Internet Marketing information

Internet marketing is also known as web marketing, online marketing, or eMarketing, and is the marketing of products or services using the Internet.

The Internet has added many unique sales benefits to marketing, one of which is lower costs for the distribution of information and media to a truly worldwide audience. The interactive nature of Internet marketing, offering instant response and encouraging rapid responses, is unique to the medium.

Internet marketing is often considered to have a wider scope than traditional marketing because it includes digital media such as the Internet, email, web banner advertising etc. However, Internet marketing also includes gathering digital customer data and developing customer relationship management (CRM) systems.

Internet marketing brings together many of the creative and technical elements of the Internet, including design, development, visual creativity, advertising, and sales. Internet marketing does not simply cover building or promoting a website, nor does it simply mean placing a banner advertisement on a website.

Effective Internet marketing requires a comprehensive integrated marketing strategy that emphasises a company's business targets and sales goals with its website usage and appearance, focusing on its chosen target markets through the considered choice of advertising options, media, and design.

Internet marketing also means the carefully considered placement of media during the different stages of the customer engagement cycle, using methods such as search engine marketing (SEM), search engine optimisation (SEO), banner advertising, email marketing, and web strategies. 

B2B and B2C marketing

The differences between B2B and B2C marketing may seem obvious, but there are subtle distinctions between the two with substantial implications. B2B marketing generally entails shorter and more direct channels of distribution.

While B2C marketing is aimed at large demographic groups through mass media and retailers, the negotiation process between the buyer and seller is more personal in B2B marketing. Many B2B marketers commit only a small part of their promotional budgets to advertising, compared to B2B marketers.

Marketing to a business (B2B) trying to make a profit as opposed to an individual for personal use (B2C marketing) is similar in terms of the fundamental principles of marketing. In both B2C and B2C marketing situations:

Match the product/service strengths with the needs of a definable target market

Position and price to align the product/service with its market, often an intricate balance

Communicate and sell it in the fashion that demonstrates its value effectively to the target market.

Select the best channels for selling

These are the fundamental principles of the 4 Ps of marketing (the marketing mix) documented by E. Jerome McCarthy in 1960.

Business customers fall into four categories: companies that consume products or services, government organisations, institutions and resellers.

The first category includes original equipment manufacturers, such as car manufacturers, who buy components to put in their cars, and users, which are companies that purchase products for their own consumption. The second category, government organisations, is the biggest.

In fact, the UK government is the biggest single purchaser of products and services in the country. But this category also includes state and local governments. The third category, institutions, includes schools, hospitals, care homes, churches and charities. Finally, resellers include wholesalers, brokers and industrial distributors.

A B2C sale is to an individual. That individual may be influenced by other factors, but it’s a single person that pulls out their wallet. A B2B sale is to an organisation. And with that simple difference lies a web of complications that differ because of the organisational nature of the sale and which vary widely by firmographic (“demographic” for segmenting businesses) such as business size, location, industry and sales revenue.