Well truth be told it’s not as simple as it might sound. Internet marketing merges two of the most important aspects of marketing together. That would be the technical and the creative. That means advertising, development, design and sales are all one.
The internet really became popular back in the early 90's. Since then its popularity has grown immensely. Back in 1998 the average number of searches per day was just under 10,000. Fast forward almost 20 years and that number has skyrocketed to well over 1 trillion per year.
That alone should tell you how popular internet marketing is. It should also tell you how profitable it can be. In fact, as compared with traditional offline forms of advertising, such as, television, newspapers and magazines, the Internet offers significant advantages, some of the major ones are:
- Global reach
- Instantaneous mode of conveying marketing messages
- Cost effectiveness and a high ROI (return on investment)
In 2011 Internet marketing revenues surpassed cable television and came to close to beating those seen in broadcast television commercials.
2013 saw historic increases in online marketing revenue with an 18% rise from 2012 for a total of $20.1 billion in the first two quarters.
Methods Of Internet Marketing
So how exactly does Internet marketing work? It’s made up of several different strategies that all work together to help you drive traffic, increase conversions and make sales.
There are various methods that fall under the umbrella of Internet marketing, all with their own specific designs, end goals and strategies.
Smart marketers implement more than one method, and best case scenario all of the above in order to appropriately diversify their marketing plans to achieve the desired results and engage the highest amount of leads that can be converted into customers.
Each of these strategies work to help boost the online visibility of your business.
- Email Marketing
- Social Media Marketing
- Video Marketing
- Display Advertising
- Mobile Marketing
- Affiliate Marketing - that comes in the form of
low ticket affiliate sales where you can earn a smaller commission or get paid for leads and high ticket affiliate sales where commissions are much higher such as programmes Groove and ReThink Social Media. These are my current favourite affiliate programs for online marketing but in other niches there are a multitude of programmes on Clickbank and elsewhere too, offering both lower and higher ticket prices. - Search Engine Marketing (Pay Per Click)
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Top Rankings (SEO)
When you consider just how much new business is being conducted online every year you will understand how much competition there is out there for that coveted #1 spot in the search engine page results (SERPS) and especially Google since they are the most widely used search engine in the world.
It is crucial that every business, be it local or national, have a strong online presence in search engines. When you have a spot on the first page of the major search engines it not only facilitates the highest possible level of organic traffic, but, it can create a significant level of trust with consumers.
They believe you are a reputable and a credible company all because you have the top spot. When you are able to build trust you will be able to make a lot of money through Internet marketing.
End Goals
The end goal of all Internet marketing strategies is to increase a brand or business’s online visibility and to increase conversions of calls to actions.
A call to action is simply what you want your site visitors to do when they come to your website. This could be a landing page where you want to entice them to sign up for more information so you get their email address, making a donation, making a purchase, filling out a form or buying a service. It is whatever you want the visitor to do.
The key is to figure out which Internet marketing strategy will work best for your business. Don't try to implement all the strategies at one time. This will never work. Start with one and add in others as you see success. You don't want to overwhelm yourself as that will lead to inaction, which in turn leads to self-sabotage.
