Online Marketing Techniques

Substantial rise in online trade has spearheaded the concept of online marketing. Online marketing, also known as web marketing or Internet marketing, is an affordable and effective tool to target a global audience. It involves marketing of goods and services via the Internet medium. Stiff competition, market saturation, increasing consumer demands, etc have made it essential for traders to trade online. Over the years, several techniques have been used to make online trading effective.

However, the Internet today is flooded with all sorts of traders, marketing all sorts of products. 'Standing out' in the crowd is a challenge marketers face today. How, then can you as a marketer lure customers towards your products and services instead of your rival's? How can you direct traffic towards your own website? Further, just achieving traffic is not enough! How can you make sure that a particular visit ends in a sale, as every marketer strives for the same thing - a sale! Profits undoubtedly depend on the sales figures.

Online Marketing Techniques

Article Marketing Technique: This is the oldest and an efficient technique of online marketing. You can write articles about your products and services and submit them on web directories, article banks or ezine publishers. Article writing allows you to place a back link to your own website in the resource box/ bio box. The best aspect of this technique is that it's free! You can write as many articles about your product or service without paying a dollar! However, there does exist a paid version.

However, remember not to abuse this privilege. Many marketers were found writing hundreds of irrelevant, useless articles due to which article marketing landed up as junk content on the Internet. Remember quality matters and not quantity. Write relevant, information rich articles for your customers and avert from bragging. Be honest about your product/ service, telling the customer the benefits of the same, all the while maintaining a tone that is not forceful. Develop an attitude of wanting to provide information to the customer via the article and not selfish gain. If your article succeeded in triggering an interest in the customer's mind, then he/she will visit your site. The article technique has proved to be fruitful by increasing web traffic, improving search engine ranking and is a wonderful means for link building.

Affiliate Marketing: An affiliate program is a profit sharing venture, involving the website owner and online marketer (you!). The website owner agrees to advertise your products with an affiliate link to your web page, for a share in the profits. Affiliate program can be of three types:

Pay Per Click: In this type, whenever the reader (potential customer) clicks on your affiliate link and visits your website, a certain amount gets deposited into the owner's account.

Pay Per Lead: In this type, whenever a potential customer registers on your website because of the advertisement on the owner's site, a certain amount will be deposited into the owner's account.

Pay Per Sale: Whenever a sale is made as a result of the advertisement made on the owner's website, the amount is deposited into his account.

Affiliate marketing not only helps in building brand awareness, but also helps in achieving quality traffic. Moreover, in the pay per lead type you pay only for the sales made. An example of such an affiliate program is Amazon.com Associates Central belonging to Amazon.com.

Bum Marketing Technique: Some say this type is a variation of article marketing, whereas some others say bum marketing has a connection to affiliate marketing. Irrespective of this, bum marketing is a very simple technique. In fact, the reason this technique is called so is because 'any bum can do it', it's that simple! All you have to do is look for low competition keywords, unexposed niches; write articles on them with links to your website, submit them to the article directories and/or popular websites. Internet search engines like Google search engine will crawl and pick them up. The aim is to get your article ranked in the top ten pages of the search engine (So all the best with the keyword research!).

Search Engine Optimization: This is the most effective technique of online marketing. Search engines like Google use algorithms in order to rank websites when people look for content across the Internet. Corresponding to the ranking given to your website by the search engine, your website will be displayed on the pages. Optimize your web design and content in such a manner that your website will appear within the first few sites displayed by the search engine. This technique is directly proportional to traffic and sales.

Email Marketing: After search engine optimization technique, email marketing is the next most effective technique. You can email your customers directly regarding your products and promotional offers. However, it all depends on the effectiveness of your email list.

Blog Marketing Technique: The blogging arena is one of the newer platforms for online marketing, however, it has gained popularity rapidly. You can market your products on blog sites like blogger.com, livejournal.com, wordpress.com, etc for free. However, keep replenishing your blog with fresh data as readers are naturally attracted to new, updated material.

Ezine Publishing Technique: This is another type of article marketing. Ezines are electronic newsletters or E-magazines sent out through email to subscribers of your choice. You can include all the details about your business, information about your product, etc in the ezine and have it mailed to all the people you believe are prospective buyers. Ezines can help you build relationships with the customers and also assist in building up of your goodwill and reputation in the market. So be careful and fill your ezine with quality content and send it regularly. This will help you keep in touch with your customer base.

Viral Marketing: It's something like a viral infection which passes from one person to another. You can produce some useful product, e-book, software, funny video clips, humorous emails, interactive games, etc and provide links to your website through these. Allow people to go through it and pass it on freely. This will help you to spread information about your website at a rapid rate.

Video/Multimedia Marketing: This technique is quite interesting and though new, is gaining popularity. You can upload video pertaining to your product on sites that allow such a feature. The video will develop an interest in the minds of the people and they will visit your site. Use funny, intriguing videos to capture the attention of the reader. The concept behind this is quite similar to article marketing, the difference lying in the media. Youtube, Facebook, MySpace are popular sites which allow video marketing. You can get really innovative in this method. You can have videos involving customer testimonials wherein people who have bought and used your product can testify to the benefits of buying your products. You can also demonstrate the working of your product, how to use it etc. through the video, thereby adding the personalized touch.

Podcasting: This is also one of the new techniques being used for online marketing. It involves usage of voice, instead of words to get the message across to the potential customer. If you are selling a book, then you can probably offer a chapter via voice recording. You can even have voice interviews,etc through podcasts. Depending on your creativity you can use this technique to your advantage. Again here like video advertising, the personal touch makes this form of online marketing more interesting.

Forum Marketing Technique: Another good traffic building technique is marketing via forums. Forums are discussion arenas where people come together to discuss strategies, solve issues, etc. You can join the forum and since most forums allow you to put a back link to your website, you can use of this facility to build your customer base. However, forum administrators are becoming more alert with respective to people joining forums to solely promote their sites. Don't abuse the privilege and use it judiciously.

Press Release: You can also come up with press releases for your website and publish them on press release websites such as prweb.com. Your press release will be displayed on various news sites and is a good method to enhance awareness about your product among the masses.

Link Exchange: This is a symbiotic relationship between one website and you. The website owner of one website will allow you to put your link on his website and in exchange you must put his link on your website.

Social Networking Sites: Myriads of people are logged on to social networking sites everyday. Isn't this a wonderful place to market your products! You can not only get hold of new clients via these platforms, but also keep in touch with current customers and keep them updated about the latest promotions and offers. Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, etc are social networking sites where you can market your products. The best part about Facebook is that whatever activity you do can be viewed by all Facebook users. This automatically increases awareness about your products.

Social bookmarking, mobile search marketing, resell rights marketing, joint venture marketing, RSS marketing, etc are some other techniques of online marketing. And of course, how can we leave out personal marketing! Get your business cards and distribute them yourself to family, friends and associates. You can be surprised with what 'word of mouth' can achieve! There are number of techniques available to help you to market your products and services online successfully. But is there a magic potion or list of techniques which can guarantee you success? I don't think so. Try out different permutations and combination of techniques. All the best!