Strategic Internet Marketing - Tips For Planning An Advertising Campaign?

by Paul Anstis

Strategic Internet Marketing, like standard strategic planning, is about the direction you plan to head in. It is a combination of where you want to go (goal) and how you want to get there.

With marketing your goal is the sale of a product at a reasonable profit, but there are several directions you can follow to achieve it, to come up with a good strategic internet marketing plan there are three basic questions you should ask yourself -

1) What am I marketing
2) Who are the customers
3) How am I going to market it

I will go through each of these in turn to elaborate

1) What Am I Marketing

In this article I am going to assume you will be marketing a product or service that already exists and that you had no part in creating.
You need to look at all the relevant details of the product , including its features and more importantly, what benefits can it provide the customer . It is also important to get an insight into what makes the product unique, how is it different from its competitors.

2) Who Are My Customers

Determine not only who would use the product but also who would purchase it. Depending on your budget you can use market research with thigs like surveys to gather statistics or you can simply do research online looking at related blogs, forums and chat rooms to determine who is using similar products . It is at this stage that you should begin to identify different niches to allow your marketing to be more focused.

3) How Am I Going To Market It

Depending on your budget you will have to decide if you want to use paid marketing methods, free methods, or a mix of the two. If you are looking to use paid methods you have options such as pay-per-click using the search engines, banner advertising and email advertising to name a few. Basically paid marketing methods are anything where you have to use money to direct traffic to your website. It also includes outsourcing free marketing methods.
Free marketing methods are methods such as article and video marketing, blogging, using social networking, forums, free online classifieds etc.
I will not go into the details of all of these, suffice to say that for for looking at strategic internet marketing you should have a good idea of what method you will use and also how to measure their effectiveness.

If you do not have a good strategic internet marketing plan it is very easy to lose your way and not market effectively or efficiently.

About the Author:

It is important to understand that this outline refered to a plan for marketing a product which is different than your marketing business, for that you need a full strategic plan.

For more tips on setting up a small business online, and a huge amount of information and training about internet marketing, visit Paul at his blog or his website http://biztrainonline.com

Promoting With Banner Ads

Copyright © Rahimah Sultan

Promoting with Banner Ads is one of the mos popular advertising strategies. There is a fine line between advertising and spam and unfortunately many business owners do not understand the difference between the two. This is important because while a clever, well-planted Internet marketing campaign can help attract new customers and keep existing customers loyal, spam is likely to alienate both new and existing customers. This can be extremely damaging to profit margins for the business owners. In this article we’ll take a look at a few basic tips for using banner ads.

Banner ads are one of the most popular strategies used in Internet marketing. These ads usually appear at the top of websites and span the width of the site. It is this placement that gave them the name. Now banner ads come in a variety of sizes and shapes that appear in various locations on a website.

In many cases the business owner purchases advertising space on these websites but the banner ad may also be placed as part of an exchange or an affiliate marketing campaign. Banner ad exchanges are just that. You can post your ad on a site and that site owner can post an ad on your site. These agreements may be made individually between business owners with complementary businesses or as part of exchanges facilitated by a third party. In the case of affiliate marketing, an affiliate posts and advertisement for your business in exchange for compensation when the banner ad produces a desired effect such as generating website traffic or generating a sale. The terms of these agreements are determined beforehand and are generally based on a scale of pay per impression, pay per click or pay per sale or lead.

Over Use of banner ads can be considered spam. Judiciously placing your banner ad on a few websites which are likely to attract an audience similar to your target audience is smart marketing, while placing your banner ad on any website which will display that banner ad, regardless of your target audience, can be construed as spam. Internet users who feel as though your banner ads are everywhere will likely not take your business seriously and probably will not purchase your products or services because of your overuse of banner ads.

Promoting with banner ads is a good marketing strategy as long as you are advertising and not spamming.

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Use Ad Tracking In Your Affiliate Marketing

Copyright © Rahimah Sultan

Use ad tracking in your affiliate marketing to see where your leads are coming from and to determine if you should change anything in some way to get more traffic to your campaign.

An ad tracker is a software program that will allow you to trace and monitor every click that is made by visitors through your referral link, and you know exactly where you placed the link. You can either use a service provider or purchase ad tracking software.

By using ad trackers in your affiliate marketing, you can monitor the progress of your campaigns, even advertising offline. If you have several affiliate accounts an ad tracking tool can be very useful.

Affiliate marketing can be easy if you plan your campaign well and have taken the right steps toward success. To help you become successful, you must choose the right product and design for your website properly.

You need to build your business on a solid foundation, and that includes using tools to help you know what is happening with your ad campaigns. So use ad tracking in your affiliate marketing. Nothing happens if the banners and links you place on a website just decorate the page. As a marketer you must convince visitors to click on that banner or link then proceed to the program and buy product.

You need to have facts to help you with the decisions you make about your site and your advertising. You have to have the numbers. By using an ad tracker, you'll be able to generate traffic reports for your personal sales page. Armed with the proper knowledge and an ad tracking software program, you can be very successful with affiliate marketing.

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A Great Idea for a Blog is No Longer Enough

Copyright © Rahimah Sultan

A great idea for a blog is no longer enough

Because there are so many blogs and web sites about blogs on the internet, it can be tough to pick out your blog from all of the others. Whether you are starting up a new blog or just want to make your existing blogging site stand out, you will have to find an area of interest to you. Following are a few tips to consider for your blogging experience.

Start With a Great Idea

You need a great idea. There are many great blogging sites, and competition is fierce. To make your blog stand out, you’ll need to offer something that no other site is currently offering, or you’ll need to do the same thing that an already popular site does but in a more impressive or different way.

Find Your Niche

If you can fill a unique need in a way that no other web site does, you'll be able to build a lasting readership. Once you have discovered a niche, you’ll still have a lot to do, but finding your place in the blogosphere is the place to begin.

One way to discover an ideal model for your blogging web site is to look at the sites that have successfully captured a blogging audience already to determine if you can use some of those strategies to help you with your blog. Of course, you’ll also need to add a unique flair to your project in order to stand out from your competition.

Brand Your Blog With Your Personality

Many agree that the web sites that do the best in today's market are the sites that have the most “personality.” So, consider how you can make your site different, unique, and attractive by lending your own voice and individuality to your design and content.

Once you have a great idea for your blog site, have pinpointed a special niche that you are well equipped to fill, and the site reflects your personality, you must promote it, in order for it to be seen.

In the long run, a great idea isn't enough for your blogging success. You’ll need to make a smart realistic marketing plan in order to draw readers to your blog site. Once people see your site, your great content will keep them coming back, but it is vital to get that first visitor or your blog site won't have a chance to shine.

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Ease into Writing Articles to Make Money in Your Home Business

Copyright © Rahimah Sultan

If you’re new online, ease into writing articles to make money in your home business. Making money with articles can be fairly easy. If you’re a quick learner and a great reader, then you can learn everything you need to know right from the Internet without any previous training. This is probably the best known fact about niche website Internet marketing.

If you jump in before you know what you’re doing, there’s a good chance of losing money and having nothing to show for it. There are several things that you need to make sure you know how to do before you begin creating your first site for your home business.

Create your own great articles or hire someone to do it for you. It can be costly to get good articles written, but you’ll make money in your home business with articles when you use correct advertising and publishing techniques. Following are a few tips.

Optimize Your Website for Search Engines

You need to take advantage of keywords that pertain to your niche. Like everything else, you can use Google for keyword research. These keywords should be used throughout your articles for the best advantage. This enables the search engines to find your home business site.

Find Reliable Web Hosting for Your Home Business Website

There are many web hosting sites online. Check them out and choose wisely for your home business. See what they offer and compare costs. During your research, you’ll find out what other successful home business owners use.

Pick a Catchy URL

Your URL should be a catchy one as far as being related to your home business niche. Then you can create a small site that is easy to navigate, have one created for you, or pay to use a What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG) website builder.

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