you a variety of options including organic, PPC and social media marketing including Facebook advertising. Depending on your business requirements, you should consider hiring an internet marketing company that can create a custom online campaign to help you achieve maximum results.

Usually there is an extra charge for single items like developing videos, commercials and ads, photo shoots, copywriting and so on. Ask about these if they are part of your marketing plan.

17. What Is The Charge For Website Updates After The Initial Website Is Completed?

While marketing is an ongoing process, the website is often considered a one-time effort. But there is always extra work to be done: changes and updates, new content and so on.

Be aware of the charging structure for updates to your website. Consider how often you will require updates and ask the internet marketing firm how they handle future updates and maintenance.

If you have frequent or large updates to your website, you could consider a Content Management System. A CMS is only really useful in the event of regular changes and if a staff member has good training in it. If neither are the case, it may just be cheaper to have the supplier to manage small updates.

18. What If You Find A Problem Or Code Bug After The Site Is Finished? Does The Graphic Design Company Have Any Kind Of Code Warranty Or Guarantee?

Often web companies will make the change if it is small for no additional costs. However, be aware that if it is a change and not a bug fix, you may be required to pay extra. Typically, internet marketing companies will give you several designs to approve initially and then involve you every step of the way. Each approved section of the project is considered finished. Going back and making changes — even if they seem simple — can be costly.

19. Is The Copyright For The Website Transferred To You When The Project Is Complete? What About Images in The Website? Logo Design?

Copyright law is a specialized legal field. You should ask to own the copyright on all of the work designed and developed after you have paid in full for the project.

20. Will The Website Development Company Comment Your Source Code?

Commenting code is part of good website development. If code is commented well, you won’t spend a lot of time if the unthinkable happens and you’re forced to find another website supplier either part way through the project or its maintenance.

Finding the answers to these questions may seem time consuming and quite involved, but it is an important part of the interview process. After you have interviewed several companies and had your questions and concerns addressed, you should be able to select a talented internet marketing and web development company that is knowledgeable and easy to work with. The firm you choose also needs to have the ability to produce a web design and website that represents and enhances your overall corporate branding.

Of course, you could choose to not follow our suggestions and just hire the least expensive firm available — or a friend of a friend who does graphic design and internet marketing. But then you could end up with a real mess. Your internet business depends on how good you look. You wouldn’t ask a friend to install a new set of teeth for you, would you?

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Internet Marketing Strategy

Bayshore is the Internet Marketing solution, providing a complete Internet marketing strategy, promotion of a nationwide advertising. We can help you create a website, get the results or upgrade your existing site’s functionality. Bayshore Solutions can help you effectively combine network marketing, promotional and advertising strategies, customer conversion visitors web design.

Internet marketing is the same as traditional marketing, others are not. Here are seven things you need to know your online marketing is successful. When you write Xu copy, you should take the time to understand what works and what does not. There are two mistakes almost every amateur search engine copywriting.

Successful non-profit organizations use the Internet to market charitable program.

To help companies improve their digital marketing results, I also had in-depth, widely praised and won the AOP Award for best practice, publisher e-consultancy Guide.

Internet marketing is very challenging, and there will be, you need an expert search engine marketing services to beat your competition in the traffic wars. Please consider our search engine optimization company with the help of your project. Free quote service search engine optimization, web design, pay per click advertising, search engine optimization and PPC series, search engine optimization training courses and online brand network analysis.

Internet marketing is still essential to any business’s overall marketing strategy. Mentioned before with all the benefits of internet marketing, people still buy magazines, billboards went out to check to see their mail, watch TV, and shopping. No matter how fast-paced and wide internet of communication, people go out together, talking about going to the gym. Thus, while Internet marketing is absolutely valid and important, demising certain value of the cost of traditional marketing any business, many potential customers. Another thing, when we say that internet marketing, it is not only figures we choose to click on ads. The list also includes security, advertising, advertising social networks, groups, discussion boards and many others. Accordingly, the online marketing activities can effect the number of people exposed. However, one disadvantage is that people started to become one of the, and would even read the advertising information advertising or know (even people in the security list), and delete without opening them. When someone on the Internet, they would like to read / write e-mail, chat with friends, read and post / reply comments, play fun games. As a internet marketing goal is to build a top priority for Internet users. Also, try and spam and unsolicited e-mail and advertising, more and more people away from Internet advertising in general, unless they are some specific content. A variety of Internet marketing strategy is free and paid online marketing can make more money. 12-month Internet Millionaire Review – Russell Brunson is a 12-month millionaire fraud?. As the market one of the most controversial books, and now the Internet millionaire’s 12 months still constitute a major buzz everywhere. A great professional internet marketing make money online. Internet marketing can be a lucrative industry, if some big Internet-related skills and knowledge development to do so successfully. Must also identify and develop the necessary strategies to make money online. Pay per click advertising, online advertising and link exchange programs, is marketing, can be used to make the Internet industry to make money online there are some important programs.

Internet marketing are not the result of a well-defined, integrated internet strategy; rather, they are a response to competitors activities or customers demand. Through the site has existed for more than a year, marketing staff and senior management will naturally question its effectiveness. This is usually the point in a coherent Internet marketing strategy needs to become apparent. As a result, starting in the sum of electronic marketing strategy, is when a company’s existing website, which is to review the existing site and its purpose is to improve the effectiveness of the future. There is no evidence that the development and implementation of a strategy to be significantly different approach to electronic marketing. Strategic planning for enterprise development or strategic marketing to comply with the established framework should still be. The framework provides a logical order to follow up to ensure that the strategic focus of all development activities included. It can be said, however, with the e-market strategy for a highly sensitive process of rapid response mode, the events in the market need. Soviet-style five-year planning application does not seem to fit, the best approach is a new process of electronic marketing strategy is a continuous improvement. Check fee (2002) pointed out that e-commerce or e-marketing strategy process models tend to agree with the following features:

There are many ways to market your product using a large number of online with Google AdWords or Yahoo’s Overture advertising network, eBay, members network, cost per click marketing. In addition, there are many second tier cost of sales and earnings per share network. You need to have a good network marketing strategy, using the Internet to provide online marketing tool. With Internet marketing company, will help you to get your website in search engine advertising and optimization services provided by many of the results, but eventually you need to determine what kind of network marketing will give you the best of a product line. It used to be you bought CPM (cost per thousand) in large-scale campaign Web site and hope that the good performance of these ads and get traffic to your website. Now, there are many choices, there is usually a for each event better than the other run. It appears that the use of network marketing the best way to get return on investment cost per click online marketing tool, the strategic point. Google AdWords and Yahoos Overture CPC programs have dominated the world of network marketing in the past two years, they only get bigger and stronger. Network marketing companies have sprung up to help beginners learn how to use AdWords and Overture to the best of their ability to rope. If you want to build a brand, then the cost per click will not be online marketing solutions. Instead of the online brand, you will go to a CPM campaign, is a straight line costs. The targeted ads, and now there’s online advertising spending is due to leave the television and radio have been gradually transferred to the Internet. Why do you want, if you are advertising with the radio or TV, you can actually track the individual results of the work online. We believe that many ad networks and affiliate program will gradually fade out in the next several years, while Google and Yahoo Zhudao even with their own, targeted search results and more per click advertising network. Internet changes quickly, any company want to optimize their online marketing presence needs to adapt and adjust to the latest technology.

Network marketing is the three capacities: transport infrastructure, marketing, application development, marketing methods and permissions. Practical ability of the network in sports marketing when three similar shift manual gearbox, driving a car, both in mechanics.

Internet marketing is the same where you live, because it is a global market.

They do not have banner ads, because they are cheaper than print. In Facebook, because their children that they should be. If you start what you want for your site’s business focus and you concentrate all energy on helping to improve the preliminary results of this goal, Name of the Dong Xi you Keyi try, to see if they are how they work. Or you can look at things, said: “I do not see how it can help me achieve my goal. Now, if you ignore something, it is possible that they will actually become extremely important, and you ‘local employees realize that you made a mistake. but only the larger error is ignored, since you are overriding, or try to do everything hafway and accomplish nothing.

Network Marketing is not just large budget or the entire company’s IT department. We have developed in Newfoundland and Labrador website, then who can appear in more effective competitors excluded from the market itself. We can do the same for you, to establish an online presence to support your other. This allows you all the seamless integration of marketing activities, you become a better profit growth in your site shooting. With complete Internet marketing strategy and a strong web site design, your company has the potential to become a global player., Kok River, some in Newfoundland and Labrador, or any other parts of the world community, asking them to do, they can help your web site design, as a money-making machines effective. We believe that your answer in Lorne Park and associated companies will seek to get you.

Internet marketing is clear, the next question is usually, “Yes, but where I start?.” For new and existing customers a direct entry point. In the days passed, and when people want to find a business, they turned to the yellow pages. Today, your customers will find you on the Internet, if you are not there, they will turn to the next thing, they did find: 1,

Network Marketing is your competitor doing? How do your competitors in the domestic major search engine rankings? What kind of traffic from their own site? Use the right tools, this valuable information can be found in your competitors.: What is it your product or service for the customer to resolve or do not provide any good? In what ways you can best illustrate this advantage? Clear and consistent information on the positioning of your products in the market based on a solid understanding is very important to all offline and online marketing efforts.: How much money can you get customers and still make a profit? What is each customer, you get the value of life expectancy? This is the answer you need to determine the effectiveness of any network marketing program running on key issues.

Internet marketing is falling over themselves trying to shift dollars from offline to online marketing. I believe the idea is that network marketing will give them better to reduce the U.S. dollar in a tight economic returns. While it is certainly a solid strategy for mobile Internet, it pays to put it a little thought, the first: Verify your infrastructure. Offline dollars in your move to online, to ensure that you can actually use all of the online customer service. Do you have in place of? You can quickly adjust the landing page and website copy? No sense, if you put in to send visitors to a site, sucking money from online advertising. If you are from offline to online money like two weeks to generate a 5:1 return, reducing the Prozac and think twice to come back. The biggest mistake I see their budget, the company’s transformation, is that they think this is a line ‘run and do’ things. Marketers and their bosses think they can create a landing page or start a PPC campaign, and then forget about it for a month. And this cycle works in print or television, it will not work online. Line is highly, highly repetitive, and requires constant attention. So you save a lot of advertising money into the labor force.

Characteristics of network marketing is definitely a good start in the Internet market, but if you do not know how to drive traffic to your site, these things will be wasted.

Search Engine Optimization Senior Account Manager applicants must have at least the search engine optimization, link building, PPC 3 years of experience, and can hit the ground running. Intelligence and ability to work proactively without supervision is necessary, you should be able to work on project management. You also must be able to communicate with customers the highest level of search engine optimization. Sales useful, but not necessary, because this ability is the main strategy and client management role. We are a small busy Swiss institutions and roll up their sleeves and complete the work is essential. The way we work, we are very flexible, but this is a full-time position at our headquarters in Bristol, England, Bristol in the UK so you must be near or on, such as bathing, Swindon, Chelten Burnham, Gloucester.

Internet online marketing experts found in the blog, webmaster forums and online publications. com, where you can learn about the latest Google updates the new method can make money website. Acetylcholine maravilla is the President and Chief Executive Officer powerhomebiz. One on entrepreneurship, in order to step by step information.

Internet marketing is just too numerous to mention in this article. If you access the Internet value-added services, web savvy, you will see how much of this marketing can increase your business type.

Network marketing is online marketing, network marketing, network marketing. Internet marketing is very important, but the madness of growth with social media, I strongly recommend listening skills is to know how to do twitter, Facebook and YouTube. Many marketing media, relying on the three to take home the bacon only. The building is a long list of network marketing, a necessary component of success. List building simply means that a user list, you can communicate regularly via e-mail. In order to start building a list, you first need to establish what is called a capture page. Pages, your visitors will be asked to provide some free gifts, to share their names and e-mail. It can be a free report, e-books, video or presentation software. Many merchants also offer free electronic can receive daily early bird tips and notifications.

In today’s competitive (and noise) market, we must combine all the right online marketing tools, to create a truly effective and comprehensive marketing program. All, of course, is up and around the central site, but to create opportunities, improve customer response, increased brand awareness, the site of the network through a comprehensive marketing strategy, including search engine optimization, PPC, social media tools to support marketing, and so on.

Linked network marketing ideas and technology and business strategy design, development, Internet advertising and marketing. Search engine marketing, email marketing, display advertising, affiliate marketing, display advertising, blog marketing, display advertising, viral marketing. Internet marketing is the media running along the different stages of customer engagement cycle through search engine marketing, search engine optimization in a specific site, e-mail marketing and Web 2, banner ads. Network marketing has become more and more organizations use to promote the network media key and very effective. ‘The establ

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Are Investment Costs of Business Internet Marketing Higher Than You Might Think?

Having just started to use internet marketing in our own business and trying to bring together all the different components to deliver a set of desired outcomes, we have discovered it is not a simple task. We have created a huge amount of online content from websites, blog sites, micro-blogging, and social media network participation. But and it is a big but, how do you convert all this activity (or lack of it) into a coherent message that brings visitors to your target online content and transcends to registrations and / or sales?

To be honest we have been merrily creating web content, accounts on twitter, Facebook pages, blogs and regularly posting but without paying specific attention to the direction or the message. This has been a conscious choice on our part as we were not ready to join everything up yet, so we just started by increasing our online profile until we were set to go. I think this is one of the big hurdles for most people entering Internet Marketing at any level is… why am I doing this? Why am I posting content onto Blogs, twittering, when no one is visiting anyway? I’m not reading my other 1000 followers tweets, so I am sure they are not reading mine! If I’m the only one ready what I’m writing I’d sooner not bother! 2 Blog posts a day, why? for what? What am I going to say? What difference will it make?

We expect those new to Internet Marketing to blindly accept that ‘you should get a blog, you should use Twitter and join Facebook… trust me… you will see the benefit, later on everything will be much clearer…’

Here then is the issue… of course signing up to these services, Blogs, Twitter, Facebook, Linked in or any other social media platform is not in itself going to make any difference to a business. Just the same as printing some leaflets for a mailshot and leaving them in the garage, or attending networking meetings and not talking to anyone, these won’t make much impact either.

The facts are that Internet Marketing is a complex business. It performs the functions of building individual’s profiles and credibility, Brand awareness and product / service sales via one medium. Each of these areas requires different techniques, services and strategies online, but you can’t go about this in a half baked, apathetic manner. Internet Marketing has the ability to transform businesses, enable small companies to compete with the ‘big boys’ and build new enterprises from nothing but not by making one blog post a week, the odd twitter tweet now and then and complaining that sales haven’t increased yet!

So what is the reality? The reality is this, that Internet marketing provides the ability to reach 100,000′s of people and quickly, but it won’t happen without effort… A LOT OF IT!

Most Small Business’s are owned privately, very often by the entrepreneur who found a niche, designed a new product or took advantage of an opportunity. These individuals are often technical people and suffer from the old ‘Feast and Famine’ syndrome that finds refuge in Micro and small businesses. When we’re in Sales mode we are extremely busy, when servicing customers, prospects dry up… then we’re found scratching around for business again which happens, eventually, months after we needed it.

Now typical business owners don’t think of themselves as sales people and will readily admit they don’t like this part of the business and yet without it the business can’t survive. I’ve heard many a business owner admit they are not sales people, ‘I’m basically too honest to be a sales person’ as if a sales person’s role was to somehow convince someone to buy a product they don’t need and don’t want. Well, let us now separate Marketing from Sales.

Marketing is encouraging people to consider your products and services… visitors if you like, whereas Sales is the matching of the customers requirements to your offerings. At no point in this is there any persuasion or manipulation… better still, much of this sales process can be automated with Internet Marketing. Marketing requires an audience to market too… sales requires us to provide information, substantiate our offering and provide a method to engage with us.

You will hear this time and time again with the Internet Marketing crowd… ‘the money is in the list!’ and if we are to market successfully then having a list to inform on a regular basis is absolutely essential. If we apply this to offline marketing, most of the hard work in sending out a mailshot was creating a quality list of people in the first place… our target audience! If we are to engage the services of a Direct Marketing company for a telephone campaign… at some point before this a list must be found, either from an existing database or bought from an organisation specialising in such Lists, the higher the quality the better.

So let us now see what relevance our Online – Internet Marketing activities have in identifying a target market. Consider Facebook, Linked-in, Twitter, Blog subscribers and Registrations for an ezine or other regular communication… what are these?

They are lists of course! lists of people who in some way have connected with you and are probably comfortable to receive correspondence from you or your business. Herein lies the secret then behind why we should bother at all to seek people out, follow and be followed. List building… and the good news is that it can be quite good fun too!

Now in our business we have 5 main products offerings… some of these products have an overlapping potential audience, others do not. It may be necessary therefore to have multiple accounts for Twitter and / or a separate Facebook page for the different audience. Already you can see that if we are to manage, maintain and post for each product on a regular basis (desirable) then this is a substantial amount of work.

One of the difficulties that some of my colleagues have with building a large list of friends or followers is, ‘How can you possibly keep in touch with all these people?, I struggle to stay in touch with my immediate relatives’ and for sure, personally corresponding with 60,000 people is not viable… but this is not the point.

These social sites represent a massive network of interconnected people, you are not necessarily communicating on a 1-2-1 basis (although you can do this) but rather are broadcasting what you want to say to everyone who is connected and often to their immediate connections as well!! Suddenly we have the ability to get a message to a very large audience with a single post.

Now… most people certainly with Twitter won’t see your post, and a good many won’t in Facebook or Linked-In either, however this is not an issue. It is not our problem to worry about who will see our posting or not, that is not our responsibility and we should avoid getting attached to the outcome. Our role is to provide the information (post), that is it… Now there is a magic number in marketing and sales this is 3%. This little number is very important. It is the recognised average response rate in a cold market… sometimes it can be more, often less. If we sent out 1000 mailshots then it would be acceptable to set a benchmark of 30 as the number of positive responses. This is about the same % that I have experienced in responses to click-through’s on Tweets and Facebook postings. Taking these numbers if we tweeted with a follower list of 30,000 then we could expect around 900 visits. We have absolutely no idea which ones will click the link… or tell a friend or retweet, however the figures can be quite staggering… Imagine if you worked with other ‘Big List’ owners and offered a percentage to tweet to their lists… and you did this 3 times per day… the number of visits could become very large indeed.

The lists provide us with a ‘potential market’ for our products and the purpose of this article is not to go into the detailed techniques for building lists, only that it should be very high up on the list of priorities. So how much time, money and effort should be put into this exercise?

The answer to this question depends on the nature of a business, the ideal customer profile and many other factors, clearly a restaurant has a different set of requirements to someone selling a digital product (such as an ebook) globally. The first thing is to decide an Internet Marketing strategy which is complimentary to the business, once this is defined then the activities required become much clearer.

Once the basic Architecture of the marketing is defined then comes the work and the Investment. If I look at our business as an example, we have invested in three key areas, Colateral, People and services. Lets look at what is involved in each of these -:

Collateral

We have 5 blogs, 6 websites (some complex, some a single page), 7 Twitter accounts, Facebook (4 Business Pages), Linked-In, Ecademy, Hub Pages, StumbleUpon, Squidoo and other online social networking accounts, all these had to be set up, populated, and now managed on an ongoing basis. This is not something which can be done in 20 minutes per day. We have to work all of these resources on a regular basis to keep ourselves in the ‘Public eye’.

People

We have invested in 1 full time person, plus both myself and another member of staff allocate 3 or 4 hours per day to Internet Marketing activities. Firstly staff require training to use the tools that enable us to work our internet marketing, including analyze results. These resources manage our social networking sites, engage with our contacts frequently, update profiles as things change and post new content constantly. This cost alone is over $3000 per calendar month, developing and building our online presence.

Services

We utilise a number of ‘helper’ services which are online and rented monthly, these include subscriptions to some Business Networks, Shopping cart and checkout services, Databases that contain sign-ups for ezines and regular communication, Membership platforms, Blogging services and many many more. None of these services are hugely expensive month on month but vital to continue our Online Marketing activities.

In Conclusion

Business Internet Marketing – Taking an offline business and using Internet Marketing techniques to increase sales utilises many of the techniques and tools that conventional Internet Marketing has developed and built over the past 8-10 years. We have all heard the stories of individuals with no overheads generating large monthly incomes without setting foot outside their door, but Internet Marketing is moving into a new phase, one where Offline Businesses will seek to engage the Internet to work for them.

I speak with many Micro and Small businesses on a regular basis and most are oblivious to Internet Marketing and what it could do for them, whether this is because no one has yet bothered to show them, or there is a fear and reluctance to dance with the unknown, or a bit of both perhaps. One thing is for sure, Business Internet Marketing will be deployed by every business over the coming 10-20 years and it is set to be one of the largest markets worldwide.

As we saw with offline marketing in the past where we had PR, Advertising and Marketing agencies, so we shall see the emergence of similar businesses offering Business Internet Marketing services. Traditional companies in this marketing space will need to evolve and offer a completely new range of services The print industry went through a similar metamorphosis some years back, when pre-press production moved entirely to computers and revolutionized the marketplace.

As the Internet Marketing industry matures and the ‘Get Rich Quick’ mentality fades, successful Internet Marketers will bring a wealth of experience and begin to offer professional Business Internet Marketing solutions to Small and Medium sized businesses. Not shackled with the conventional trappings of offices the Business Internet Marketers will manage a network of global outsourced resources to deliver high quality, low cost Internet Market solutions. The services will include the whole range of activities from setting up infrastructure services such as Blogs or Shopping carts to transactional activities such as managing Twitter accounts, searching and posting tweets, finding / posting suitable blog posts, even writing articles and sending email campaigns.

Without doubt we are on the edge of yet another evolution with the Internet. Some larger companies, such as IBM and Dell have already woken up to the power of using the Internet and Social networking to engage with a global audience, small businesses have been busy surviving the recession… but as the recovery gathers pace, I am sure that Business Internet Marketing will become an attractive proposition for many.

Chris Ogle is Managing Director of Internet Power Systems Ltd. and is author of his best selling book, In 2 The Clouds. Chris has lived in Watford, England for the majority of his life and is a keen Table Tennis player.

In a career spanning 30 years in the computer industry Chris has worked with 000′s of businesses from small Micro companies through to large multinationals such as Laing O’Rourke. With the exposure to such a diverse range of businesses and their operating processes coupled with his technical background Chris was well placed to design and create one of the first completely web based business platforms for SME’s.

Drawing on 7 years of providing Cloud computing solutions to the SME marketplace coupled with a detailed understanding of Internet Marketing has culminated in SME7 – 7 Steps to getting the Business that you really want – more Profit, more time and more Choices! Chris’s book ‘In 2 The Clouds’ takes us through these 7 Steps and removes the mys

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Internet Marketing Pt 1

The Internet is a great place to do business, whether you’re a retailer selling a particular line of products or a service provider making your living on the Internet. There is, however, one age-old problem with business that never seems to go away: people won’t buy what they don’t know about.

This is where Internet marketing comes in.

Internet marketing basically involves using various tools and services to let your business reach a wider base of potential customers. Good Internet marketing will bring in a significant number of clients, keep them interested and then make more than happy to purchase more of your products.

A not-so-good Internet marketing program, however, will be a complete waste of time and money. In the worst case scenario, you could even end up doing more harm than good to your business if the marketing strategy is poorly thought out.

Strangely enough, most people actually fail in their Internet marketing strategies not because they lack the knowledge or the technical capabilities to make good use of Internet Marketing.

SEO, HTML, opt-in lists, landing pages – all of this will not matter if the would-be marketer does not know how to actually succeed with the tools at his or her disposal.

Let me be clear: this article is not a technical manual on the finer points of Internet marketing. No tutorials, no tests, no benchmarks.

This article aims to supplement your technical know-how and give you an idea of what to do with your skill and knowledge. It will allow you to channel your efforts and create far-reaching plans.

In short, this article will teach you how to be successful in your first year in Internet marketing.

The Mindset of a Successful Internet Marketer

A successful marketer needs a vision to be able to succeed.

No, I am not talking about some grand, messianic vision or something. I am talking about a vision that will define where all the Internet marketing efforts will go to.

This vision will allow you to focus your efforts into something more productive, and will allow you to truly succeed in Internet marketing. But before you can define your vision, you must first assume the mindset of a successful marketer.

This mindset is in turn composed of different frames of thought. Here are some of the more important ones:

Honest and Sincere
The very first thing I have to tell you is that no truly successful Internet marketer is a sham and a fraud. The stereotype of the Internet marketer that sidelines as a ruthless vulture and snake-oil salesman is an image that is, sadly, more commonly adopted than I would like. But let me tell you that being a successful Internet marketer means being successful for the long run – and you cannot be successful in the long run if you start your career as a fraudster. The rewards from fraudulent sales or deceptive marketing strategies are immediate and attractive, but you cannot build a marketing empire with foundations laid on lies and deceptions. An Internet marketer with a name built upon reliable business and customer satisfaction will yield more rewards in the long run than an anonymous ghost who has to change names every now and then lest he/she face criminal charges.

Willing to Experiment
One of the marks of a successful Internet marketer is the willingness to try things out. Many would-be marketers spend months (even years) studying how to be effective in Internet marketing. This is all well and good, but all this will be for nothing if you are not willing to put your skills out on the open market where it will be actually tested under pressure. The truth of the matter is that there is not absolute recipe for success as an Internet marketer. You just have to grit your teeth and dive into the whole mess. You learn faster, and you will be able to find out what works and what does not in your particular line of work. Even your mistakes cannot be considered as failures if you learn from them and use that knowledge to better yourself.

Reflects and Learn From Mistakes
Just because an experiment of yours fails does not mean you should just up and forget it. The whole point of experimenting is to find out what works and what does not. If something you just implemented does not work, like a weak landing page or faulty search engine optimization, then you have to go back and trace where the mistake stemmed from. This is why it is absolutely essential that you reflect upon any problems you encounter in your Internet marketing campaign. What went wrong, how did it go wrong, how can I fix it and how can I improve on it? These four questions are staples when it comes to reflecting on and learning from any mistakes.

Seeks Excellence in All That Needs to Be Done
Good enough is a far cry for very good, even though both are “good” in a sense. Excellence is when you give your best to everything you do. This excellence is not optional if you want to be a successful Internet marketer. You don’t cut corners, you don’t do a sloppy job and you don’t say “this is good enough.” Excellence is basically about making sure that you do as good a job as you can. This pursuit of excellence will always drive you to find better and better ways of doing things, greatly increasing productivity and efficiency. Best of all, your customers will immediately recognize your this excellence and will be more willing to at least check out what you have to offer.

Sets Competitive Standards to Meet
There is another reason you need to seek excellence – the best and most threatening of your competitors also do the same. You must always understand what your competitors are up to. You have to know what they offer, how they do things, how they market themselves and even how successful they are. If excellence will push you further up in your marketing efforts, then your competition will define the bare minimum you need to work with. This is especially useful when you are new to Internet marketing. Your competitors will most likely have been around for quite a long time already and will have spent a significant amount of time and money to get where they are now. All you need to do is analyze how they do things and you will be able to benefit the most from your competitor’s existing practices.

Understands the Needs of the Customer
This is cliché, I know, but it is something so many new Internet marketers overlook that it is worth pointing out once again. All people have needs. If somebody comes along selling something that will satisfy my needs, then I will be more than happy to part with my hard-earned money. This simple fact underscores the importance of spending time, money and effort reaching out and understanding the needs of your target customer base. Many first-time Internet marketers also have this frame of thought where they believe that exploiting their customers and wringing money from them as quickly as possible is the only way to survive. This thinking cannot be more flawed. Any kind of business, Internet marketing included, will only survive if trust is built between customer and client.

Reaches Out and ‘Touches’ Customers
This is another cliché, yes, but it is nonetheless important: your customers must feel that you actually give a hoot about their satisfaction. I have come across so many marketing tactics that look and feel stale and too focused on selling a product. The marketers here have made a fatal mistake: they got too absorbed with exploiting the needs of the customer rather than connecting to these needs. You must always show that the products and services you offer are solutions to a problem, not just tools you use to squeeze money out from customers. It is also worth note that you should not try too hard to “sell” your product to a potential client. I have come across numerous sales pages with a ton of testimonies, videos, promos, guarantees and smiling faces all promising one thing or another. The marketers behind these pages were trying so hard to convince me to buy their products that I simply got turned off and left the page before even finding out what they wanted to sell to me.

Transparent About Everything
People will be more willing to buy a product if they know exactly what they are getting. Many marketers love to use fancy prose, grand promises and technical jargon to bedazzle potential customers. This isn’t such a bad thing in most cases, but all this grandstanding will be for nothing if the potential client does not understand what the heck they are looking at. Be as transparent as you can about what you sell and you will find customers much more willing to do business with you. This is especially important for product pricing and fees. You would be surprised at how many sales pages exist on the Internet that do not list the actual costs of purchasing a product or service. Lots of promises and lots of testimonies, yes, but the lack of information on something as basic as pricing is enough to turn most people away from the site.

Builds a Network of Partners
Internet marketing is not a one-man (or one-woman) job. You will need the help of a lot of people to make yourself truly successful in this field of work. Once you get down to the more complicated aspects of Internet marketing, you will inevitably find yourself working with a whole host of people: content creators, writers, shippers, reviewers, accountants, customer care etc. Everyone you meet is a potential partner, so always take the opportunity to create and expand your network whenever you can. Even fellow Internet marketers can prove to be useful partners. You could swap customers by selling products and services that complement the business of the other market. For example, marketer A sells fiction ebooks via Amazon while marketer B sells leather covers for the Amazon Kindle. Both marketers could work together to promote each other’s products; effectively sharing their customer base with each other.

Emotionally Balanced About the Business
Nobody is a heartless machine, but breaking down into an emotional wreck all the time can’t be good for business. A successful Internet marketer needs to be completely objective when it comes to making business decisions. Your personal life must not seep into your work, especially when your marketing efforts start to get distorted in the process. Beliefs, opinions, biases and even political affiliations must be kept separate from work, otherwise they could blind you from seeing things as they really are.

This also goes for the success and failure of your Internet marketing ventures. Internet marketing is a fast-moving world, which means things die off as quickly as they are born. Look long and hard at your marketing programs and be impartial about which ones are worth spending energy on and which ones need to be dropped.

Uses Money Productively and Efficiently
One of the more common problems with Internet marketers is that they do not know how to use their money wisely. Let’s say you have earned a cool thousand dollars in sales from your most successful marketing campaign. Bills and taxes are paid, and you still have $500 left over. What will you do with this money? Will you purchase educational materials, obtain marketing tools and hire people to handle the time-consuming tasks, or will you blow it all on a fancy tablet PC? Remember that the money you earn is not something you have to spend right away. It is a resource that you can use to make your marketing campaigns even more successful in the future. You could even use that money to save up for retirement or as a mortgage down payment. Whatever you decide to do, just make sure that you always ‘invest’ your money in something that will be truly beneficial to you.

Willing to Innovate and Create
There are a lot of marketing programs out there that can introduce you to the basics, but do not ever forget to be creative. There is often no need to reinvent the wheel, and there are plenty of instances where you can learn from the experiences of the successful (and not-so-successful) marketers out there. But you do have to remember that people are constantly learning and evolving as well. What might have worked two, three years ago will be done to death by now – especially considering the breakneck pace of evolution over the Internet. It is for this reason that a successful marketer is always willing to try out new things. These new things may not always be successful or turn a profit right away, but they will always impart valuable knowledge to the marketer at the end of the day. This is especially important when you consider the next frame of thought that is present in the mindset of successful Internet marketers.

‘Hungry’ for More and More Knowledge
The last but most certainly not the least of important mindsets of a successful Internet marketer is the ever-increasing desire to learn more about his or her business. You must never, ever stop thinking that you know enough to keep you on top of your business. The world of business is ever-evolving, with new players (and competitors) coming in with their innovative and creative methods. The last thing you want to do is to fall behind the competitive curve simply because you are not on top of the latest news and information regarding your business. It is for this reason that you must always be hungry to learn whatever you can about your business.

Talk to your customers. Know what makes them happy and what frustrates them.

Find out how you can be operate more effectively on a day-to-day basis.

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