Internet marketing, or online marketing, refers to advertising and marketing efforts that use the Web and email to drive direct sales via electronic commerce, in addition to sales leads from Web sites or emails. Internet marketing and online advertising efforts are typically used in conjunction with traditional types of advertising such as radio, television, newspapers and magazines.
Specialized Areas of Internet Marketing
Internet marketing can also be broken down into more specialized areas such as Web marketing, email marketing and social media marketing:
1) Web marketing includes e-commerce Web sites, affiliate marketing Web sites, promotional or informative Web sites, online advertising on search engines, and organic search engine results via search engine optimization (SEO).
2) Email marketing involves both advertising and promotional marketing efforts via e-mail messages to current and prospective customers.
3) Social media marketing involves both advertising and marketing (including viral marketing) efforts via social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Digg.
Why Is Online Marketing So Important?
The sole purpose of effective online marketing advertisements is to utilise a campaign strategy at the lowest possible cost and risk investment, in order to maximise sales potential and receive a high return on investment (profit).
Advantages and benefits include:
- Online marketing costs are somewhat inexpensive in comparison with other mediums. Cost effective design and well planned campaign strategies can reach a broader target audience (which can be viewed from virtually anywhere in the world) for a smaller price tag than most traditional advertising budgets.
- Online marketing allows consumers of the world to research and purchase services and products at their own pace and convenience. This is massively appealing to the many diverse societies of the world. People are also drawn in better if the option of choice is abundant and results are seen quickly.
- The overall success and effectiveness of an online marketing campaign largely depends on the business goals laid out, as well as cost volume profit (CVP) analysis (a form of cost accounting).
- Online marketing allows for statistics to be measured more easily and at a lower cost. Virtually all elements of an online marketing campaign can be traced and tested in some way, shape or form. Methods in which this can be done include pay per impression (CPM: cost per thousand viewers), pay per click (PPC: a host company is paid every time an advertisement is clicked on), pay per play (PPP: pay per audio advertisement played) or pay per action (PPA: an advertiser pays for a specific action related to an advertisement, such as a form submission or a purchase). Web analytics are also a useful tool in being able to effectively track the exposure, response and overall efficiency of online marketing by collecting, analysing and reporting back internet data. Here, advertisers can determine the best return on investment (ROI). Tracking and measuring can be done almost instantaneously since online marketing encourages interaction by clicking on the ad and visiting the website, as well as other target actions.
- Pay per click advertising is notably the most effective means of generating immediate traffic to a website. Advantages of this form include only paying when a user interacts with an ad (clicks on it), the source of traffic can be easily tracked as well as identify which ads are achieving the best result in a campaign, and targets an audience more specifically (ads appear when a web user searches for keywords that are relevant to a specific company or business).
- Online marketing campaigns can be implemented much faster than traditional forms of advertising, reaching a targeted audience within a matter of days and in some cases, hours.
- Online marketing provides a greater flexibility level whereby campaigns can be altered to test new markets, evaluate new programmes and make changes more specific to a targeted market.
- Search engine optimisation (SEO) companies who specialise in helping companies best market their products and services online can successfully place them on the top or first page of major search engines and directories, such as Google, MSN and Yahoo. This will ensure that competitors are kept at bay (at a lower level on a search engine website), with the sole aim of generating quick and efficient sales or services, as well as increasing a profit ratio.
About Author:
Dawood Khan is a professional blogger with a love of travel. He writes regularly about internet marketing on his personal blog and on the internet marketing discussion forum Warrior.PK.
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