The Internet Marketing
Collective
There are many and
varied Internet marketing methods used online to promote a product
or service, but they are all typically focused on promotion of a web
site or web page. The content of that particular web page will
display information about the product or service on offer. These
methods all fall into the Internet marketing category and all have
an important part to play in the overall effect of the Internet
marketing campaign.
The term Internet
marketing actually refers to a collection of the more creative
and technical aspects of the Internet, which would include web
site design, web site development, advertising, promotion and
ales, and the varying techniques used in Internet marketing
include search engine marketing, email marketing, article
marketing, affiliate marketing, online advertising and more
recently, social media marketing methods as employed in blog
marketing, and viral marketing. Here we look at the variety of
Internet marketing methods and the differences they make within
the Internet marketing arena.
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Search Engine Marketing
Search Engine Marketing
is a form of Internet marketing that sets out to increase the
visibility of a web site in search engine results pages using
search engine optimization (SEO) techniques. A well optimized
web page will be ranked higher in results pages for a particular
keyword or phrase.
Email Marketing
Email
Marketing can be a very successful form of Internet marketing if done right,
but there are certain strict rules to adhere to if you don't want to lose
your service provider. There are basically only two ways to carry out an
email marketing campaign. Most Internet marketers use email marketing to
communicate with existing customers, through legitimate opt-in lists of
email addresses built up over a period of time.
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The
recipients have agreed to receive emails from the sender and have the
option of quitting the list at any time. This is known as permission
based email marketing, and perfectly acceptable. There are however
many individuals and companies who send unsolicited bulk email to
addresses which have been harvested from the millions of websites
across the Internet. This is known as spam and not only is it frowned
upon within the Internet community but in certain countries and/or
states is strictly illegal.
Article Marketing
Article Marketing involves the writing
and publishing of articles around the Internet which fall into a variety of
categories and use backlinks in the author biography box to a web site in
order to improve the visibility of that site in the eyes of search engine
robots. Technically, article marketing is an aspect of search engine marketing,
and has become more popular over that last couple of years. It is now considered
to be an important part of any Internet marketing campaign.
Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate Marketing can be a very
lucrative form of Internet marketing, with or without a website to assist in
promotion. Typically, an affiliate will be given a unique url link to promote
that will have his or her identification embedded in the link. When sales are
made from the promotion of that link, the affiliate will receive a commission
for his efforts from the affiliate program manager. Without a website to
promote their affiliate links, the affiliate may turn to other forms of
promotion, for example, email marketing, online classified advertising,
and pay-per-click advertising.
Online Advertising
Perhaps the oldest form of Internet marketing, Online Advertising
comes in many guises, for example, contextual ads on search engine results
pages, banner advertising, pop-ups, classified advertising networks and
e-mail marketing which includes e-mail spam. A major advantage of online
advertising is that the information and content offered is not limited by
geography or time. Ads will be displayed 24/7/365.
Social Media Marketing
Social Media Marketing is the latest Internet marketing idea
and the typical format would be websites where profiles are hosted through
user submission, and would also include news, photos, videos, and podcasts.
Examples of social media networks are MySpace, Facebook, Bebo and YouTube,
where brand awareness and visibility techniques are used rather than blatant
advertising. A rather more subtle approach to Internet marketing.
Blog Marketing
Blog Marketing is the name given to the technique of using a
blog or multiple blogs purely as a means of advertising or promoting a web
site or online business. The blog(s) will run advertising links and sometimes
Internet marketing product or service reviews along with promotion via
entries on third party blogs and a cross-syndication of information across
other multiple blogs. Blog marketing is a widely used Internet marketing
technique.
Viral Marketing
Viral Marketing relies on a high pass-along rate from one
person to another. If a large number of recipients forward information to
a large number of friends or colleagues, the overall growth will snowball
rapidly. However, if the pass-along numbers get too low, the overall growth
will quickly fizzle out, and the campaign flounders. It has been recorded
that a satisfied customer will tell an average of three people about a
product or service he or she likes, yet will inform eleven people about
a product or service which he or she did not like. Viral marketing is a
product of this natural human behavior.
So these eight Internet marketing models are the most widely
used although some marketers will practice methods which employ two or
more of the above models simultaneously. Whichever system the marketer
employs, the end product will always be the same... the marketing and
promotion of a web site, product, service or affiliate link. That is
the sole agenda of The Internet Marketing Collective.
Trevor
Taylor
Keywords: the internet marketing collective,internet marketing, |