Online Marketing – The Efficient and Result Oriented Way of Marketing
The term online marketing refers to using the power of Internet-advertising to generate response from your audience. Online marketing is very different from ordinary business marketing.
In online marketing cost are reduced, capability is increased, communication is refined, content is enhanced, customer service is improved and competitive advantage is achieved.
Online marketing has big scope in the future. Internet has brought revolutionary changes in lifestyle of modern society.
Millions of new users are joining internet every year and with rise of search engines they tend to get every bit of information using internet.
Marketers have to realize that if they want to stay among the business leaders they have to go online sooner or later. Now this is very crucial for any kind of business to have some presence on the online world market.
Internet is always updating and evolving, so marketing strategies to advertise on it should keep on evolving and updating because there is always a counter strategy for every strategy.
Online marketing is also known as internet marketing, web marketing, search marketing and e-marketing.
Generally a lot of people think that e-commerce and e-marketing is the same thing but there is a fine difference b/w them.
Any business marketing using online media is known as e-marketing while if there is financial transaction involved with the electronic process using internet techniques is known as e-commerce.
Type of Online Marketing
Display marketing- It is a type of advertising that typically contains logos, photographs or other images, location maps, and similar items.
Textual advertisements are also used where text may be more appropriate or more effective. It is one of the oldest ways of online marketing.
PPC (pay per click)- Pay per click (PPC) (also called Cost per click) is an Internet advertising model used to direct traffic to websites, where advertisers pay the publisher (typically a website owner) when the ad is clicked.
The main purpose of PPC is to generate traffic on advertiser’s website. There are two methods to determine PPC
Flat-rate PPC- in this model the advertiser and publisher agree upon a fixed amount that will be paid for each click.
Bid-based PPC- In the bid-based model, the advertiser signs a contract that allows them to compete against other advertisers in a private auction hosted by a publisher.
SEO (search engine optimization)- it is the process of adapting the page’s contents and links to
improve the ranking of website’s page on search engine. It needs thorough research and various SEO tools to get proper keywords and thus optimization.
Social media marketing- the strategy of this type of marketing is to advertise on social media website such as facebook, twitter, blogs etc. to announce certain product.
It basically creates content that attracts attention and encourages readers to share it with their social networks.
SEM (search engine marketing tools) – SEO optimizes a website through placement of particular keywords (organic or algorithmic results) while SEM does the same but focusing on paid components. SEM tools are used to do keywords research and analysis and also to measure the saturation and popularity of it.
Some popular tools are Google adwards, yahoo! Search marketing and Microsoft adcenter.
E-mail marketing- it is a form of direct marketing which uses electronic mail as a means of communicating commercial or fund-raising messages to an audience. In its broadest sense, every email sent to a potential or current customer could be considered e-mail marketing.
Affiliate marketing- this is one of the popular way of online marketing. This is win-win situation for both affiliates and the merchant whose product is being promoted by affiliates.
This is the way of making money online by promoting the products of another company by for a commission on each sale you generate.
Marketers should consider few policies after creating their website to generate more traffic of visitors and retain them for a long term.
E-branding- you should make your site attractive through animation, logo, bright colors and slide show inclusion.
Your website should show complete contact details. It is very important as customers should feel secure and supported whenever he needs your support.
You should adopt liberal return policies and in store pick-up services so that customer can trust you and the quality of your products.
Online marketing is far cheaper than print media and broadcast media. Here promoting a business can be done for a shoe-string budget. So don’t wait and be the part of online marketing world.