3 Reasons Internet Marketing Is Proven To Get the Most Results For The Money


by Jeremy Harrison - Date: 2007-01-25 - Word Count: 716 Share This!

There have been some interesting responses when people hear what I do for a living. In fact, I'm almost certain I've seen a few people take a step back. When people hear "internet marketing," they think of those annoying pop up ads and spam in their inbox. But that's not what this article is about… I'm an internet marketing consultant and I despise that stuff too.

Once you get past all the annoying things about internet marketing, you realize that the internet offers some great, practical advantages, especially for small business owners like you and I. Here are a few:

It's Inexpensive. Part of what makes internet advertising so inexpensive is that you can publish information instantly without using costly paper and ink. Let me explain…

Suppose you plan to print a brochure for your business. The printing company is going to set their price based on the quantity of brochures you'd like to print, AND the number of colors you want to use in the brochure. You are also limited by the amount of text and photos you can squeeze onto that 8 ½" x 11" paper. When you run out of brochures (or when the information becomes outdated, which is usually what happens first), you must pay the printing company to do another run.

But your company website is a lot more nimble. You can make your website work like an online "brochure." Hundreds of thousands of people can read it at the same time, without paying for hundreds of thousands of "copies." When the information in your online brochure becomes outdated, the changes can be made in a minute or two, at no cost. Once it's changed, everybody has the most current information at their fingertips. And of course, with the internet you don't pay for the use of color, and you aren't limited by the size of a piece of paper. That means you can include as much text and as many photos as you like. The advantages with internet marketing are obvious. By having your own website, you can publish as much information as you want, and keep it constantly up-to-date.
Immediate Contact, Immediate Results. Another advantage of internet marketing strategies is how you can immediately contact your prospective customers, and - more importantly - see immediate results! Let's consider that brochure again.

Once the brochures are printed, you will receive several big boxes full of brochures. It's up to you to get them in the hands of your prospective customers. So perhaps you plan a direct mail campaign, where you mail the brochure to thousands of prospective customers. You must pay for postage (another expense). You also must wait on the mail carrier to deliver those brochures, and THEN wait to see how many new customers purchase your product or service. If you find that the brochure doesn't pull in business the way you'd hoped, your only option is to start over… to re-print and re-mail. It's an expensive choice and most people just choose to accept the poor results.

With the internet, you can use e-mail to send your online advertisement free of charge, and you'll have feedback within an hour or two to judge whether it's effective. If it isn't working… no problem… it doesn't cost a thing to change it and resend it again later.

It's Viral!

When I hear the word "viral", my first thought is to stay away. But when it comes to your internet marketing strategy, viral is a good thing! (Not to be confused with virus, which is completely different.)

If you've ever used the free e-mail service from Hotmail, then you've seen viral marketing at work. When Hotmail started, they put a small text ad at the bottom of each e-mail message their customers sent that said, "Get your private, free e-mail at www.hotmail.com." Within no time, hundreds of people began clamoring to get their free e-mail. The hundreds became thousands, and the thousands became hundreds of thousands. Suddenly, Hotmail was the largest e-mail provider on the planet, all because of a text ad that cost nothing to include on their customers' e-mail messages.

If your website has content that's meaningful to people, it too will become viral. People who visit your website will begin sharing a link to your website with their friends and you'll reach more people than you ever thought possible.


Related Tags: internet marketing, internet marketing strategy, internet advertising, internet marketing services

This article contributed by Spire Advertising & Web Design--Leveraging powerful results for small business leaders.

Your Article Search Directory : Find in Articles

© The article above is copyrighted by it's author. You're allowed to distribute this work according to the Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs license.
 

Recent articles in this category:



Most viewed articles in this category: