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. 

Five ways to determine good prospects

All prospects are not created equal; some are more likely than others to turn into sales. To avoid wasting resources, you need to weed out the poor prospects and concentrate your efforts on prospects who will yield a return on your investment of time, money and resources.

The following five steps will help you determine good prospects from bad prospects:

1) Define your target market very precisely. Break your market down by demographics ie geography, industry, company employee size etc. This will enable you to focus on the prospects that match your target audience.

2) Assess need, budget and the prospect’s buying authority. Ask basic questions that will allow you to determine whether a prospect is ready, such as:

What's the time frame for this project?
Who else is involved in making the decision?
What's the budget for this type of product or service?
How will the decision be made?
Is your company ready to buy if the right product or service is found?
If you decide that our product or service meets your needs, what will the next step be?

3) Ask for a “yes” or "no." Conventional wisdom says that as long as the prospect hasn't said "no," then the sale is still possible. However, when it comes to rating prospects, get a decision, even if it's no. It’s better to find out sooner rather than later that the chances of closing a sale are slight.

4)  Evaluate financial position. Creditworthy prospects are better than high-risk customers. Stable prospects are better than customers going through widespread changes. A company that is merging or downsizing may delay buying decisions.

5) Develop a scoring system. Rate prospects by a letter or number grade, based on the possibility of closing the sale. Concentrate on A prospects, and upgrade or downgrade the other prospects as circumstances change.