What's Internet Marketing?

Marketing is an endeavor to sell something to someone. Basically, it is trying to convince others that they need whatever it is you're selling, whether it's a principle or a product, and that they need to get it from you.

Expand your current view of Internet Marketing from it’s common perception of purely direct response marketing strategies to what it truly is today …. Search Engine Optimisation, targeted mailing list strategies for both current customers as well as ‘interested’ consumers, advertising space, paid as well as organic search, cross pollinating Blogs, online Press Releases, Statistics Analysis, keyword-centric copywriting and the list goes on.

Do I Need It?

A resounding YES, YES and YES.

If you have a business then you are in the business of marketing. Marketing your business and marketing your services and products.

• Do you desire expanding your business without the high traditional costs?
• Far lower ROI than print media with a vastly larger audience

What's The Benefit?

24 hour access to both information as well as product purchase by consumers is a huge advantage. Couple this with the significant costs and overheads saving because of a reduced sales force make the use of Internet Marketing almost mandatory, in today’s fast pace.

As I said in my Business Grade blog entry, Internet Marketing assists in the expansion of your local business into national and international arenas - think how much this might have cost your business prior to the advent of the Internet. Imagine how a smallish business now has the opportunity to compete on the same playing field as major corporates - these smaller businesses just need to take advantage of Internet Marketing.

And since everything on the Internet can be measured in some way through statistics, the effectiveness of your marketing endeavors can be measured, analysed and tweaked ... And then remeasured and so on. And best of all, the world’s most sophisticated analytics package is also FREE - Google Analytics. (Let me know if you’d like to know more on that one, maybe a future XL Mag article if I get enough interest.)

Now all this makes for one very cool sales funnel!

How Soon Can I Start?

If you are currently breathing, you can start immediately.

While the depth and breadth of Internet Marketing may look a little daunting, there’s some really basic questions you need to be asking yourself about your current marketing message

• Who is your target audience?
• What problem do you solve for them?
• Is your website copy one constant ocean of text? I hope the answer to that question is ‘No’.
• Bullet points are popular with Search Engines as well as consumers
• Headings and subheading are IMPORTANT - they dictate sections and are easy to digest
• Give your website to either your significant other or good friend and say ‘OK, you need to be both brutal as well as honest. Please read this page and rip it to shreds on areas on ‘clear readability’, ‘understanding the action I want you to take’ and ‘what the page outline is after a 5 second glance’.
• Are you asking the visitor to take an action? I.e. Sign up here for our newsletter or Click here for product purchase.
• You’d be very surprised how many sites go to great lengths to provide volumes of helpful product info yet fail to ask the visitor to take an action
• Ensure you remove roadblocks that prevent a completed action. Examples of a roadblock are such things as presenting multiple choice actions, requiring too many fields to fill out on easy things like a newsletter signup.
• When you visit other websites, jot down what you, as their consumer, don’t particularly like. That’s a pretty reasonable guide for you to follow for your own site, would you agree?

And, Finally, What's It Going To Cost Me?

The age old question.

You’ve got so many options from starting out slow and doing it yourself to simply knowing you need help in fast tracking your online business by getting in some professional help. Prior to doing anything, answer the questions I’ve posed above. It costs you next to nothing in installing Google Analytics which should give ideas on incoming customer numbers visiting your site as opposed to the site’s sales volumes indicating successful sales conversions.

From here, contract a marketing expert for several hours to go over your thoughts with the focus on a strategy for moving forward. You can seek direction for tasks you’re able to execute yourself or a combination of those with specialist site alterations.

The point to remember always is the market potential in going global … imagine how these staggering numbers could dramatically skyrocket your online sales figures.