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(Article first published in February '08. It has been modified slightly to suit its publication on our site)
Almost as soon as the World Wide Web came into being, businesses began to look at ways to use it as an advertising medium. These days, with almost the entire population of the planet regularly getting online, it's not just large multi-national organisations that can benefit from internet marketing. Anyone that does not investigate the opportunities to be had from promoting their business online is ignoring a huge pool of potential customers.
What Is Internet Marketing?
Online marketing can take many forms, but for most companies it really comes down to two main strategies - "Pay Per Click" (PPC) and "Impression" based advertising (also known as Cost Per Thousand or CPM).
Google Adwords is a prime example of a PPC advertising method. It's called pay per click because the advertiser does not pay when the viewer sees the ad, but instead when the viewer decides to click on the link in the ad and is taken to the advertiser's website.
An example of CPM is banner advertising. In this approach banners are shown on sites that contain information relevant to the advertiser's business. A given cost is charged for every thousand views of the advertiser's banner.
What Can Internet Marketing Do For Your Business?
When implemented correctly, online marketing can deliver massive growth to your revenue and client base. The other advantage is that it is an extremely cost-efficient strategy and is also completely flexible and can be tracked on a daily basis.
However, the biggest advantage for many companies is the regional flexibility that it provides. If you require it, you can easily reach a global audience, or target a very small geographic area. Even a sole-trader business, like an electrician or plumber, can advertise their services and restrict the ad to only appear to viewers in their local area.
But beware - internet marketing is not a magic bullet and care must be taken to design the campaign, the message and also to target the right potential readership to ensure maximum return. You can attract a huge number of visitors to your site, but will they be the right people and will you achieve the conversion to sales ratios that will justify the spend?
Start Enjoying The Benefits Of Online Marketing
If you want to try internet marketing for yourself, there are a couple of very important things you need to do.
Firstly, go and buy a few books on the subject. Google Adwords For Dummies is a great book for the beginner and explains the rudiments of how Adwords works as well as showing you how to setup a campaign.
Secondly, set yourself a target budget (say €500), then setup your own campaign and see how you do. Don't be surprised if you don't do very well initially. Think of your budget as your "education fee". You'll learn from your first attempts and you'll get better at attracting the right type of visitors to your site.
Of course, if you don't have the time or desire to learn all this yourself then you need to speak with a professional internet marketing consulting company, who will set the campaign up for you and then track it to ensure it's working and attracting the right visitors.
Next edition, I will cover off Google Adwords in more detail and explain the basics of the system.
Franco De Bonis has worked in the field of sales and marketing promotion since 1990 and was most recently the global marketing manager for a major international technology company before setting up DG Group in January 2007.
DG Group is dedicated to delivering all the marketing solutions any company may require. Whether it's a website or leaflets and brochures, or even some product packaging; DG Group will manage the whole project and even provide guidance along the way.
The content in this section is the original creation of DG Group and is protected by copyright. You may use this content on your site or in other materials providing you acknowledge DG Group as the author and include a link our site.
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