Internet Marketing is the means by which visitors and traffic are driven to a company or sole proprietor's websites.
There are many misconceptions floating around the Internet concerning this form of marketing.
What works, and what is a huge expense with poor results; these are some of the questions asked.
In this article we will discuss the truth about Internet Marketing so that the readers may benefit from it much more effectively in the future.
Although there are many expensive means of promoting a website to the online consumers, the only thing that these are certain to do is to cost the advertiser money; they are not guaranteed to give the desired results.
Examples of expensive ways of engaging in Internet Marketing include pay per click advertising, also known as PPC, banner advertising, and video advertising, to name a few.
In PPC advertising, ads are put up on various websites which allow the Internet user to click on them to go to a certain website if they have an interest in the product or service offered.
They may or may not actually complete the buying process once on that business or individual's website, but at least the entrepreneur is sure that they visited the website.
For every click on these PPC ads, the business owner or sole proprietor pays a certain amount of money.
These promotions can be very helpful, or very expensive, depending on how effective the marketer's website is at steering the visitors towards actually buying items.
Banner Advertising involves traditional ads, usually with graphics or animation, put up on various websites.
The advertiser pays to have them on such sites per website page view.
Every time an Internet user looks at the page where the banner ad is located, that counts as one page view, whether or not the web surfer actually clicks on the ad to go to the website.
Again, these can be effective if the ad and accompanying product or service are catchy, and if they are not, then this will also be an expensive endeavour.
Video advertising involves a video commercial put up on a website such as YouTube.
com.
Internet users who come looking for video content will see the video ad before their video comes up.
These can be very effective; as such advertisements give the businessperson a chance to convey their message dynamically.
Perhaps a more efficient use of a company or sole proprietor's resources lies in the utilization of the social networking sites, especially Twitter.
On this online community forum, individuals post little chats, or Tweets, to their followers.
These tweets can be trite messages about their daily lives and doings, or they can be promotions for businesses.
Twitter is completely free to use, so even if this form of advertising does not generate huge results, the only investment that it requires of an entrepreneur is time and creativity.
There are also other social networking sites, which are popular and potential venues for a business advertiser, such as Facebook and MySpace.
com.
The truth about Internet Marketing is much like the truth about any form of advertising.
If they are done creatively and well, promotions will generate results, translating into customers and finally sales.
If Internet, or traditional for that matter, promotions are not attention grabbing, or specifically targeted to the ideal market, then they will likely fail.
The trick with Internet Marketing is to reach the point where whatever type of promotions that the business person is pursuing online, that they are effective in getting across their message and directly aimed at the company's target market.