The 7 Secrets of Internet Marketing

Many marketers have been shifting their marketing budgets to the web over the past few years. Marketing online allows you to target specific audiences and easily track return on investment, commonly referred to as ROI. Unlike traditional marketing methods, results of Internet marketing campaigns are almost immediate. This allows you to better evaluate what elements of your campaign are producing results and which are not. When buying online media, you must be willing to shift your marketing dollars to the online methods that produce a positive return.

To be successful at Internet marketing, you must understand the essential secrets of Internet marketing. These secrets can allow you to achieve success by finding the right audience, communicating your message properly, and leading consumers down the path to purchase. These secrets include:

1. Website Directory Listings. Before you begin any marketing campaign, make sure that the website you're promoting has been listed in the common directories such as DMOZ, Yahoo!, and Google. Even if you're using a marketing page off of the root directory of your website, be sure that the primary site is listed. This ensures that prospects can continue to find your marketing pages long after you've launched your campaign.
    
2. Generating Traffic. In order to realize a return on your investment, you need to generate traffic to your marketing pages. There are a number of ways to do so online. Some of the most popular include Google AdSense, Overture, and Looksmart. Other methods include affiliate programs and targeted website advertising. Research other websites that have the audience you're looking for and negotiate favorable ad rates for your online marketing campaign.
    
3. Marketing Pages. Don't lead prospective purchasers to a generic website. If you do, potential buyers won't know what to do next. The easier you make if for prospects to take advantage of your offer, the better. Whenever creating a marketing campaign online, provide a specific page for leading purchasers to your product or service or a billboard that showcases the offer. Take the guess work out of making a purchase and more consumers will buy.
     
4. Testimonials. Customer testimonials are the most powerful way to sell your product or service. When consumers hear from those who have purchased and used your product or service, they gain a certain level of trust and comfort in what you have to offer. Solicit testimonials after each purchase and use those that are the most convincing to prospective purchasers.
     
5. Create a Compelling Offer. Be sure to offer something that no one else is currently offering. If your offer is similar to your competitors or is not very interesting, consumers have no reason to learn more. Of course providing something for FREE is often a great way to entice potential customers. Maybe it's a 3-day free trial or a free evaluation of some kind. Be creative, try something new, and measure the response.
      
6. Developing Trust. Before anyone will buy from you, your website or company needs to be seen as reputable. This means that consumers can purchase from you and not worry about the safety of their credit card information, personal information, or anything else being exchanged. A good method for developing trust is to purchase and display safety and reliability icons such as BBB Online, Trust-e, and VeriSign.
       
7. Provide a Guarantee. Nothing makes a consumer more comfortable with a purchase than offering a guarantee. Perhaps you can offer a 100% satisfaction guarantee or a money back guarantee. A guarantee is a great way ease the risk of making a purchase. If your competitors are offering a guarantee, you want yours to be equal or better.

Internet marketing is an incredibly powerful medium for segmenting your prospects and delivering targeted advertising. Online, you can easily measure your return on investment and refine your marketing campaign over time to improve results.

If you are a local business you can benefit from Internet marketing as well. Look for local directories to list your business or service. Or, you can supplement your local advertising with product marketing pages on your website. Internet marketing is more than just placing ads online, it's using the web to communicate the value of your products and services.

by Michael Fleischner

Source: Business Know-How

Michael Fleischner is the founder and President of http://www.marketingscoop.com. He has appeared on major media including the TODAY Show, Bloomberg Radio, and more. With more than 12 years of marketing experience, Michael has developed major brands as well as a variety of businesses in need of leading marketing programs. Visit http://www.marketingscoop.com for more free marketing articles.

The 8 Social Media Sites You Need to Know About

Today we're going to tell you about 8 free sites that'll help you explode your traffic...

AND get a better search engine ranking...

AND build a name for yourself as an expert in your field...

AND maintain better customer relations...

AND get new ideas for growing your business!

The sites we're talking about are the 'Net's most popular social media sites. They're online gathering places where people meet to share information and build relationships with each other. They're also great places to meet potential customers and business partners.

... Plus, you can also build up a huge network of loyal customers who will do a lot of your advertising for you simply by raving about your product to all their friends and family. (And as you probably know, word-of-mouth advertising from a trusted source is the most effective kind of advertising you can get.)

And if some of these loyal customers start linking to your site from their sites, that can help you get a serious boost in the search engine rankings.

Here are the top 8 social media sites you need to know about:

• Facebook: The world's biggest social networking site. Members go to find other people who share the same interests or activities. You can build your own online profile and share different types of information with each other, such as pictures, videos, blog entries, links to other sites, and music clips.
  
  A good marketing strategy is to create a Facebook "Fan Page" for your business and encourage your customers to join. Then you can easily alert them whenever you have updates to share about your business.
    
• Twitter: A "micro-blogging" social network site. Members send each other short text-based posts of up to 140 characters. When you find members whose "tweets" you like, you can subscribe to their feed and be updated whenever they send a new message.
   
• YouTube: The 'Net's number one video-sharing site. Members share and comment on each other's videos. You can post a link on your profile page can direct other people to your site. Also, the videos you share can help establish your reputation as an expert in your industry. For example, you could share a "how-to" video that shows your market how to solve a common problem.
  
  If you're not the next Stephen Spielberg, don't worry -- your videos don't have to be super professional. In many cases, a video shot with a regular digital camera will work just fine.
   
• LinkedIn: The most popular business-oriented social networking site on the Web. As of May 2009, it had more than 400,000 registered users. It's a great place to find potential business partners as well as people who may be interested in your products or services.
   
• Digg: One of the 'Net's most popular news-sharing websites. Members post links to their favorite news articles and then comment and vote on the ones they like best. If you get a good rating on an article that includes a link to your site, you could see a huge rush of traffic overnight.
   
• Stumbleupon: Wikipedia calls this social networking site a "personalized recommendation engine." Members can explore and rate Web pages, photos, and videos. When they hit the "Stumble!" button on the site's toolbar, the results displayed are ranked based on your previous ratings as well as the ratings of friends and of members with similar interests.
  
  If Stumbleupon members give your site or blog a good ranking, your site will be showed in their results more often, which could lead to a surge of traffic to your site.
   
• Yelp: A popular review site where members write reviews about local businesses. If you own a local business, this one's for you!
   
• Delicious: A popular bookmarking site. Members save links to their favorite websites or articles -- just like the bookmarks in your browser -- and share those links with other people. Members can comment on each other's links. Every comment you write links to your personal profile where you can include a link to your site. The more comments you make, the more people you encourage to visit your profile page -- and the more traffic you'll end up directing to your site.

By participating on sites like these you can meet your future customers and learn how to give them what they're looking for. In exchange, they will be happy to spread the word about your site all over the Internet!

Just make sure you follow the #1 unwritten rule of social media marketing:

>>NO OVERT SALES PITCHES!<<

You can't just barge in and say, "Hey, everybody! I have a great product! You should buy it!" Imagine doing that at a dinner party -- everybody would treat you like you had a contagious disease.

The same principle applies here -- people go to social media sites to socialize, not to listen to marketing pitches. If you want to become a respected member, you need to engage other members in things that matter to THEM. Be friendly, be interesting AND interested, and above all, be authentic. Fake intentions are obvious in a social space.

But if you do things right, play by the rules, and create some fun and interesting content, you'll be able to spread the word about your business to huge new groups of people. If they appreciate what you offer, then just like in that old shampoo commercial, they might tell two friends -- who will tell two more friends -- and so on, and so on.

... And before you know it, you just may have an army of loyal customers getting the word out about you -- free of charge!

Source: The Internet Marketing Center Team

What is the Secret to Online Marketing?

Have you ever wondered what is the secret to successful online marketing? Do you wonder why some people can figure it out and make millions while others fail miserably time and time again?

Wonder no more ... 7 Figure Biz Pros brings you the best Online Marketing Secrets blog; and the first secret is: there really is no secret. But those ho are successfull consistently do things that others do not, or will not, which ultimately leads to their failure. We will show you what those things are as we post some excellent material to this blog.

Bookmark us now, subscribe, and join our mail list and receive a e-book entitled "SEO Secrets Revealed" (SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization, for those of you new to the industry).