Internet Marketing

Database Marketing: It is a systematic approach to collecting data on the past, current and potential customers, which includes consistent monitoring of customer purchase, behavioral pattern and any changes in the pattern of purchase. Marketing strategy is formed after analyzing the data. The analysis also forms a basis for developing better customer relationship.

Demand Analysis: Determining the quantity of your products required in the future based on the current and potential demand of existing customers. Demand analysis will also take into consideration the likely demand raised by potential customers.

Destination Site: A website that a visitor is directed to after clicking through a banner advertisement or clicking a hyperlink.

Differential Pricing: Different pricing strategies adopted for identical products depending on the types of customers and markets catered.

Digital Marketing: It involves marketing strategies that use electronic media such as the internet, email, wireless media, and interactive television after analyzing digital data on customer preferences.

Digital Signatures: These are electronic signatures used to identify the user mostly for online transactions. Digital signatures are used by companies using public-key encryption.

Direct Marketing: A marketing technique that forms direct contact with the customer using word of mouth advertising or advertising on media.

Domain Name: It is a web address that identifies the web server.

Dynamic Pricing: A method by which prices are updated real time depending on the type of customer or existing market conditions.

Access Platform: Access platform is a method by which you can access digital media.

Access Provider: A firm that provides services to help people access the internet. There are two kinds: (a) Internet service providers (ISP); (b) Online service providers (OSP).

Active Server Page (ASP): A kind of HTML page that carries small programs called scripts. These are processed on a web server before the web page is served on the client’s web browser. ASP pages are recognizable by the .asp file name. A Microsoft technology that runs on Windows NT, it is used mainly to process information obtained from an online form.

Active X: A Microsoft developed programming language, Active X allows the writing and accessing of complex graphical customer applications from web browsers. Its components are standard controls that are incorporated in websites so that they can automatically be downloaded to help users. They are used as calculators to calculate interest on loan and others.

Advertisement: Advertisements on a webpage usually in banner form placed as masthead on the page.

Advertising Network: A group of independent websites and media networks having an arrangement with a single advertising broker or media broker to place banner advertisements of their sites.

Affiliate Networks: A shared relationship between a website and third-party sites from where traffic is diverted to the website through banner advertisements and links. The third-party sites receive a commission for every sale made by way of directing traffic.

Alt Tags: These are tags that follow an HTML image tag and carry a phrase pertaining to that image. These tags are used for accessibility.

Animated Banner Advertisements: Animated banner advertisements are different from the earlier banner advertisements where only a single ad was displayed. The present day format shows a single banner displaying multiple images in a sequence. The ads are displayed as an animated gif file with a number of frames. Rich media advertisements use the animated banner advertisement method.

Attrition Rate: It is linked with the number of visitors to a website that are lost at every stage of the purchase process.

Auto Responders: Software used on web servers that automatically transmit a standard reply to the sender of the email. This normally is used to deal with standard information. Anyone joining a subscription mail may be sent a standard letter of thanks.

Callback Service: A direct response capability made available on the website to assist the company contact a customer over the phone at a time mentioned by the customer.

Campaign-based E-communications: A communication process put in place to assist and support a particular marketing campaign, say, related to a product launch, or a website launch.

Catalog: A listing of websites in varying categories comparable to Yellow Pages, but in electronic form. Catalogs are also known as directories.

Clicks-only: A company that only has an online presence.

Click Stream: A record of the path a visitor takes while visiting a website. With the help of click stream, a web designer or owner can ascertain how the website is being used, and what areas are being neglected.

Click-through: A click-through is a click of the mouse on a banner advertisement that directs the visitor to the website of the advertiser.

Click-through Rate: A percentage of click-throughs and the ad-impression.

Cold List: Data on individual users that is rented or sold by a third party.

Co-branding: An arrangement between companies where content is jointly displayed as an effort to promote business jointly using brand logos or banner advertisement.

Common Gateway Interface (CGI): CGI scripts, serving as alternative to ASP (Active Server Pages), are a means of processing information on a web server in response to a client’s request.

Consumer to Business (C2B): Consumers approaching a business with an offer is known as C2B.

Consumer to Consumer (C2C): Transactions between consumers, both financial and pertaining to information, normally conducted through a business website.

Content: The content of a website consists of its text, graphics, and design. The content is key to getting customers and ensuring repeat custom. Search engine optimized content helps getting websites indexed on search engine results pages (SERP).

Content Management: Management of content by way of making amendments and additions to the content of a website.

Convergence: A collective group of hardware devices like computers, televisions, and telephones that has similar functions.

Conversion Marketing: The use of marketing devices and communications to maximize conversion of visitors to customers.

Conversion Rate: The ratio of number of visitors to a website that gets converted to customers.

Cookies: Small text files stored on the surfer’s or user’s computer to help websites identify the user when he/she visits again. This way websites are able to build a profile of a customer’s or visitor’s preferences.

Core Product: The basic features of a product that fulfills the needs of a user.

Cost Models for Internet Advertising: The break-up of internet advertising cost into per exposure, per response, and per action costs.

Cost Per Acquisition (CPA): It represents the cost of acquiring a new customer including communications cost, cost per sale for new customer, and cost per quote or enquiry.

Cost Per Click (CPC): The total cost incurred on pay-per-click (PPC) advertising divided by the conversions into sales.

Cost Per Mille (CPM): Refers to cost for every 1000 ad impressions.

Cost Per Targeted Mille (CPTM): Refers to cost per targeted thousand for every advertisement.

Countermediation: Formation of a new intermediary by an existing website company.

Cross-selling: Pursuing existing customers to purchase products other than they normally purchase. It is an attempt to widen customer preferences.

Customer Acquisition: Strategies adopted to find new customers.

Customer-centric Marketing: Marketing tact based on thorough knowledge of customer preferences and behavior within the target audience and meeting the individual needs.

Most online businesses are focused on strategies like network marketing, online marketing, email marketing, viral marketing, and guerilla marketing. These strategies do make sense, but will work efficiently if you have a strong sales strategy in place. Sales and marketing strategy go hand-in-hand.

A good marketing strategy may fail to produce the desired results in absence of a compact sales strategy. You would lose out on customers if your website fails to close the sales despite a reliable marketing strategy. What good is one without the other? To ensure good results, create a right mix between your sales and marketing strategy.

There exists a strong relationship between a marketing plan and sales plan or strategy. A strong marketing strategy will ensure casual visitors taking keen interest in your product or services, while a simple sales strategy actually leads to the customer clicking on the “buy now” button. So, the main goal of your online business is to support your marketing strategy that brings visitors to your website with an effective sales strategy that convinces the visitor to make the final purchase.

Strengthening Your Business Sales Strategy
• Convenience is greatest service you can provide your visitor. Supplement it with a good quality product, inviting price, and availability, and you have won the battle. Website navigation is an important aspect of customer convenience. Ensure conveniently placed order buttons. Unless you have a unique product, you will be facing stiff competition, which you can beat by providing better service for customer convenience.
• Good, convincing web-content should be part of your sales strategy. Ascertain your target audience, determine their needs, and then write a copy convincing them why they should buy your product or service. They will click on the “buy” button only when they are sure about your product.
• Clinch the deal by offering more than what the competition is doing. Offer your customers a free gift, a discount, or an incentive that may lead them to saying the final “yes”.
• Customers are keen to know what after-sales service you offer. So, provide shipping policies, return policies, and contact information in clear terms.  Customers will be back for more if you can ensure quality products and prompt delivery backed by excellent customer service.
• Make sure that you have a good grievances procedure to satisfy your customer, should a problem arise. That is the only way to retain custom.

A sign of a good sales strategy is having repeat sales with a narrow customer base. In that case you may need to strengthen your marketing strategy to bring in more visitors. But, if you have many visitors with low sales to boot, you need to seriously improve your sales strategy.

What would your online business be without using proper internet marketing tools. An attractive website with classy images and text is of no use if it is not backed by such tools. You can make a lot of money with the help of internet marketing tools, provided you use them judiciously.

Most business websites are created and constructed without using any marketing tool for internet business. Even before you start designing your website, think on the internet marketing aspect of your business. Based on that, take the next step and design your website.

Your website should contain text that is built around keywords and keyword phrases. Keywords and keyword phrases are words or group of words that your potential customers are using on search engines to look for your products or services over the internet. How do you determine what keywords and keyword phrases are being used to search for your products or services?  The answer is -the Keyword Selector Tool provided by Google search engine. Open this internet marketing tool and enter your product name in the space provided. A list of related keywords will be displayed with the number of times each keyword was used during a particular month. The count gives you a fair idea which particular keywords are used the most number of times to search for your products or services.

Keywords, based on Google’s internet marketing tool, are one great way to use in your web page text. Before you begin a new online business, using Google’s Keyword Selector Tool will give you a fair idea how popular your product or service is over the internet. It will save you a lot of money and effort, if there are no buyers for your online product or service. Most businesses incur losses because they invested a lot of money on online products that had no market.

Internet marketing tools greatly help in search engine optimization of web pages. The reason why we use search engine optimization is to get loads of free traffic to our website. Link trading is another effective way of online marketing. Although building links is not an easy exercise, but using article directories will help in this matter. A useful internet marketing tool, articles directories are websites where you post your articles with links to your website. People, who republish your article, publish your link as well. This way you can have hundreds of incoming links to your website, and loads of traffic.