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Internet marketing is exciting, challenging, and confusing. It can make or break your internet business career and yet many people who depend on internet marketing don’t have a full grasp of the essentials involved in internet marketing.

In fact, many internet entrepreneurs waste a great deal of time, energy, and momentum because they do not fully understand internet marketing. Don’t let this lack of understanding undermine your income potential.

In order for you to better understand internet marketing and its impact on your internet business you must know the answers to these three key questions:

1. What Is Internet Marketing?
2. What Is The Cost Of Internet Marketing?
3. What Is The Benefit of Internet Marketing?

What Is Internet Marketing?

Marketing is actually rather simple. Marketing is communication about an idea, product, service, or organization. Marketing therefore encompasses advertising, promotion and sales as well as the various techniques and forms of communication used to advertise, promote and sell.

Marketing is broader than simple advertising or promotion in that it includes researching the market to learn what consumers want and then setting out to meet their needs with the appropriate product, price, and distribution method. Marketing includes market research, deciding on products and prices, advertising promoting distributing and selling.

Marketing also covers all the activities involved in moving products and services from the source to the end user including making customers aware of products and services, attracting new customers to a product or service, keeping existing customers interested in a product or service, and building and maintaining a customer base for a product or service.

Internet marketing includes these same activities but also pulls in various internet tools including web sites, email, ezines, banner advertising, blogging, RSS, text links, search engine optimization, affiliates, autoresponders, and other ecommerce applications.

What Is The Cost Of Internet Marketing?

The range of expenses for internet marketing is huge. There are a number of promotional and marketing ventures that can cost you nothing or only pennies a day while other advertising efforts can cost you thousands a day.

It is important to consider your goals — both long-term and short-term — as well as how much each prospective customer is worth to you. This will help you determine a workable budget for your internet marketing campaign.

Many internet promotions are free, you can set up a web site and/or blog for $250 a year, and you can buy text links for $10 a month. You could easily spend $25-50 a day for advertising but there are many cheaper ad options available.

The best program is to start small and cheap and slowly build as you test and learn what is successful for your market and product. There is no perfect acvertising solution that works wonders for everyone. Each marketer and each product has a different formula.

What Is The Benefit of Internet Marketing?

Internet marketing offers more benefits than many traditional marketing mediums. The very nature of web sites and blogs is that they continue working to promote and market your product long after your initial marketing effort is over. Similarly many advertising efforts, such as ezines, newsletters, banners, and text links also continue to increase in power over time.

Email marketing can be a tremendous surge in contacts and sales and offers the ability to personalize your message as well as reach a targeted audience so your chance for sales goes up exponentially.

The other tremendous benefit of internet marketing is that it offers convenience and immediate satisfaction. Your potential customer sees your marketing message when it is convenient for them — and often when they are seeking information about your specific topic. Then you offer them the ability to act on that interest right then. They can locate your product and buy in the time it would take to watch a commercial on television or turn a page in the newspaper. That is the power of internet marketing.

Now that you have the answers to these three key questions, you are ready to begin your own internet marketing campaign — and succeed with your internet venture.

Experienced webmaster Deanna Mascle is glad to offer Answers About Internet Marketing at answersaboutinternetmarketing.com .

Submitted with Article Distributor.

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How do you differentiate yourself from others in your local marketplace? One of the best ways is by focusing on your unique expertise in your IT marketing. Your clients are really buying you, not a box or a server or a software license. In this article, you’ll learn how to differentiate yourself.

Don’t Become a Commodity

Commodities are cheap and everyone is out price shopping. To avoid this kind of mentality, you must sell “You Incorporated.” Focus on selling your expertise and the special problem-solving value that you bring to the table.

Don’t Be Hidden in Your IT Marketing Materials

Make sure your website lists you as the owner. Don’t try to hide the size of your company and try to make it look big by keeping it anonymous. The best thing you can do in IT marketing is focus on selling your background (and the background of any of your business partners and staff). You should also tell people your unique beliefs and philosophies about how you can help small businesses.
Be Unique

One of the biggest questions I get is “What have you found to be the best, most cost-effective way to get great leads, both in your own business and with some of the consultants that you work with across the country and around the globe?”

The biggest problem that I see is that everyone is going after the same leads with the same worn-out pitch from five years ago. The problem with this is nothing is unique in the message. Nothing is unique in the pitch.

Do Your IT Marketing Materials Look Like Everyone Else’s?

If you think you’re immune to it, here’s the simple test. Get out your business card. Take a look at your home page. Gather up a couple of business cards and home pages from competitors in your local area and see what you are saying that’s different. My guess is that everyone is saying, “We sell PC hardware and software, LANs and service.” This is true… this is what you do. But how do you expect new clients to pick you out over the pack?

Ask yourself; do you want to compete against a dozen potential competitors or a few hundred potential competitors? Do you want to be banging your head against the wall every day trying to compete against everyone that’s saying the exact same thing? Or do you want to compete against just a handful of savvy VARs in your area?

Copyright Notice:

Copyright MMI-MMVI, Small Business Computer Consulting .com. All Worldwide Rights Reserved. {Attention Publishers: Live hyperlink in author resource box required for copyright compliance}

Joshua Feinberg has helped thousands of small business computer consulting firms get more steady, high-paying clients. Now you can too. Sign-up now for your free access a one-hour audio training program featuring field-tested, proven Small Business Computer Consulting Secrets.

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Well-written, tightly-focused articles are in high demand by thousands of online publishers. Why? Because publishers view good content as a value-added asset, enhancing their own brand awareness and deepening relationships with clients and customers.

As a content provider, you can attract a substantial and continuous flow of new prospects from online venues that might otherwise be inaccessible. And unlike other promotional methods, you get this traffic without spending a penny on advertising.

The three techniques below make it easy for publishers –your willing and enthusiastic partners– to find and publish your material.

1. Syndicate Your Articles

Syndicating your articles makes it easy for site owners to put your content on their website. It’s a real time-saver and totally hands-off for webmasters.

Automation is a big selling point of online syndication. The syndicating site simply inserts 2 lines of code on their web page, and your articles are distributed from your server to their web page automatically. You have total control over content and style, while the webmaster never lifts a finger again.

It’s an ideal situation for you. Once a site agrees to accept your articles through syndication, you are freed from the job of marketing each article individually to the site owner. A marketer’s dream!

For details on setting up your syndicated feed, read this article by William Bontrager:

http://www.homebiztools.com/syndication.htm

One of the first places to start marketing your syndicated feed is on your website. Post a sample article so others can see the quality of your work, and show them how to set up their web page to accept your articles.

For additional marketing muscle, solicit webmasters from the resource box of your article. Include a line to let them know your column is available for syndication.

Lastly, get listed in syndicated article directories such as those found at Freesticky.com and StickySuace.com. Traffic from directories is highly targeted and more likely to result in a syndication arrangement.

2. Publish Your Own News Channel

Your own news channel allows you to broadcast your content to the Web with one text file. The protocol to accomplish this is called RSS. This stands for Really Simple Syndication (or Rich Site Summary, depending on who you talk to). Weblogs are an example of content commonly available in RSS.

Once created, your RSS content file can be read by news aggregator programs. By registering with aggregator sites, your feed is indexed and made available for sites interested in receiving your feed. You can see my own news feed in action at NetBizHelpers.com.

Here are some excellent sites with articles on setting up and registering your news channel:

Mark Nottingham’s RSS Tutorial

http://www.mnot.net/rss/tutorial/

Technology at Harvard Law

http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss

O’Reilly XML.com

http://www.xml.com/pub/a/2002/12/18/dive-into-xml.html

3. Submit To Article Directories and Announcement Lists

Many publishers subscribe to announcement lists and browse article directories for content. High-quality articles are regularly picked up from these sources. It’s not uncommon for a good article to be published in several ezines with combined readerships in the tens of thousands.

Here is a listing of popular spots to submit your articles online:

http://www.homebiztools.com/article-dir.htm

To begin posting your articles on announcement lists:

http://www.homebiztools.com/article-lists.htm

There you have it! Three great ways to market your articles and give publishers what they need, while you enjoy no-cost advertising.

Brett Krkosska is a freelance writer and syndicated columnist. He is the owner and founder of http://www.HomeBizTools.com. an idea center for small/home-based business owners.

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Once you have decided to participate in a trade show, half your work is done. The other half starts with exploring ideas on how to get the maximum out of the event both in terms of brand building as well as sales enquiries. Here are seven easy to follow and cost-free implementation tips which would help you improve your trade show booth.

1. Balanced décor

The size of your trade show booth doesn’t really matter. The main idea should be that you work towards achieving a balanced look for the space. The display material and the furniture should be spread evenly instead of concentrating in one section. The entire assigned space should look equal so that visitors find the booth attractive enough to visit it.

2. Treat it as a mini camp

You are likely to spend most of your waking hours at the trade show booth for the next couple of days so it is advisable that you spend a few minutes in planning strategic and accessible locations for all items required. This also helps you avoid a mad scramble each time a visitor requests for some literature or a visiting card. For example, keep the enquiry form on a handy clipboard just under the table, keep visiting cards in your pocket for easy access, keep the high quality brochures under the table which can be reached without a lot of exercise etc.

3. Right amount of furniture

Aim at ‘right-ordering’ the furniture. Not so much that your trade show booth looks like a furniture display and not so little that you have no chairs to comfortably seat a tired visitor who might a good potential customer. The furniture should also be a match to your display and avoid the heavy sofa if you have limited space as you will always be skirting around it to get anywhere.

4. Get more lights than the neighbour

This is really a good trick which has worked well with me in most of the international trade shows I have participated in. Order a few more lights than what the exhibitors are providing. You can argue that more lights would make you a sweat a bit more, but it would also make you stand out amongst similar stalls as the booth would look brighter and somehow more attractive.

5. Personnel should be trained on projects

Sometimes due to shortage of personnel we might hire hosts for the trade show. It is something which cannot be avoided so it would be better that you plan in advance for this and give them sufficient training to them so that they do not appear ignorant to customer requirements.

6. Flaunt your best attributes

Though this specific point has been mentioned in previous articles, it is also required to be mentioned here. You should have a concise communication strategy in all your display material to be able to attract visitors. Relevant graphics and a strong message delivery can make all the difference between your and your competitors stall.

7. Smile

This is something which is a no-cost sure fire winner. You need to be cheerful but not overly friendly and have a genuine smile while talking to visitors. As the Chinese correctly said that a man without a smiling face should never open a shop and they surely know something about selling.

Patty Stripes is an editor for The Trade Show Booth, check out her latest articles about using a trade show exhibit booth, used trade show display and advantages of a compelling trade show booth design

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“Pull Marketing” has always been, and will continue to be the most effective internet marketing strategy at your disposal. Allow me to explain. Most marketing efforts can be placed into one of three categories:

1. “Push Marketing” or advertising basically screams at the viewer. “Hey Look at ME, Buy My Stuff NOW!” Because we are exposed to this type of marketing thousands of times a day, we’ve learned to tune it out, hate it and even protest against it. Look at SPAM for instance. People even get arrested for using email to “Push” their offers in front of us!

With Push Marketing we have no choice in the matter. We get a sales pitch whether we want it or not. And who doesn’t want a choice in what they see, read or hear?

2. “Permission Marketing” on the other hand aims to seduce us into allowing others to advertise to us. They offer up promises of great useful content, special offers and discounts if we signup, opt-in or subscribe. It’s effective but loosing ground day by day as we see the content more and more diluted by the ads.

Basically, they ask us if they can advertise to us and we have a choice whether the content they’re offering is valuable enough to us to put up with the ads.

3. “Pull Marketing” is when people come to you, with a purpose. If I’m seeking the services of a programmer to develop a script for a web site I’m working on, the first place I begin my search is either a search engine or a site where I know programmers can be found like Elance.com. I actually visit these sites with a purpose and seek out the best person for the job.

Maybe I read an article or web based tutorial on designing scripts for my purpose. Maybe I searched through HotScripts.com and couldn’t find what I was looking for.

The Point is, I went looking for them. I took the time and energy to find them and I’m ready to buy now. I’m the most targeted prospect the programmer could ever hope for.

Now, the key to effective Pull Marketing on the internet is visibility. If that programmer was not visible when I went searching he would have lost the sale. He used Pull Marketing to his advantage and it was to my advantage as well because I needed his services at the time.

Here are 7 ways to implement “Pull Marketing” into your internet marketing strategy:

1. Make sure your web site is listed in the major search engines. Your site needs to be optimized so that it is listed under the appropriate keywords and phrases, making it visible when your potential customers and clients are ready to buy.

2. Make your expertise memorable by writing informative articles relevant to your industry or niche. Make those articles visible by submitting and syndicating them to sites and ezines for future publication.

3. Contribute meaningfully to online forums where your potential customers gather to exchange their views, opinions and talk about their problems. Leave a subtle keyworded link in each of your postings. Now that other forum visitors know who you are and what you know, they’ll be more inclined to check out your link.

4. Brand your email with a signature. Every email you send out should have a short blurb at the end along with your URL. Make sure the main benefit of your business is stressed and make it compelling and irresistable. Make it memorable.

5. Provide a content rich web site that pulls visitors into interacting in some way. They have to come back for the newest articles, they have to come back to see the results of a poll or quiz they took part in. Constantly give your web site visitors a reason to return.

6. Leave your URL and signature on any other related sites that allow link submissions or link exchanges. Sign guestbooks, send webmasters testimonials touting what a great source of info their site has been to you. They may publish it, and your URL right on their main page.

7. List your site in the appropriate category of every online directory you can find. Drill down through the categories as if you were a prospective customer looking for the services you offer and submit your listing there. Targeted visibility will do wonders for your marketing pull.

The bottom line is: Targeted Visibility is the key to effective “Pull Marketing”. You need to be there when your customers come looking.

About The Author

Paul Short is a search engine optimization and web site promotion specialist who’s been helping his clients implement pull marketing as an effective internet marketing strategy since early 1997. His web site web site and blog for more info at http://www.top100marketing.com/

paul@top100marketing.com

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