Benefits of Online Marketing

Online marketing has only recently made it’s foray, and yet it’s charm, speed and time saving attributes have made it a viable option. Sitting on your chair and just a mouse click away to make a purchase, seems so simple and effortless, that eyebrows are raised-Why online marketing, or rather – How can one enjoy maximum benefits by marketing online? Well, in a nutshell, Internet being a visual medium demands that your website or product be effective and attractive in terms of web design/development, this tried and tested strategy ensures that half the battle is won. But, in case you don’t want to put all your eggs in one basket then , online marketing offers scope to employ various strategies to reach your target. Internet marketing has become an energetic & economical way to buy products and services in less time, without consuming the time and energy of their customers.

These are the apparent benefits, but the subtext unravels other bounties: like cutting costs-online marketing helps you do away with legal and professional services, travel expenses and the charges to market for a stipulated period in journals, newspapers or magazines. This also allows for higher profit margins, since your costs are low, you make more profit form sales. Marketing is an integral part of sales, offline, advertisements costs can burn a whole in your pocket, whereas online you can submit free ads, do ad swaps with e-zines or use pay per click search engines etc.

Here are some key factors and guidelines that an online marketer needs to take into account in order to achieve guaranteed success.

Web Design/Development:Web design/development should be according to the services offered by the provider and targeted community, where content is easily accessible. Try and avoid critical and heavy images, scrolling text and flashing graphics. These can be tedious and put off a prospective buyer. Frequently updating your website in case of alterations will do the trick.

Web Visibility:Enhanced web visibility can translate into higher sales. If your products and services are easily reachable to the user on the web, there will always be a chance to be in the top league. Traditional online marketing skills and various other methods can be employed to increase your web visibility such as Search Engine Optimisation, newsletters, affiliate marketing etc. The following are some of these explained further:

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Search Engine Optimisation:Did you know that 90% of all online visitors are attained through search engines. If your website is search engine friendly, you will always have a chance to be on the top of a search engine’s results. You need to ensure that when someone queries a search engine your web site gets returned in the top 30 results (or first 3 pages). This will help generate valuable visitors who can be future customers, adding to your online sales with a high visibility of your products and services. Key to both acquisition and retention is having good content that will attract visitors in the first place and then keep them coming back for more. Search engine crawlers give preference to those web pages which have crisp and valuable content with targeted key phrases. Search Engine Optimisation has been controversial in the past by some companies using unethical ways to get to the top in search engines. These methods are now banned by all major search engines.

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Newsletters: Newsletters are by far the most powerful way to communicate with a group (people with common interests) – on a regular basis. Newsletters are great not just for customers, but also for getting employees, distributors, commission sales reps, the media, and any other third party excited about your firm. This is a platform by which you can communicate with your clients, they generate calls and inquiries, and because they are permission based, your clients will receive them favorably. The most important and effective marketing tool because they have a vast reach and convert, Buyers into Customers. Newsletter marketing is therefore one of the best ways to keep in touch with your customers if done with caution. The most prevalent problem with generating newsletters is –SPAM! So avoid predefined keywords and trigger words. To ensure that your newsletter be read it needs to be interesting, informative and helpful.

3. Affiliate Marketing Benefits of affiliate marketing include the potential for automating much of the advertising process (accepting & approving applications, generating unique sales links, tracking & reporting of results) and payment only for desired results (sales, registrations, clicks).

When we talk about affiliate marketing; we can measure affiliate marketing in terms of Pay-Per-Click (PPC) and Cost-Per-Click (CPC).

3.1 PPC: In a PPC agreement, the advertiser’s payment is based on click-through to the destination site based on a prearranged per-click rate.

3.2.CPC:The terms pay-per-click (PPC) and cost-per-click (CPC) are sometimes used interchangeably, sometimes as distinct terms. CPC indicates measurement of cost on a per-click basis for contracts not based on click-through.

Web Analysis: Set up a procedure to analyse your website activities. You should be aware about what’s happening on your website. There are lots of web analytic tools and service providers which can help you with a complete tracking of your website visitors. You can examine the complete summary of your website visitors by following those methods. Web analysis can reap benefits for online marketing, since it allows you to read and monitor your visitors/prospective customers behavior, where they are concentrated(location), what are their preferences(helps you rate your products) and further helps in making future marketing strategies and working on your shortcomings.

People's online expectations have climbed over the last few years and two-thirds don’t ever bother returning to a web site that did not meet their expectations. Keeping these factors in mind can go a long way in providing great value edition in your e-commerce and web promotion activities, and make you a rising star in WWW community, or better still, the only STAR!!

Netlink uses integrated digital solutions to promote and market our client’s business objectives and long term vision. To know more about how we can help you achieve your goals