The emergence of the internet marketing

The emergence of the internet marketing A new field of marketing called Internet marketing has emerged with the increasing number of people online. Companies are finding it increasingly difficult to maintain pace with the demands of numerous visitors of their web sites. With the growing traffic on the internet, now almost every company is involved in internet marketing. Internet marketing is much more than just having a nice web site. It encompasses each and everything that a business does to promote itself. The ways of conducting business have now changed due to access to information from any corner of the world in an affordable and easy manner. Today internet has replaced television, phone systems and newspapers bringing about an improvement in the lifestyle of the people across the globe. Offering 50,000 different products in a virtual store is very simple and easy; however this cannot exist in any physical departmental store. Internet has brought along with it real-time access, full connectivity and a simple unique int erface given by web browsers. This entire evolution has created a new environment for conducting business processes, establishing and maintaining business relations. This new wave in marketing has created an entire set of trends which companies need to look at and incorporate if they want to sustain their business. New value needs to be added at each and every stage of the business cycle. Ideas ripe for organizations to pluck and make their own, thus demonstrating that We are still here and better than ever! There is a vast pool of opportunities out there which needs to be exploited. MARKETING TRENDS TO WATCH! Value.Value.Value. The most apt word today is value. Actions that generate an enhanced customer relationship are created by the conversion of key information and knowledge. Organizations need to figure out their value. They need to fit themselves in each of the circles shown aside. The intersection of these is its value proposition. This needs to be placed in front of people over and over again. For e.g., the humanitarian organization CARE, for many years positioned itself as working to eliminate poverty. However many organizations were competing for this. It is a marketplace since the competition is for getting donors. CARE then changed its focus to plight of girls and women with the understanding that this class suffers more from poverty and till date markets this distinction in order to be heard. Online Reputation Management Organizations need to spend an equivalent amount of effort in managing the online brands as in maintaining the physical ones. The flow of messages is no longer controllable with the increasing number of user generated content in the form of blogs and online forums. It is thus essential to masquerade behind the scenes and influence, correct as well as add to th conversations. There are a number of cheap aggregator tools like Google alerts which help to get a daily digest via which the companies can be a part of the conversations. Video Marketing Many organizations have greatly reduced advertising budgets due to the different cost equations. In this scenario video marketing is gaining increasing importance. For e.g. a self styled makeup maven, Lauren Luke, started selling cosmetics by putting videos on YouTube. The videos have over fifty million views and her channel has more than 250000 subscribers. Next in line is the interactive video technology, through which visitors can be taken to the related content by clicking on elements in the video. Value-Added Content By pushing content onto customers businesses are now finding ways to enhance the customer experience. In order to push circulation Amazon has if you like enhancement to its catalogs. Customers continuously try to find that hidden aspect which makes him happy and visit again for purchases. Connecting with Mobile Marketing There are now more than 2.4 billion mobile phone subscribers in the world. Mobile marketing is now becoming a way to attract customers by building a one stop shop for email, photos and other digital services. It is therefore necessary for web sites to easily be able to navigate in mobile browser. Basically specific applications need to be developed to enhance the presence on customer devices by giving notices via phone. The Art of Being Real In a recent poll by AdweekMedia 78 percent respondents said that a celebrity in an advertisement does not affect them in any way. This means that now a days people are on a look for real evidence. It is a trust economy in which people who speak from the heart are believed. For e.g. Doves campaign which features real women using the beauty products was a breakthrough success. A rise of 700 percent in sales of Dove was reported in America. A Deeper Shade of Green Organizations are judged on their practices in the global community. It is now essential to talk green and to deliver on the green. The market research company, Aberdeen Group, reported that customer loyalty is driven up by 36 percent with modest green initiatives. It may rise to as high as 69 percent in some cases. In order to address this topic to teenagers, Worthington Libraries, selected a green theme for its summer reading club online. Death of Email My Info Quest is a text messaging service which a consortium of international libraries has developed which provides live reference services for public. The answers are given to the users from a worldwide network of professionals. In this way the customers are served as and when they expect due to the link between online and mobile functionality. Micromarketing Based on the differences in the customer groups marketing has now become nearly exclusively segmented. Online marketing needs to focus even on this aspect. In a study of its customers a national car wash company found that the customers fall into six different groups. Some young women prefer a car wash based on price whereas some other wealthy male segments prefer a car wash weekly at any given high price. The company has kept a record of email addresses of all its customers, thus offering the right promotional products to the right cluster and motivates behavior. Value of Design A design executes a brand through every touchpoint. Customers need to be provided with a familiar and branded experience. The use of themes, templates, stylish fonts, consistent colours develops a brand within the minds of customers who then recognize the brand easily generating a recall. Speed It is a fast moving world and people are in a constant hurry. The customers now want it fast and easy. Online customers want their results in a moments time without waiting longer on the website. Thus it is necessary that service delivery is streamlined and customers are given what they ask instantly. Emotional Connection Marketing today is all about making an emotional connection that establishes a relevance to customers. Organizations need to cement the emotional and personal connection. HOW DO YOU PLAN TO MAKE MONEY? CHOOSING A BUSINESS MODELà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦.. In simplest terms, a business model is a plan that an organization uses to generate income. It is a combination of many factors like the potential market or niche and how does the organization plan to reach it, the value proposition and other elements which are essential to sustain business in the long run. The company may have many marketing choices at its disposal but it needs to keep the abilities and costs associated with each marketing effort in mind. PPC (Pay Per Click) Business Model Using the PPC model organizations can advertise the product or service in the search engines (Google, Yahoo! and MSN) themselves. Organizations bid on keywords related to their business and pay for advertising only when a user clicks on the ad and visits the site. The ad is triggered when a user types in a search query which matches the keywords that were bided on. The marketer who bids the highest gets his ad displayed somewhere on top of the search results provided by the engine. In this way the company has complete control over when and where the ads are displayed. Depending upon the time of the day the ads can even be turned on or off. The geographic locations wherein the ads will be run can also be decided by the marketer. In relation to the competitors the ad position is determined by: maximum cost per click (CPC) multiplied by click-through rate. It is only when somebody actually clicks on the ad that the search engine gets paid. In this way the top position needs to be earned by writing ads that tempt searchers to click on it and explore the site. PPC is a good fit for marketers if they :  · Like to work with huge amounts of keyword information.  · Are willing to invest the time needed to do daily research and updates to accounts.  · Have more money than time and are willing to spend money to make money.  · Like working with statistics.  · Like analyzing (and reanalyzing) results.  · Know how to write small classified ads.  · Have an advertising budget of at least $100 per month, per campaign. SEO (Search Engine Optimization) Business Model Organizations get their site indexed and ranked in natural search results for search terms that are related to the business or certain keywords. For example, when someone searches a term-schools or restaurants , on Google, the Web sites that pop up first are determined by SEO. The search engines fixed algorithms determine these results and rankings. In such a type of a natural environment the owners do not have much control as to when and where the site will be displayed as in the PPC model. There is thus no cost associated with this model. The only resource required is time. The sites that rank among the top generally have strong inbound links and good content. This amounts for a lot of free traffic. A few things to keep in mind while building up the site:  · Put the keywords in the title of the page, as well in the file name if possible.  · The domain name should consist of the keyword.  · Write articles and web copy with the appropriate keywords in mind (and only a few keywords per article or web page). SEO is a good fit for marketers if they:  · Like to research a topic in depth.  · Enjoy writing content a lot of content!  · Can be patient and have time to wait for traffic (and profits) to increase. Have a limited budget.  · Enjoy spending most of the time on one site to consistently track SEO status and make changes to increase visibility.  · Enjoy doing keyword research and writing content based on just a few keywords at a time.  · Just like to make sales and dont really care where they come from (natural search result sales can be hard to track). Content Business Model In this kind of model the emphasis is on writing articles with a particular keyword or phrases. Within the article, links are provided to the merchants products. Articles may be in the form of press releases, product reviews, personal recommendations, informative content or original fresh content. Good content automatically raises the page rank since it gets linked to more often. Also penalization can be avoided if the content is original and not copied from some other sites. Interesting articles attract more traffic and lead to increased sales. The content should be updated, relevant and act as a valued information source. Visitors should enjoy reading the article and it is the articles content that should give them every reason to visit the website where the organization can market its product. The content model is a good fit if for marketers if they :  · Like to research a topic in depth.  · Enjoy writing content a lot of content!  · Can be patient and have time to wait for traffic (and profits) to increase.  · Have a limited budget.  · Enjoy spending most of time on one site/topic and have time to devote to content development each week.  · Enjoy doing keyword research and writing content based on just a few keywords at a time.  · Like to make changes to a site by consistently adding many pages of content.  · Enjoy setting up tracking links so you can find out where you sales are coming from.  · Like to manage large sites with possibly thousands of pages.  · Enjoy making sales for years to come from articles written in the past. Whichever business model the organization chooses the pay off for the strategy comes only when full time and commitment is devoted to it. Paid vs. Free Content In a survey conducted by A.C.Nielsen across 52 countries comprising 27,000 consumers, 85% prefer that free content remain free. The online content that consumers are willing to pay for includes generally those that they pay for offline and which is produced at a high cost. This includes music, movies, games and some other television shows. On the other hand they refuse to pay for user generated material like blogs and videos. Before they chip in an amount, Online users need the fulfillment of certain criteria by the content produced. 78% of participants believe if they already subscribe to a newspaper, magazine, radio or television service, they should be able to use its online content for free. 71% of global consumers say online content of any kind will have to be considerably better than what is currently free before they will pay for it. Nearly eight out of every ten (79%) would no longer use a website that charges them, presuming they can find the same information at no cost. As a group, they are ambivalent about whether the quality of online content would suffer if companies could not charge for it 34% think so while 30% do not; and the remaining 36% have no firm opinion. à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¢ But they are far more united (62%) in their conviction that once they purchase content, it should be theirs to copy or share with whomever they want. Organizations are now experimenting with different payment models, like micropayments, full service subscriptions to individual transactions. Regardless of what they offer and choose, organizations will continue advertising and along with paid content visitors will have still see ads. 64% believe that if they are paying for online content then there should be no ads. On the other hand 47% are ready to accept greater advertising to subsidize free content. There is no consensus on this subject till date and in the near future online visitors and consumers will make their decisions based on the value of the online content. CONNECT AND PROMOTE SOCIAL MEDIA CHANGING THE FACE OF ONLINE MARKETING The advent of social media has drastically changed online marketing. Now a days organizations devote an entire department to social media. Every campaign on social media is tailored to the needs of the company. A dance company will promote itself through videos posted on YouTube; on the other hand a business minded outlet like LinkedIn may be chosen by a corporation trying to promote itself to different companies. A connection is established between organizations, businesses and people due to the ability to send friend requests, post comments and join networks. All this form a part of continuous extensive user interaction. People want to connect with real people. The information online spreads at a very fast rate. One just needs to re-tweet on twitter, or suggest a Facebook page or forward an email to friends and family. All this is driving a big change in the way brand marketing works. New ideas have been inspired on the relationship between paid and earned media and their impact on the brand. Marketers are moving from a broadcast-based marketing relationship with consumers to a relationship that more explicitly considers how traditional paid media drives earned media-where consumers directly engage with the marketing messages and pass them along to their friends. Earned media Earlier earned media was looked upon as the number of times a brand was mentioned in the newspapers or tv programs. Today however these are not the only form of earned distribution. Today it is the consumer who endorses the brand to his online friends. In such a scenario, tools like organic impressions by Facebook and other options provided by social media networks are exploited to send across the brand message. Hybrid options of paid and earned media are now being used by publishers to create a greater impact. Thus unlike the traditional approach where there was a chance of the brand message degrading by the word of mouth, the brand now directly interacts with the consumer. When it comes to making decisions related to purchasing consumers rely on friends more than anyone else. This provides for a vast pool of opportunities in the growing variety of social media outlets. Encouraging Brand Advocates In advertising there is a constant need to create and encourage brand advocates. It is these advocates who are brand loyal and have an influence on the purchasing decisions of others. This is achieved on Facebook via social ads. When an ad is served to a user the names of the users friends who are fans of that brand are contained in the ad unit. The effectiveness of advertisements is actually positively affected by such lightweight forms of endorsements. Organic Exposure The ability to create earned media using an ad campaign is the main point of attraction to social media for marketers. The newsfeed stories on facebook is one such example of earned media. These stories termed as organic impressions are sent out to friends of users who involve with ads on Facebook. The ad recall was increased by 10% due to exposure to a homepage ad. Also the brand awareness was increased by 4% on an average. (Source: Survey conducted by A.C.Nielsen) How Organic Frequency Drives Impact A number of exposures to the same message still increase the recall. It shows the strong ability of organic impressions to impact the consumers over a long duration for absorbing the messages. This beats the traditional form of advertising. Earned Media Engagement and Reach Interesting homepage impressions must be developed to maximize the reach of earned media. A strong relationship is observed between the number of impressions and engagement rate of an ad campaign because the impressions are generated via interactions with ad unit which are posted as stories in users friends feeds. The problem of the impressions being tough to scale and marketers trying to reach a lot of people needs to be appropriately addressed. Types of Media on FB Concept of Earned Media Brands as Communities on Social Media The social media sites enable organizations to form product groups and fan pages. In this way opinion form brand enthusiast can be seeked. However what does a company do to attract a new pool of customers? A site called Gather.com allows organizations to gain access to people who have not yet experienced the brand offered. This website links people with similar interests rather than with friends or known people. It attracts 8.1 million visitors every month. Feedbacks are also provided regularly to members friends. In this way the site has become an important spot for marketers introducing new products. Badges and Publicity Engaging Users A location based social network site called Foursquare rewards the users with different types of virtual badges for using the service on their cell phones from various destinations. These are like virtual awards that the users earn. For example, a jetsetter badge is earned by a user if he uses Foursquare at five different airports. Reinforcement of a particular kind of behavior i.e. checking in as many times as possible, is the idea behind this. Till date over one million badges have been awarded to more than 5,00,000 users. New badges are introduced every now and then to avoid boredome and badge fatigue. It creates excitement among the users as well as an environment of positive reinforcement. The more one plays, the more one wins! FINALLY: IS YOUR MARKETING INVESTMENT DELIVERING THE EXPECTED RESULTS? MARKETING ROI With the increasing competition and customers becoming more and more price conscious, it becomes essential for marketers to ensure that they are maximizing the returns. For every rupee spent on marketing, the amount of sales achieved need to be known. Resources should be allocated to those activities which help achieve higher sales. Also the focus of marketing investment should be on campaigns that create the greatest halo effect i.e. the extent to which one brands marketing activity positively influences sales of other brands in the portfolio. The ones which have a positive impact on sales should be invested in further. The method for achieving results will differ across a brands portfolio. A tailored strategy is required for each brand and product since each has a different personality and target audience. CONCLUSION: The Wide World of Internet Marketing For someone entering the field of Internet marketing, the opportunities are vast. Most marketing professionals have a bachelors degree in some area of communication, such as advertising, marketing, or English. You can get very specialized. Desmet says. You could work for basically any company because these days almost every business has a marketing department. Sports teams need marketing departments to keep their image and brand in the public eye. Hospitals use marketing to create awareness of their achievements and support for their communitys needs. All businesses need to promote themselves, so theres a marketing position out there to suit nearly any interest. For those having difficulty picking just one specialty, there are marketing firms that work with clients across a number of industries. The foundation for [marketing] is that you have to be an excellent communicator, whatever your specialty may be, Desmet says. Marketing for the most part requires a creative approach. You always have to be coming up with fresh ideas.