For many of us, the term Internet marketing can be considered a dirty phrase. You may think of the practices Internet marketers use as being unethical, misleading and maybe even slimy. But the truth is, there are unethical, misleading and slimy people in every field.
If you take some of the common practices Internet marketers use at face value and modify them to fit your own business practices and values, you may find some great things to incorporate into your marketing plans. Here are a few ideas.
Perfect Your Content
Internet marketers are known for providing a lot of content with a very direct and clear call to action. Writing this type of strong and action-oriented content — and writing it well — can make a huge difference in the level of qualified attention you attract. And while you’re at it, spend some time researching your target keywords, and optimizing your content for those phrases.
Write and Distribute Press Releases
Writing press releases is not a new practice, but there are a lot of ways to get a bigger bang for your announcements. Start a system of writing press releases for every event, new service and notable project you do. Then use a few online press release distribution sites to get the word out faster and further than you could do on your own.
Collect Contact Information
Whether you have a newsletter or e-mail campaign you regularly send out to your clients, or if your messages are more infrequent, give interested prospects a way to submit their contact information and add themselves to your list. You may not know who is browsing your site, but by getting people to share their contact details (for a free report or consultation), you can create a list of potential clients worth your time and energy to pursue.
Use Social Media
You can promote your business through social media without being considered a spammer. Offer information of value to those in your network — either by writing blog posts yourself or sharing articles posted by others — that isn’t directly related to your own products and services. By focusing on information-sharing and collaboration, you will be able to create positive recognition for your name and expand your network.
Promise Results
Internet marketers are known for providing a guarantee. They will promise your satisfaction or offer you some incentive if you’re not happy. You can follow a similar practice in your business, by guaranteeing your clients’ satisfaction during and after a project by offering a support/bug fixing term, and assuring your clients you won’t disappear once the project reaches completion.
Let Others Speak for You
Internet marketing copy is frequently sprinkled with testimonials. Every person who confirms the usefulness of the product or service helps to move the undecided to a purchase decision. Ask your own clients for testimonials and then make them available to potential clients on your site or as part of your portfolio. To take it one step further, if your clients are willing to speak on your behalf, provide their contact information as references to help potential clients make the decision to hire you.
Have you incorporated Internet marketing techniques into your marketing plan? What tactics have worked? What else would you add to the list?
Related posts:
- How to Get and Use Testimonials
- Tips for Using Blogs, Twitter and Facebook to Find New Clients
- Why You Should Improve Your Writing Skills…And How To Get Started
Image credit: Ivan Petrov
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Pretty generalized ;), but ironic because I just finished a really in-depth article that goes into more detail about internet marketing: http://www.garysimon.net/how-to-make-money-online
September 9th, 2009 at 3:00 am
Good article, but you could write a whole book on each of the points you mention. Heck many IMers do that and sell it for $200 each when it’s free information, really. :-)
September 9th, 2009 at 3:09 am
Thank you very helpful article for all readers, hopefully useful
Stop Dreaming Start Action
September 9th, 2009 at 4:20 am
Great tips. I’m using these to revamp some of the MindBites.com marketing emails.
September 9th, 2009 at 4:37 am
Or you could combine them into one book and call it Online Marketing Inside Out ;)
September 9th, 2009 at 9:47 am
This is a good post!
you give us many accurate news and its good to know all that news.
Good to have you to share with us.
You should write more about this and I’d love to always follow all your articles.
I also got some information about Internet Marketing and maybe you may get some information from my article too,
I’m interested in internet marketing for several years,
maybe we could discuss about Internet Marketing together if we have time.
Remember to visit my website and leave some comment on it:
http://www.allinternetmarketingsecret.com
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Thanks and Great Day
Viona
All Internet Marketing Secret
September 9th, 2009 at 2:44 pm
Publishing useful content is great way to drive your business. Also, it is required to publish content closely related to the product that you are promoting. Because, the reader may become interest to buy the product from your site.
Recently, I published an article regarding Internet product marketing that covers some more stuffs detailed.
How To Increase Product Sales and Earn More Profits From Your Website ?
Thanks.
September 11th, 2009 at 9:06 pm
Internet has been and will be one of the prime source for drawing a large portion of the market. Your blog provides the excellent way to reach to the market without the bounds of recession and location. SEO helps popularize your product in such a sluggish economy. And internet marketing can outstand traditional and comparatively costlier marketing. Online marketing can lead your company to a never-before-thought height. The internet marketing provides the new horizon to the marketing ideas. The new medium to reach out and attract new patients for your medical practice is going to be through the Internet, and it’s very important that you develop a strong online marketing plan. Most medical practices have now established some sort of presence online, be it a paid listing through a third-party site or a website of their own. The problem is that many of these practices have stopped there, when they should be trying to make themselves easily found in an Internet Search. Just having a website does not mean that it will be picked up by search engines. Something needs to be done to get the attention of people who are searching for the medical searches they offer. Choosing a good marketing strategy for a medical practice is just as important as having a presence on the Web because without marketing, a practice won’t show up against the competition .As a physician, your ideal result of implementing an Internet marketing plan for your medical practice would be having the information for that practice show up anytime a person in your community searches online for the medical services you provide. The information found needs to make that person feel confident that they will find the best care available at your reputable practice.
You need to optimize your website so as to advert your services to a large scale of spectators. Internet marketing has been a very fruitful and comparatively economical marketing strategy. You need to be on the market by reaching on to the eyes of internet users by making your website optimized to be searched on the first page of search engines. It would definitely ameliorate patient density. It is important to make your internet marketing website search engine friendly to gain online presence. Website is meant to be viewed by people from around the world. Try everything that makes sense and keep doing what works. Be in the flow without lament. I am a practitioner struggling for attracting the patient in such an economy. If it isn’t able to attract the clients, it’s of no use. Medicalwebexpert.com helped me redesigning the website, and marketing and advertising to get my website on the top search results. This has helped me a lot, especially in the time of recession. The amount of impact that it has on my income is increasing slowly and steadily. Patients really build up the trust on my company because of the genuinely and informative website.
September 14th, 2009 at 5:40 pm