Internet Marketing Defined
What Is The Definition of Internet Marketing?
Unless you’ve been a hermit over the past few years you must have noticed how everyone has been going on and on about marketing businesses and products online. Everywhere you turn there is mention of internet marketing.
But what exactly is it?
Could it be as simple as setting up a website and telling a few people about it? Yes – and no. You could certainly argue that that would be internet marketing to a degree, but there are other, more major factors people seem to agree on.
It’s not actually always necessary to have your own website to do internet marketing. It can certainly be very useful – very profitable too, if you do it right – but it’s not essential. You can send out emails, join in online discussions and even join chat rooms to market your products and services. There are people making a living from internet marketing without ever touching a website.
Let’s just clear up on aspect of internet marketing that may work, but you should avoid like the plague. Spam. Some spammers – not many – do make hundreds of thousands of dollars. Some even make millions.
And when they get caught they go to prison.
Whatever else you do, don’t be tempted to break the law and start sending spam. You’ll annoy potential customers and you’ll put yourself in the firing line. It’s not worth it, despite what some emails might say.
One popular practice for ‘marketing’ your service, or product, is to read blogs and post comments. When you add a comment to blog you almost always get chance to add a link to your site link. If you take a bit of time and put a little effort into it you could market your services quite effectively that way. Just make sure that you always add value to a blog post with your comments. Mindless comments will just get you a bad reputation.
Another popular – but ever more dubious – method of internet marketing is with using the social networks like MySpace and Facebook. Starting a profile on these sites for your products or services can bring in hundreds of new visitors. Just adding people to your friends list though is likely to just annoy people. It can even get you banned from the sites.
You want to get your name and website, if you have one, out to as many people online as you can. And you want to be as professional as you can about it. That means adding value in everything that you do. If you try to take, before you give, people will spot you a mile away.
That’s where internet marketing can be so different from offline marketing. Flyers, billboards, even ads in newspapers are easily ignored compared to popup ads, spam emails and fake friend requests on MySpace. There are thousands of people already trying all that stuff. If you offer value and quality in everything you do you’ll stand out in a sea of spammy techniques.
When it comes to online marketing a very good rule of thumb is that if you wouldn’t like it done to you, don’t do it to someone else.
Internet marketing is about positioning your services, or products, to take advantage of the huge marketplace online.
Just do it ethically.
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