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(as opposed to general secondary research from 3rd party industry surveys); these secondary surveys results are usually out of date and data collection, analysis and conclusions questionable.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.

Communication was so difficult years back that people avoided communicating with anyone. With the growth of technologies communication slowly became easy and today with the upcoming of Information Technology the concept of communication has changed entirely. People now believe in one to one communication through Internet facilities. This instant form of communication has given rise to several online businesses. A simple click of the mouse reduces the communication gap that encourages users to use online facilities. The Internet business has also helped online marketing companies and Internet advertising agencies to perform extraordinarily.

Several online marketing companies are seen on the web that utilize this instant form of communication to communicate their messages throughout the globe. A two way communication becomes so easy for an online marketing company, as it that helps to form a communicating bridge between the company and customer. Since advertising is an integral part of marketing therefore Internet advertising agencies have benefited a lot from online marketing facilities. For those who want to promote their good/service through Internet can go for affiliate marketing by becoming a part of an online marketing company.

An online marketing company makes use of all the marketing techniques to place a product in the market through web. Brand promotion is a part of Internet advertising that helps the audience to know about the latest offerings of a brand. Just like an online marketing company, the Internet advertising agency works to advertise the brand and make online marketing a successful business. Everything associated with Online marketing is very simple and marketers enjoy this business because they can even work from home .

Email campaign was a concept that was never even thought about but online marketing came up with this technique to cater to a large mass of audience. This concept became a success and was accepted by many online marketing companies that some of the companies specialize only in email campaigning.

As a business owner, you know that one of the keys to a successful year is promoting your business. No matter what size your business is, marketing and promotion need to be addressed. Marketing has become a daunting task with the increasing number of online start-up businesses. And now, along with the traditional offline marketing methods, there are many online marketing tools and methods available.

Online Marketing is also known as Internet Advertising, web marketing, web advertising or e-marketing.

There are many benefits to marketing your business online. Here are a few.

Lowering Your Costs

A recent eMarketer article sites that “in the wake of the global economic downturn, marketers worldwide are shifting more of their budgets into cheaper, more-measurable categories. In most cases, that means online.”

Your marketing budget is only so big and online marketing can stretch it even farther for you. TV and radio spots are expensive, printing costs for corporate and product brochures are expensive and traditional mailings cost not only in materials and postage, but deplete the environment as well. Why not direct potential customers to your website for information on products and services? Your website is your brochure, a marketing tool available 24 hours a day to prospective customers. Your revenue potential will increase while your costs diminish.

Offline marketing ads for newspapers, TV and radio are for a limited time and you pay for the time slot and space. In online marketing, your ads potentially can stay up longer and over time you end up paying less. Using article marketing, you could either write an article yourself or pay someone else to write it. When that article is distributed online, it stays on the Internet for many years. For a small cost, you’ve placed a marketing proposition that stays around indefinitely pointing potential customers to your website and your products and services.

Compared to traditional marketing or telemarketing, email marketing costs very little. These targeted messages will go directly into the homes and offices of your potential or existing customers.

Reaching a Larger Market and a Targeted Market

The Internet allows people from all over the world to do business with each other.

From another recent eMarketer article, in 2009, more than 65% of Americans are Internet users. They’re not only checking e-mail and Twittering, they are shopping for products and services.

With traditional media, your ads are restricted to a specific location for a limited time. When you promote your business online, you reach a larger audience than you would ever be able to reach otherwise since your marketing activity is not restricted by location. More potential customers always equal more sales opportunities.