SUBMIT 2.0

Internet marking, usually abbreviated as e-marketing basically refers to the conduct of traditional and organic business with the internet as the platform. Due to the rapid enhancement in technology, businesses, no matter how small has seen the need to harness the power of the internet to their advantage. Even the smallest unit of businesses likes to establish a presence on the internet because of the relatively inexpensive cost involved. The typical online marketer spends less than twenty-five percent of the cost it would have incurred in running the same business traditionally. The two basic forms of internet marketing, which are ever increasing in popularity are e-commerce and affiliate marketing.

E-commerce in its simplest form, refers to moving you’re buying and selling business online whether it involve physical goods or provision of services. Here, a dealer in say, screw drivers set up a website that contains all his inventory, product description and product prices. The system works just like a shopping mall; each product you select is added to a virtual cart and at the end you proceed to a check out page where you make your payment. The goods will be shipped to you within a reasonable period. Remember, all these are done in real time. The same can be done by service providers as well regardless of the kind of services offered. It is important for anyone who engages in e-commerce to ensure that he has at least, a web directory submission. If you offer specialized products or services, get your directory submission in all relevant specialized directories as well.

The second one, which is affiliate marketing, affords individuals and organizations that do not manufacture products or provide services to earn decent income through the resale of other businesses’ products or services on commission. The system is very simple; the customer in the course of searching for a product may end up at an affiliate, also known as the publisher, the publisher directs the customer the dealer of the related product, the customer patronizes the required product and the publisher is compensated based on an agreed compensation program. The compensation program differs from affiliates to affiliate and may fall under Cost Per Action, Cost Per Click, Cost Per Mile and Cost Per Sale. Your success with an affiliate program depends on the size of your website traffic as well as incoming links. Ultimately, you will have to incorporate tools to allow social bookmarking by users to share your content within their circles. These tools are usually supplied for free by the social bookmarking service providers.

The use of internet marketing affords businesses the opportunity to reach potential clients directly, not only in terms of location but those of particular interest in specific product or services. Advertisers have seen this as an opportunity to harness the effectiveness of their content through what has become known as behavioral advertising, where through the use of cookies, browsing history and shopping history, adverts that matches your interest are presented to you instead as against traditional advertising that present presents content at ‘wholesale’ to potential customers. Billions of dollars are thus earned by advertisers annually through the use of the internet because of the unique advantage it presents to both advertisers and their clients.

Other forms of internet marketing includes e-mail marketing, article marketing, sales lead marketing, blog marketing, social media marketing which have all shown great potential due to the budding benefit that it accrues to parties who are able to exploit the them to their own advantage. This is an indication that indeed internet marketing has come to stay.

Filed under: Internet Marketing