Internet Marketing Techniques

This is an introduction to web marketing and some of the popular marketing methods.

Notes on the following table

Here I have a list of different marketing techniques along with a list of the characteristics of different techniques. The columns of the chart below can be sorted. After the chart there is a brief description of each technique.

1. Cheap. Sorting by this column will be good for webmasters on a shoestring who don't have a marketing budget.
2. Scalable. This will tell you which marketing techniques can be expanded on without much marginal cost if they prove to be successful.
3. Easy to do. This tells you whether the technique is easy to execute. This doesn't mean it is easy to succeed in. PPC, for example, is easy to do but not necessarily easy to be successful with.
4. Broad. This tells you whether the technique is a broad or narrow technique. Narrow techniques, like signature links, are usually not good enough to grow a site from nothing to something big. You will need a broad technique to do this - like SEO, or PPC.


Compare Marketing Techniques

Technique Cheap? Scalable? Easy? Broad?
Pay-per-click no no yes yes
Press Releases no no yes no
Link exchanges yes no yes no
Marketing on Ebay yes no yes no
YouTube marketing yes yes yes no
Posting links yes no yes no
Merchandising no yes no no
E-book. yes yes no no
Contextual advertising no no yes yes
E-mail yes yes yes no
Word of mouth yes yes yes sometimes
Offline marketing no no no yes
Myspace marketing yes yes yes no
Content syndication yes yes yes yes
Podcasting yes yes no no
SEO yes yes yes yes
Signature links yes no yes no
Viral marketing yes yes no yes
Affiliate marketing no no no yes

Marketing Techniques

Pay-per-click. You can buy targeted and customized banner or text ads through ad networks like AdBrite, Google Adwords, and other programs. Or you can buy advertising space on a particular web site by buying banners or text links directly from a webmaster.
Press releases. There are press release services on the web that offer free or paid press release publishing. It seems that the more you pay the more exposure you get. This is a good technique to test out with a little extra marketing money, which you can scale bigger if it is successful.
Link exchanges. Although the primary reason for engaging in link exchanges is to build SEO, you also get traffic from them. But most of the time this will not be a major driver of growth.
Marketing on Ebay. By marketing your products on eBay you can get your name out there while selling a product at the same time. All expenses you pay will be for the services of selling your product so any traffic you get to your site will be free in this sense. This is a strategy that could best be used to compliment a bigger marketing strategy.
YouTube marketing. Uploading videos onto YouTube with your URL embedded into the video is another niche strategy that will not be a main strategy. But it is a low-risk strategy so you have nothing to lose. You must be able to generate or acquire video content though.
Post links on the internet. This is a strategy almost all beginning webmasters do. The most important thing that needs to be said is that there are isolated areas on the internet where it is appropriate to post that you started a new site. For example, if you are in a forum where someone posts a question that your web site can answer then you can post a link to your site. But don't spam - this means that if nobody specifically asked for information related to your site then they don't want to hear about it.
Merchandising. Merchandising is a strategy that is another niche strategy some webmasters do, but most don't. This is because most webmasters don't bother thinking about how to extend their sites' brand to the offline world. One outlet that is very popular with webmasters who want to merchandise is CafePress.com.
E-book. Creating an eBook is a marketing strategy few people use because it takes a decent amount of time to write a quality eBook as well as the fact that it is also a niche strategy. If you are going to do this then it would work well in combination with eBay marketing.
E-mail. E-mail marketing is one of the most popular marketing techniques - specifically newsletters. Newsletters are a the most popular way top keep in constant contact with your site's visitors and to market to existing users instead of trying to recruit new ones.
Word of mouth. Word of mouth marketing is the online equivalent to network marketing. If you start up a new website and you know some of your friends have their own sites or blogs you can tell them to spread the word about your site. Or you can use word of mouth to contact people you know who would be users of the site.
Offline marketing. This is one of the areas webmasters turn to when they have exhausted their online marketing. The truth is that offline marketing is very hard because it doesn't have the advantages that online marketing has. Don't do any offline marketing until you come up with a really good idea.
MySpace marketing. MySpace marketing is a very specific niche with a very specific target market. There is the possibility for great exposure at a very low price but MySpace marketing shouldn't be a focus unless you specifically see something you should capitalize on if you get the opportunity to.
Content syndication. RSS is the biggest example of content syndication. It is one of the most popular marketing methods around today. It has been driven mainly by the blogging community but is just as applicable to non-blogs. The key here is to make your dynamic content attractive enough for other sites to want to set up automatic links to it. But don't give them the content - just a link to your page.
Content licensing. Content licensing is like content syndication except that the other sites get to publish the whole content (like an article for example) with a link or a citation to your site. Most webmasters will not want to give their content away for free though so this strategy may be one you use in limited circumstances or if you are desperate.
Podcasting. Podcasting is a new marketing technique gaining popularity where you can publish audio and video content. The key benefit to this type of marketing is that there are still very few people doing it so it gives you a competitive advantage by adopting this strategy.
SEO. Search engine optimization is one of the most lucrative marketing strategies around because you get a very high return on your invested resources and it isn't that difficult to learn or execute. I have a whole section on SEO starting with this page which I recommend everyone read.
Signature links on forum posts. This will never be a big driver of traffic but can add a little something. Don't ever "sig spam" - posting low-quality posts for the purpose of getting your link out there.
Viral marketing. Viral marketing is one of the most powerful ways to market your site but it is a niche strategy that only applies to very few sites. The strategy has a high risk of failure - either people will think your site is something they should tell other people about or they won't.
Affiliate marketing. When I am referring to affiliate marketing here I am talking from the viewpoint of the merchant - not the affiliate. Setting up a program where you pay affiliates means that you are basically outsourcing your marketing to your affiliates in exchange for a payout.



 
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