Internet Marketing - A Maze In A Haze?Written by Roy Thomsitt
Internet marketing, website marketing, call it what you will, can be a bit like a maze. You charge off down one route......dead end. Someone sends you off down another route with a big smile on their face.......another dead end. Another route looks promising.......until it fizzles out and you reach another dead end. You can't cheat by looking over hedge, it's about 20 feet high! A big ladder so you can get a good view? No, they've all been hidden. None left on planet! Except those in vaults of internet gurus, you suspect.So, you keep going around this maze, and at every turn there's advertising, all about maze itself, telling you about which way to go. Plans of maze which, if you follow, may get you half way round, only to find you need to buy another plan to get rest of way. So what do you do? Carry on around this maze unaided? Or buy another plan? You buy another plan of this maze, and lo and behold, you end up at a place somewhere near exit into real open daylight (you think), but how do you get correct final few turns? Anyway, maybe you're not near exit after all? You could be on far side of maze from exit. Sound familiar? If you've been researching internet from a business point of view for any length of time, you have probably found that much of advertising, marketing, is about ................. internet marketing. This is partly why it can seem like a maze. If you are not sure what is going to work to market your website, or products in it, how do you know which advice to listen too, which "offers" to take up? Why is Internet Marketing Such a Maze? Marketing is a subject I've been interested in for many years, long before I was partner in an advertising related business in early 90's. Then, marketing was a quite stable world. The most recent "change" of any significance had been TV, and TV advertising had evolved steadily over several decades. It was glossy, glamorous, and...........very expensive. That was good for big advertising agencies, and they chased big advertisers with massive budgets for TV advertising. They had their creative departments to come up with memorable TV ads, often designed to be memorable rather than to sell, and their media buyers to buy time on commercial TV stations. The glamour was in TV, but every company and every agency would work on a marketing mix: radio advertising, sales promotions, glossy magazine advertising, newspaper advertising, trade ads, direct mail.....all played their part. These all had one thing in common, though: they had been around for a very long time. Marketing was a stable industry, not in economic terms, but in "tricks of trade". There were a few minor variations here and there, but basically, marketing industry had its accepted, well documented, ways of doing things. Skill levels varied of course, and that's where competition came in between agencies and between companies in same industries. The point is, though, it was all basically stable. Good or bad, it was stable.
| | E-Psychology: Increasing Your Sales On-LineWritten by Jim D. Ray
As any successful entrepreneur knows, there’s more to generating on-line sales than owning a web site. To produce sales, your web presence must be effective, easy to navigate, and properly marketed – all of which require a well-rounded understanding of your target client. But how do we get inside collective mind of our market? The key is psychology – in this case, e-psychology – or science of understanding how consumers shop on-line. Understanding how consumers make purchase decisions on-line will allow you to develop web site content that appeals to maximum number of prospective clients. World Wide Psychoanalysis Internet advertising isn’t same as print advertising. Web surfers tend to read less on-line, instead using visuals such as photos, animation, and colorful graphics to gather information. From a development standpoint, this places an emphasis on site navigation and overall layout. The motivations behind on-line purchase decisions differ from those generated by more familiar mediums. To achieve success, your on-line sales strategy must embrace these differences. Let’s begin by glancing at web sites of your biggest competitors by sales volume. Chances are, primary content is designed to accomplish three goals: * Generate interest, usually by eliciting or identifying a need * Convey unique value of their specific product or service, and * Promote a transaction. To produce sales on-line, your web site must do more than serve as an information resource about your company. Your site must ask for business. Each page of web presence should lead to an action step promoting a sale or contact request. On- or off-line, asking for business is only way to achieve any greater result than educating prospective clients about your industry and product or service. Writing For The Web The foundation of any purchase decision is desire for a product or service, usually based on a pre-existing need or want. Selection of a specific product or service provider begins when a consumer identifies a company that offers a value most compatible with consumer’s perception of value. Start by writing your web site’s content to elicit general value product or service provides. Introduce solutions generated by having product or service, based on typical ultimate desires of target market. For example, benefits of developing a web site for a small business may include increased sales, expanded credibility, and a 24/7 on-line purchase option. Next, build on this general foundation by introducing features, benefits and value of your own company. Remember that surfers tend to do less reading on-line, so you’ll need to accomplish a great deal in each line of text. Each sentence must: * Convey tangible and intangible value of your product or service * Include key terms and phrases effectively describing your industry and products/services * Promote prospect-to-client conversion * “Hook” surfer, encouraging further reading
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