The online world offers a wide spectrum of marketing opportunities to complement
an organisation's other promotional activities.
Search Engines & Directories
On a typical website most visitors will arrive via a search engine or directory.
Check out our Free Advice on how to make an impact
here. Assuming a website is 'spider friendly' and linked to from other websites,
it will quickly be found by spiders and listed in appropriate search engines.
While search engines find websites and pages via their spiders, most directories
require that the details of a site are manually submitted to them (see
our links for examples).
Paid Listings
Most search engines & directories show some sponsored / paid-for listings.
Some directories require a payment for inclusion. These are cost effective
ways of increasing a commercial site's traffic and income. Various systems
are in use (check our links for contacts):
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Paid for submission with no guarantee of inclusion eg. Yahoo
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Paid for inclusion eg. Inktomi, Fast, Ask
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Pay per click campaigns eg. Miva, Overture, Google
Affiliate Schemes
These offer a very effective way of building up traffic and sales. Put simply,
the website owner offers third party websites (affiliates) a commission for
supplying traffic. Marketing and attracting visitors becomes their responsibility
and you agree to pay them for doing so. Typically affiliates are paid from
10 cents/pence per visitor or commission on sales only.
An online company can operate its own affiliate scheme or can contract a
specialist provider to run an affiliate scheme on its behalf. This second
option has the advantage that the affiliate scheme provider will already
have a large base of potential affiliates willing to send you customers.
However, commission will have to be paid to both individual affiliates and
the scheme provider.
Email Marketing
Using email to market online services and products can be very effective.
However, as anyone with an email account knows, there is enormous abuse
in the form of unsolicited spam. Good email marketing practices involve opt-in
newsletters and product updates and must always facilitate easy opt-out.
Freebees and Viral Marketing
Some of the most successful online marketing involves offering free services
which attract visitors. In conjunction with the freebees, enhanced or different
paid for options are offered. Although some visitors come for the freebees,
even they are potential future customers. By offering free services a website
will also gain incoming links. If the free offer is particularly good, 'word'
will get around. Competitions can be used in a similar way. Getting third
parties to 'spread the word' about a website and services is the essence
of viral marketing and this can be achieved in a number of innovative ways. |
