What is Internet Marketing? A Primer

chillibreeze writer — Pooja Dasani

You are browsing through a website and inadvertently, your attention is caught by a pop-up display of various posters that are being offered at very attractive prices.

You are looking for an e-greeting to wish your friend on her birthday, and the host website offers you a free trial of one month for their premium paid cards.

You are doing some research on a project and on typing certain relevant words on a search engine, you are immediately led to a list of links where you can buy books and starter tool kits for your task-in-hand.

Welcome to the world of Internet marketing! You will be surprised to see it being used everywhere in the cyber-world. While there is hardly any need to elaborate upon the word “Internet”, the word “marketing” does need an explanation. Marketing, in accordance with the views of marketing guru Phillip Kotler, can be described as a social process wherein people interact with others in order to persuade them to act in a particular way by creating attractive offerings.

Simply put, “Internet marketing” comprises of the entire gamut of online activities that facilitate the sale and purchase of goods and services. It is marketing done through the Internet and aims to convert potential customers into sales by convincing them to buy the products of a business unit.

There are, currently, more than a billion users of the Internet and this increase in the usage of the Internet has consequently led to an increase in online sales. Advantages of e-commerce such as the convenience of shopping anytime from anywhere and access to a wide variety of products cannot be denied and makes this mode very popular amongst potential customers. Keeping this in mind, Internet marketing takes various forms to optimize the online shopping experience for users and thereby leads to generation and maintenance of a regular stream of customers for a business. Some of the common forms it takes are as follows:

(a) Search Engine Optimization - The entire focus of SEO is on getting a high search engine position for business units on popular search engines such as Google. It improves the chances that a web page or site will be found and viewed by interested users. This is based on the general observation that users do not go beyond the first two or three pages of a search result. Hence, the earlier a site is presented, the higher it ranks and the prospects of the site being viewed by users increases. SEO is a comprehensive term that also includes improving the quality of content on a website, making it more user friendly by modifying it’s structure and designing attractive page layouts. The aim is to improve the volume and quality of traffic on a website. SEO experts command high prices for positioning products/companies in top positions of major search engines. An example of SEO service provider is Weblinx.

(b) Viral Marketing - Viral Marketing is a form of Internet marketing which encourages users to pass a message voluntarily. It is dependent on social networking among users. Advertisements are made in such a manner that the viewers are tempted to share the information within their social network thereby spreading the news by word-of-mouth. You may see a “Tell a Friend” message at the end of an article, poem, web page or any other piece of information. You can click on the message and forward it to people you know and they will in turn forward it to other users. This creates a chain and the message spreads like a virus. A well known example of viral marketing is ‘Hotmail’. Hotmail being a free e-mail service provider could to an extent control the format of outbound messages and add a footer to them inviting people to sign up for a free Hotmail account. The word spreads and so does the number of account holders as e-mails are sent from one user to another. And the rest is history!

(c) Keyword Marketing - Any company providing Internet marketing services has to keep itself updated. One of the most prevalent forms of Internet marketing is keyword marketing wherein advertisers bid on keywords and when the user searches for a word, a list of advertiser’s links appears along with natural listings of a search engine, in order of the bid. Pay-per-click involves the use of keywords. In this method certain words are chosen which are business specific and are expected to generate favorable results. When people searching for information use these keywords to define their search on a search engine, correspondingly advertisements of business units appear next to the search results. An advertiser pays only if people click on their advertisements. Examples common to this form are Google Adwords and Yahoo! Search marketing.

(d) E-Mail Marketing - E-mails are sent to potential customers informing them about the features and benefits of products along with attractive offers on them. The success of an e-mail marketing campaign rests on the quality of the leads. The Internet marketing company provides companies with e-mail addresses to contact. If these leads prove to be effective it translates into generations of customers for a business unit. Attention has to be paid to the format and content of the e-mail. These need to be informative and attractive. Designers and copywriters can be hired to create e-mails with eye-catching graphics and interesting text.

(e) Affiliate Marketing - An online marketeer finds customers for an organization and gets commissioned for it. The affiliate directs traffic from one site to another by using various forms of marketing such as display advertising and e-mail marketing. An affiliate may display the banner, products or URL of the advertiser on his website and charge for the effort. For instance, Amazon associates display links to texts and products available at Amazon which then directs traffic to the Amazon home Page.

(f) Display Advertising - As an Internet user, while surfing various sites, you may have noticed flash-animated banners on WebPages. They display a short message which is meant to incite the viewer into finding out more about the services offered by the advertiser. A web banner is the most commonly used form of display advertising. For example, you may come across an animated message which states-

” Need a web designer?
Find out more………….
Click here”

(g) Website of retail outlets - Internet marketing is growing exponentially and major retailers across the globe are taking steps to add it to their marketing mix. Booksellers like Barnes and Noble and Oxford have their own websites and constantly update their viewers on forthcoming titles and offers. This helps them to forge a direct relationship with many Internet users and enables them to build their market share as well as generate awareness about their products.

While each technique of Internet marketing offers scope for a detailed discussion, a snapshot view of all would lead to the same conclusion – they all aim to increase traffic to particular sites and convert it into customers thereby providing business with it’s elixir of life - profit!

One of the fundamentals of business is to generate and direct relevant traffic to their websites, and this has increased the demand for Internet marketing service providers. In today’s world the opportunities in this field are boundless and an astute entrepreneur would be doing himself great service by tapping into the potentials of Internet marketing.

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—About our writer:

Pooja says, "A teacher by profession, I teach management in a leading educational institute for students of class XI and XII. I have also worked closely with leading bodies in the field of education such as the C.B.S.E, N.C.E.R.T and C.I.E.T. Although this takes up quite a bit of my time, it does leave some time to pursue varied interests like reading, writing, playing the guitar and trying out salsa. I strongly believe in 'live and let live'. My close friends, a cup of coffee, humour, movies, music, travel and endless discussions about life keep me away from boredom."

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