Marketing on the Internet involves online
advertising to reach out to potential customers. It requires creativity like
designing, development and technical aspects like marketing and advertising.
Affiliate marketing, email marketing, search engine marketing and interactive advertising are all different facets of Internet marketing. It also includes sales, public relations, information management and customer service. Ever since the advent of Internet, it is widely used for all kind of purposes. Among the advantages of Internet, some helps in doing business, shopping, etc, from the comfort of the house. According to a research, a quarter of the Internet users shop online. It has also helped grow electronic commerce and Internet marketing is a part of electronic commerce.
Affiliate marketing, email marketing, search engine marketing and interactive advertising are all different facets of Internet marketing. It also includes sales, public relations, information management and customer service. Ever since the advent of Internet, it is widely used for all kind of purposes. Among the advantages of Internet, some helps in doing business, shopping, etc, from the comfort of the house. According to a research, a quarter of the Internet users shop online. It has also helped grow electronic commerce and Internet marketing is a part of electronic commerce.
Direct marketing techniques like radio and
television commercials, mails, and newsletters are the inspirations for
Internet marketing, which involves direct response marketing strategies and is
rapidly growing. Business-to-business, also known as B2B, and
business-to-consumer, also known as B2C, are the two business models to which
Internet marketing can be linked. B2C companies were the first to start when
Internet marketing originated. They are companies that sell directly to the
customers. B2B companies are meant to do business with each other.
Websites built for Internet marketing are slightly
different than others. There are peer-to-peer modeled websites which are used
to exchange products and services between each other. Other is name-your-price,
where the customers have to specify their price range that they can spend and
select products that fall in that price range. Priceline.com is an example of
such a website. Amazon.com is a website which is based on find-the-best-price
model, where customers can find the lowest prices. Last are online auctions
sites, where items are bid. Ebay.com is an example.
The companies who use Internet marketing are at an
advantage. They don't need to put in huge amounts of energy and time in
Internet Marketing like other traditional methods. With the help of only few
resources national and international markets can be reached. Because of very
low investment, even small businesses are turning to online marketing. Websites
and blogs have been developed for this purpose. Internet marketing is
advantageous in the sense that the data is easily available on the Internet.
Newsletters can be directly sent to customers and if it doesn't contain the
information they are looking for, they can search for information about the
product online, make a decision and purchase it online itself.
One of the factors that hinder the growth of online
marketing is delayed loading of the page. The web pages that take a lot of time
to download test the patience of the consumer. To add to that, if the
businesses design complex web pages with lots of graphics and animations, it
will slow down the speed even more. Another minus point of online marketing is
that the customers cannot feel, taste, smell or try products in order to make a
good decision. To over come this, some of the online stores have created
liberal return policies with the help of which the customer satisfaction is
guaranteed.
Another biggest threat of online shopping is
identity theft. Paying online using credit cards, e-checks are susceptible to
hackers and information can be stolen and used. Many hackers and websites have
been caught who were involved in buying and selling of personal information.
Most of the websites have taken measures and incorporated good security on
their websites. One of the best methods is encryption. When the data is being
transferred between two computers; there is a possibility of a hacker
intercepting it. So the data is changed by applying some encryption algorithm
and is sent through the network and upon receiving, the decryption algorithm is
applied to bring back the data to its original form.
Online selling is influencing all kinds of
businesses like banking, advertising, music, etc. Instead of going to a store
for buying cassettes and CDs, music can be bought online. Bank transactions
like depositing, withdrawing, transferring funds, and paying bills are all
performed online. Billions of dollars are invested every year in online
advertising alone.
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