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Overview of Online Marketing
Introduction
- In simple terms, Internet Marketing or Online
marketing, describe a
set of business strategies and marketing techniques that are employed to
represent a company's overall online marketing objectives. It describes the
practical methods of analysing the market, performance testing and promotion
to ultimately sell products and services using the Internet. The first step is
to research and analyse your target market to be in a position to make
decision regarding online objectives and tactics....
Market Research and Analysis
- the first stage in any form of online marketing
is to find out as much as possible about what your prospective customers want.
By reviewing market research information, reviewing competitors web sites,
industry surveys, obtaining online feedback, obtain company reports, research search engine usage
and so on; a qualified business strategy can be formulated.
Without collection of unknown information to discover and learn from, creation
of business strategy is nothing more than guess work. The main areas of
information to qualify and quantify are; target market size, industry
conversion rates, website traffic, distribution channels, purchase behaviour,
sales copy testing, price elasticity, regulatory and legal restrictions and
company product testing. By far the best form of market research and
analysis is primary feedback from prospective customers (as opposed to general
secondary research from 3rd party industry surveys); these secondary surveys
results are usually out of date and data collection, analysis and conclusions
questionable. Practical ways to get customer feedback when testing new
product ideas could be asking for feedback via Online Feedback Surveys, Free Prize Draws, Free Product Samples, Special Offers on the Confirmation Pages of
Contact Forms, Newsletters, Contentious Forums, Competitions and Quizzes.
Setting Goals and Targets
- if you don't know where you are going, how do you
know when you have got there? Without previous experience or good quality market research, it is extremely difficult to quantify and forecast how much
you will to sell in the future, by when and at what profit margin.
However, use your
market research to put numbers against the elements you can quantify.
Look at the realistic boundaries for your online marketing projections... if
your competitive analysis shows the average product value, market size and
search traffic volume, you could make some realistic sales assumptions if a
top engine ranking were to be achieved. Similarly, if you knew of the average number
of sales per affiliate (see below) could send you, you could plan the number of affiliates
you need to recruit and how quickly you need to recruit them. If you want buy
into a market quickly via online pay per click advertising you can test return
on investment very quickly. By test spending on pay per click in search
terms using various sales copy, it is easy to begin to develop some useful
metrics to project future sales volumes and profits. Download the
company reports of the top three competitors in your target market to check
sales revenues... then apply some common sense to the situation... If your top three
competitors only turnover X per year it would indicate a certain ceiling in
that particular market. Most importantly, understand your predicted conversion
rates and average product margin associated with your product or
service. Without those two numbers it is difficult create a spreadsheet
business model to forecast sales and profit targets.
Choosing The Right Business Model - now that you have created a
quantifiable set of objectives, the next step is to decide how this is going
to be achieved online. In most situations websites can be categorised as
using one or a combination of the following business models...
Dominating 'Natural Organic'
Rankings
- Getting to the top of a search engine is every
company's number one priority when we talk about organic rankings.
80% of surfers only bother to visit the first three results
related to any given search term; and in most queries you are provided with
millions of search results and hundreds or even thousands of competitor websites
to choose from. Once top rankings have been achieved across a range of highly
relevant search terms, the ability to make money scales to a point at which the
market demand for at search term is reached. So how long does it take to get to
the top of a search
engine? There is no quick way to
get to the top of search engine. There is no quick way to get the to the search
engine. Yes that is right, we have repeated ourselves. Do not believe any of so
called to search engine optimization company that claims they can provide you
with a new secret method to get your site there in weeks or even months.
Everybody seems to be an 'expert' and a little information is sometimes
dangerous as you can just as easily get your website banned from a search engine,
as listed. Speak to people who have achieved results as opposed to other people
who want to risk your money. It is true that the ability to dominate rankings varies according to a range of factors; we will expand on how
top rankings are achieved and what these factors are in our section on
search engine optimization. SEO covers a whole range of inter-related areas that include
professional website design, affiliate marketing, pay per click advertising,
email marketing, user interactivity, social
networking, blog marketing, viral marketing, and conventional forms of advertising.
Essentially, factors include the market competitiveness of any given search
term, site content relevancy, website age, link buildings effectiveness, to
name but a few.
Selling Using an Affiliate Channel
- by sharing the profits of a sale with other
websites it is possible for webmasters to generate higher sales volumes . By
devising an attractive affiliate scheme and promoting and implementing that
scheme in a professional manner, it is possible to generate thousands of website
visitors using an affiliate of channel online. Affiliate marketing is a very
well established method of selling online. Thousands of affiliates schemes
already exist from multinational brand names to locally based niche online shops
- all designed to motivate entrepreneurs, portals, etc, to promote their
products and services. The main advantage of affiliate marketing is
high sales volume with nominal sales effort. The main disadvantage is much
lower margins as affiliates need paying commission to remain motivated. This
business model relies on a sensible amount of available margin to be divided
between the website owner and its affiliate on each sale. In addition, critical
to success is patience/ time to recruit the desired number of motivated
affiliates. Also, a thorough understanding of online affiliate tracking software
and services to ensure affiliates are paid on time, sales are allocated fairly
and automated new affiliate recruitment can be initiated. Ask yourself basic
questions... if it takes 6 months to recruit 100 affiliates who generate 200
sales equivalent to £100,000 profit in that time, could you have generated more
than 200 sales in that time (and at what profit) if you had concentrated on
direct selling only. Please visit our section on
affiliate marketing to find out more.
Advertising Driven Sales
- Using this business model,
webmasters drive
visitor traffic to the web site by on spending advertising alone. By raising
website brand awareness either through conventional means such as newspapers
radio or online, visitors can be enticed to visit the website and buy
something. This simple model relies on deep pockets and a thorough
understanding of margin, product break even point and good old fashioned
marketing skills. For instance, the sales copy must be compelling and have
unique selling points related to target buyers needs. To find out read
our section on
online advertising. The Global market for
online advertising (predominately
pay per click advertising) now stands at a staggering $40 billion per year and
expected to double to $80 billion dollars per year over the next 10 years.
For webmasters, the
various methods of advertising potentially available means instant website visibility and access to thousands of prospects
almost instantly. The key questions a new
webmaster should ask are how much I spend on advertising?; How and where
should I best my budget? and How do I calculate the return on investment of any
advertising spend. Unlike hugely expensive TV advertising (which
is normally used to raise brand awareness), online advertising can provide a level
playing field for nimble flexible webmasters, with smaller budgets to compete
in niche sectors.
Types of Websites - the type of business model preferred somewhat
dictates the type of website that is build to achieve your profit objectives.
The main types of web sites are as follows...
Brochure Only Sites
- the purpose of a Brochure only website is to
promote and organisations image. This is the most common form of website and
is usually static nature in that it doesn't actually do anything (other than
provide marketing information). Most small businesses prefer this type
website, as most customers expect some information about the company. When a
prospective customer uses a search engine to find the telephone number of a
local tradesmen, having well presented and professional looking Brochure
website is a given in today's paste it to market place. Brochure only sites
also include information regarding products and services, history and
background, employees, how to find the business.
Designing a brochure only website is
possible for the complete novice using basic software becomes of most personal
computers.
Portals
- Portals of a single point of contact for a web
user interested in particular information. They usually do not own the
products and services but instead provide added value services around those
products (either in order to resell these products, or offer passive
advertising to their site visitors). Good examples of portals of our Property
Advertising websites such as Rightmove.com or Realtor.com. These sites charge
property agents to advertise their properties for sale or to let on this site
and provide an integrated, clear and unified searching mechanism what to help
users find property or accommodation quickly and easily. Some smaller portals
do not charge advertisers (or cannot justify the charge) and so choose to
simply write their own content. Critical to the success of website portals is
the level of unique textual content, compelling technical opinions and
interesting information. The ability to collate fragmented and difficult to
obtain information, from a range of sources - all presented on easy to
navigate website is particularly compelling. For instance, a directory of fine
antique dealers and interesting articles on antique restoration provides a
niche single point of contact for a range of different types of users....
dealers, restorers, shop owners, collectors what and homeowners may all have
an interest in this type of niche portal. The portals provide a great way of
sharing information and typically use forums or discussion groups to allow
people to post relevant articles, questions and answers. Engines love
portals because the content of the website focus on a particular topic. This
means algorithm (a formula utilized by a search engines to determine the
ranking of web pages), is ranking the site in terms of the content of for all of
the pages, delivers highly relevant search results to its user base.
E-commerce Shopping for Consumers
- the main goal of an e-commerce website is to sell
products and services (whether physical or online service such as a
subscription or membership). Users expect to be sold to with the promise of
special offers and quality of friends. They expect to be able to enter their
credit card quickly in encrypted shopping basket check out page. To build an
ecommerce online shop requires knowledge of local banking laws and usually
require companies to authenticate their credentials before being given her
approval to trade online. Amazon.com was the first example of global
e-commerce success providing users what they want quickly and cheaply, with a
clear delivery process and customer service policies. The critical success
factors for e-commerce websites varies depending upon the local geographic
market and general competitiveness of the product of or service. Users of
expect a clear sales offers, cheaper deals and a high street, brand names, a
clear delivery and refund a policy and someone to talk to on the telephone.
There are many online vertical directories concentrating on specific consumer
products. In addition, search engine applications such as 'Froogal' provide a
new and huge channel to market that the traditional high street shopping could
not possibly reach.
Community Networks
- a community network is a consortium of users and
web sites all sharing ideas and information. There are brought together by a
common interest in a particular topic. Leading examples of online community
social networks are Youtube, Myspace,
Facebook, Friends Reunited and so on. There are thousands of other example in
niche areas where uses are coming together to have fun, share ideas, or make
money. They are usually highly interactive with messaging passing between
users and may include
blog functionality, forums and
discussion groups, PC file sharing, videoconferencing, instant messaging, chat
rooms, secure e-mail and led to communicate using mobile technology such as
PDA's or mobile phones. These networks are great places to ask questions to
like minded people or companies. It is probable someone has the answer or is
experience the same problem as you have. If you're planning to create a
community network, critical to success will be the level of niche content and
information regarding contentious and complicated issues that every interest
of great many people.
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