Internet advertising generated an astounding $1.92 billion in 1999, double from the amount generated in the previous year.

According to the Association of National Advertisers, nearly half of all American companies are selling online. The American City Business Journal reports that businesses that use the Internet grow 46% faster than those that don’t.

Online advertisers beware; marketing trends in this industry often become outdated faster than you can say pop-up. Here are some of the most common outdated online marketing techniques that should be avoided:

Pop Ups Ads- Pop-ups ads are like the billboards of the information superhighwayyou cant go anywhere without seeing at least one. The Internet has become so saturated with pop-ups that overall web traffic times are slowing down. Most web users are downloading software that eliminates them from their system, so they are not the best way to reach prospective consumers.

E-commerce sites- Internet stores have become way too abundant, especially when likely 99% of what youre looking for can be found at Amazon.com, the site that boasts Earths Biggest Selection. Unless your product is so extremely unique that it cant be purchased elsewhere on the Web, an e-commerce site may just be a waste of time and money.

Re-selling E-books- E-books seem like a great idea. However, most of the sites that sell them offer the seller the right to resell the book to others. Therefore, the market has become saturated with books that are often available for free from some sites. And why would someone want to buy an e-book from you that they can get for free elsewhere?

Safelist Advertising- Like e-books, this is theoretically a good idea. Safelists are groups of members who have opted to receive ads from fellow safelist members. This form of marketing loses its effectiveness due to the fact that most members just mass-delete their bulk emails without reading them. Everyone wants others to read their ads, yet no one will stop to read other peoples ads.

Free For All pages- FFAs will post your ad in one of seven categories on their page. Like safelist advertising, the idea is that the thousands of others that post ads will see your ad and click to your website. Again though, everyone goes to FFAs to post, and not to access ads. On top of this waste of time and Internet space, your email account will get flooded with massive amounts of spam if you sign up with one of these sites.

Mistake 1: Using too much Flash. If your website is one big Flash presentation, you are making a huge mistake! Why? Because consumers go to your website to seek information, not to watch an “I’m so cool” Flash presentation. Ask yourself, when you go to a website, do you sit there and watch their ego-building Flash presentation or do you click the “skip flash” link to get to the real information? If you are like most people, you click the “skip flash intro” link as quickly as you can find it.

Another major problem with Flash is that it is only “interesting” the first time a visitor goes to your website. If they actually return to your website, they will do everything they can to skip your Flash presentation so they can quickly get to the information they want. In my experience NOTHING kills Internet sales more than Flash. That is why you almost never see the world’s top websites like Google, AOL, MSN, and Yahoo using Flash as the basis for their web pages. If you are making this mistake, get rid of the Flash immediately and make your website a valuable source of information, because that is what consumers want.

Mistake 2: Letting your webmaster write the text for your website. This is another huge mistake that companies make. On nearly a daily basis I get a call from a company that has spent a fortune building a website and they cannot understand why they are not generating any sales. My first question is, “who wrote the text for your website?” In nearly every case they tell me their webmaster wrote it.

Why is it a mistake to have your webmaster write your website marketing text? Here is a hint: webmasters are programmers, NOT a professional marketing copywriter who know how to write text that sells. If you want your website to generate sales, you must hire a person who is an excellent copywriter and knows how to write words that make people want to buy! Would you hire your webmaster to write a display advertisement for you? Of course not! Then why on earth would you allow them to write the text for your website? By having your webmaster write the text for your website, you are ensuring your website will be a poor sales tool. To solve this problem, hire a professional marketing copywriter to write the text for your website.

Mistake 3: Making your website hard to navigate. Have you ever been to a website where you have to click on various generic graphics or parts of a flash picture to try and find a link to the information you are looking for? Why on earth do companies do this? It is not fun, it is not clever, it is STUPID AND ANNOYING! When designing your website’s navigation (links to information) use the acronym K.I.S.S., which stands for KEEP IT SIMPLE STUPID! Simple sells. Complex does not. If your webmaster tries to sell you on using parts of a Flash picture for links or some other complex navigation system, FIRE THEM IMMEDIATELY!

Mistake 4: Not having a telephone number on your website. People rarely trust companies that do not have a telephone number. I certainly don’t. If I am considering buying a product from a website and they do not have a telephone number, I don’t buy. And I know others feel the same way. For example, I have had several clients hire to develop their marketing program because I had a telephone number on my website and the other marketing consultant websites they were looking at did not. Therefore, if you want customers to buy from you, make it easy for them to contact you by having a telephone number on your website. In fact, you should have your telephone number on EVERY page of your website. If you want to make sales on the Internet, make it easy for your customers to buy.

Strategy comes from a Greek word “stratagein” meaning to be a general. Think of a strategy as an overall plan of action needed to win a war. The smaller, detailed actions are called tactics. You can have tactical plans which help you achieve your strategic marketing plan or overall business marketing strategy. Thats simple enough, isn’t it?

A business marketing strategy or strategic marketing plan is an overall plan of marketing actions you intend to take in order to accomplish a specific goal for your company.

Start with a goal: $2 million in sales this year; expand into new premises by a certain date; double the size of the company in 2 years whatever the goal may be. Something realistic but challenging. That’s the “war” you want to win. Guess who the general is.

Then work out a simple, overall plan of the major marketing steps needed to accomplish that (for example):

1.Publish a newsletter for all existing customers and mail out quarterly.

2.Work out 4 special offers in the year and promote them to all our customers.

3.Set up on-line shopping and expand the web site.

4.Direct mail campaign promoting the web site to all customers.

5.Get mailing lists of (target markets) and do a series of 3 mailings of postcards to them and follow up on and close all leads.

6.Etc.

You get the idea. Don’t rush this. Do your homework. What worked in the past? Read up on successful marketing campaigns.

Your business marketing strategy needs to be laid out in the right sequence and you should have some idea of budget when you write it. Run a series of 30 second TV ads during the Superbowl might sound like a good thing to do but can you afford it? On the other hand, when you build your business marketing strategy you mustn’t try and cut corners. If you don’t promote heavily, it doesn’t matter how good your product or service is, no one will know about it and you will go broke.

What really works when it comes to marketing?

Many business owners don’t have a good enough answer to this important question. I learned by a combination of study and trial and error.

From my own hard won experience have discovered that a real marketing campaign will take into consideration at least the seven points which are outlined below:

1. Target Your Market

Your marketing will produce the best results for the lowest cost when you target prospects with the greatest need for what you offer.

Identify the best people to send your postcards to. Design your postcards to appeal to their greatest need.

If you are able to break down your target market into sub markets you can then write postcards that specifically speak to the needs of those people (an example is breaking down your own customer list into customers who buy most often, customers who spend the most money with you, customers who have been your customers the longest and then making them special offers based on the category they fit into).

2. Create A USP For Your Business

USP stands for “Unique Selling Proposition”.

It is a statement of what is different about your company and its products. Your USP gives the reason people should do business with you. It amplifies the benefit of doing business with you and your company. My USP is POSTCARD MARKETING EXPERTS.
Create your own USP and put it on all your promotional materials, invoices, shipping labels etc.

Use your USP to communicate the benefit of doing business with you and why you are better than any of your competitors.

3. Always Make an Offer

Make sure you ask your prospects and customers to do something when they receive your postcard. By offering them something you know they are likely to want and giving them a smooth path to respond on, you are making it easy and desirable for them to respond.

4. Create and Maintain a Database of The Customer Information You Collect From The Responses To Your Mailings

Most people who receive a postcard from you won’t contact you the first time they receive one.

But once they contact you, you must create and maintain a database which allows you to repeatedly contact them with offers to respond to.

Fifty percent or more of many businesses’ sales come as a result of following up with people who were previously contacted, but didn’t buy right away.

No kidding, repeat contact does drive sales. One-time mailings can get response, but are bound to leave sales on the table. Those sales can be picked up with repeated mailings.

5. Take Away the Fear of Loss

People don’t want to be fooled, plain and simple. Unfortunately trust does not run high today between customers and businesses in general. People have been disappointed too many times by being sold one thing and getting another.

A guarantee or warranty is a good way to reduce or eliminate the customers risk of getting something other than what they bargained for.

Guarantees and warranties increase response and sales by reducing customer risk.

6. Expand Your Product Line

Getting new customers is more expensive than selling to existing ones. By regularly developing new products and services to sell to your customers and offering these new products and services to them, you can expand your business efficiently and easily.

7. Test Your Postcard Promotions

Track the effectiveness of your postcard mailings. How many people responded to your mailing? What dollar amount of sales resulted from those responses?

Is the money you are spending to attract new business giving you a good return? What can you do to make your marketing more effective? Change your offer, headline, price, the timing of your offer. When you do track the results and improve your response.

These are the points to follow when designing your own marketing strategy. When you are done, you will have laid out the steps needed to accomplish your goal using existing resources to achieve a great marketing ROI (return on investment).

After that, you simply have to get those steps executed and that might require further planning but it is all in the context of your main business marketing strategy.

Although front end systems such as advertising, public relations, press releases, direct mail, sales letters and promotional items are important, equally as important are what you and your staff do after you gain new customers. It never ceases to amaze me how companies will invest money in campaigns to gain new customers yet have no system to build and maintain those relationships they were so eager to attract in the first place. Having a system in place to keep your name in front of existing and potential clients is a very important part of a great marketing campaign. Additionally, having programs in place that make it easy for people to do business with you is essential to the health of your bottom line.

Any company that depends on repeat business absolutely must have a good customer retention system in place in order to thrive in todays competitive environment. Time and again I have seen this as the primary area of businesses where companies dont succeed at the level they are capable of - especially in small businesses. The thinking with many people is, If they want my services, they know where to find me. While a potential customer is looking for you, your competitions marketing systems may find them first!

As an example, a pet store offering grooming services could increase revenues by having a reminder system in place to notify the customer when their dog is due for grooming or to let them know when a new product arrives. They may also consider using a punch card that gives the customer a free grooming service after a predetermined amount of visits have been made. Many pet owners view their animals as family members and will be more likely to do business with you when they believe you care about their pets just as much as they do.

What would your profit margin be if you were able to turn the occasional customer into a frequent customer? Customers who regularly visit your business would also be more likely to refer you to their friends and associates. Remember that frequency is determined by your particular industry or service. A grocery store may consider twice-weekly visits a good frequency, whereas a dry cleaner may only be monthly.

Changing customers from being a one or two item purchaser to purchasing several products can increase your bottom line tremendously. With a bit of vision and creativity, one basic service can open several opportunities. Most businesses can take their basic product or service and expand into other offerings. What are your current offerings? Are there other products and services you could develop that are consistent with your market and your company vision?

This is where you can create an incredible backend list of possibilities. Once you think about other offerings, what are some new avenues you could open? Is it possible to partner with other companies where you could offer each others products and services?

Here are some possibilities:

Car dealerships offering a years worth of car washes or oil changes at a discount
Hair salons who sell facials or nail services
Pet shops selling grooming services
Restaurants who provide recipe books
Chiropractors and Massage Therapists who promote their services

As you plan for the coming year, include methods for keeping in touch, developing a list of companies you can partner with and increasing strategies for gaining and maintaining top-of-the-mind awareness for your customers.

Marketing is about timing. Just because you contact a client today does not mean they are in the market to buy today. However, if you keep in regular contact with them, when they are ready to purchase, there is a good chance you will be the one they call.

Todays customers are busy. New choices are thrown at them every day. Keep your name on the top of their list by consistently reminding them of their great experiences with your company. Great marketing systems will help you gain and retain customers.

Step One: Preparation
Before going out to proclaim the glory that is your website, first make sure it’s in tiptop shape. Was your website carefully and professionally constructed? That includes content copy. It’s vital that your copy (the text on your website) be written well, including a logical flow, clarity, good sentence structure, wise word choices and proper grammar/punctuation. Studies reveal the average Internet visitor is getting more sophisticated and expects features, such as proper language use (whether English or another language). Fail in this area and you’ll lose business. It’s that plain and simple.
Now that your copy is humming, how is your search engine optimization? Did you at least look into some basics? Search Engine Optimization is the act of making your website search engine friendly and more likely to appear under the keyword phrases appealing to your targeted audience. While it can be a complex process, the basics should include having your pages search engine friendly, containing some keywords to attract your target audience. Once these two components are satisfactory, you’re ready for the next step.

Step Two: Links
Your website needs links. Today, even a simple link exchange can be complicated. Many website owners don’t want to reciprocate links with a new website. So how can you advance if you can’t get links? Thankfully, there are alternative solutions. When you’re first starting out, don’t spend too much time trying to find websites willing to link with you. Instead, work on establishing yourself first.
Today’s Internet world revolves around content. Website owners across the globe are just waiting for free content from people like you. So the best way to gain links to your website in bunches is by providing content to other websites–also known as “promotional articles.” These articles offer other website owners something of value. The result? Your new website receives many one-way links from other websites easily.
Naturally, your article needs to be written well to succeed. Simply throwing words down on paper doesn’t cut it. The better your article is written, the more it will appeal to website owners. In the end, you’ll glean more worldwide coverage, which is what you want. Not a writer? No problem. You can visit PromotionalArticles.com and have promotional articles professionally crafted for you. Simply slap your name on them and away you go. And even if you’ve written your own article, I strongly suggest using their editorial service. As every good writer knows, all writing should be professionally reviewed and polished by a savvy editor before publication.

Step Three: Promotional Articles & Repetition
If possible, you want to release a few promotional articles, at the very least. Timing is important. For example, if all you have is three articles currently, space their release. Don’t release them all at once. Promotional Articles can be fast acting. Yet, it really depends on the market the article is geared toward and how well it is written. I have seen my articles end up on other websites within hours of release.
Once released, the search engines will begin to pick up the fact your article is on other indexed websites. When this happens, your back links go up, which can continue for quite some time. Without a doubt, you’ll discover the process for releasing promotional article to the world quite simple. At my website, JasonAMartin.com, there is an article all about how to do this.

Step Four: Further Linking
Once you have allowed a little time to pass after step three, your website will begin to take hold. When it does, it’s time to seek solid links on other websites. Stick to websites that are either on the same topic or related. For example, if you owned a website that sold cheese, receiving a link from a website that sold motor oil wouldn’t be beneficial. However, receiving a link from a website about cheese or wine would.
As time permits, search for smaller websites in your field, then see if they sell advertising on their front page for a small fee. For example, one night I found a website, which was set up decently in the search engines and was on the same topic as one of my websites. The site offered a homepage text link for $2 per week. I not only received a nice link to help my search engine status, but a possibility for highly targeted traffic as well. The Internet is full of on-topic websites for you to locate for potential profitability.

That’s a Wrap
By following this plan, you can significantly increase the staying power of your website. It really isn’t that complicated when you do things properly. “Is there more?” you ask. Sure. For instance, you can purchase traffic from trusted PPC sources. This and other techniques are discussed in various articles, which are all available at JasonAMartin.com. Once you master the art of opening a website properly, you’ll want to open up many more. Submit your articles to ContentTycoon.com.

Fast-forward thirty years and meet a young man working at an insurance company who dreamed of starting his own small business as a financial planner. He had the education and experience but what he didn’t have was cash. The year is 1999 and after a few weeks of research the young man realized that marketing and promotion were vital to the success of his business. However, the young man knew about a magical method of promotion that wasn’t available to the young woman in 1969. What was the magical method he used to start his business part-time and build it into a full-time thriving practice after six months? The answer, of course, is the internet!

It’s true that the internet seems like a capricious magician that selectively waves a magic wand over some small businesses. However, the reasons for this became glaringly clear to the young man after he completed his research. He discovered that success is garnered by avoiding scams such as “business opportunities” that seem too good to be true. In addition to hard work and patience he stayed away from spam, Free For All Links (FFAs), pyramid schemes, network marketing, sweepstakes and investment fraud. He used http://www.scambusters.org to avoid anything that remotely resembled a scam.

The young man developed a marketing plan focusing on the internet and after six months he found the following free or nearly free strategies worked best:

Press Releases - Particularly helpful if the release is tied to an upcoming holiday or a recent event.

Creating Content - Offering articles and case studies is by far the most reliable way to find clients and brand yourself as an expert in your field.

Book Reviews - Some on-line books stores like Amazon.com allow you to post reviews of books you’ve read. These reviews will be tied to an “About Me” page that can include information about you and your business and your URL.

Forums - Joining forums that cover your area of expertise is a good move. Help people by answering questions about your topic and include your URL in your signature.

Testimonials - Wise marketers ask every existing client for testimonials to be used on their website and/or printed marketing material.

Newsletters - Keeping in touch with customers and prospects with an on-line e-zine is a good way to build a steady stream of loyal clients.

Teleseminars - A small investment in a bridge line allows a group of people to sign up for a free or fee based seminar on your area of expertise.

Referrals - Proactively asking clients for referrals works better if they are offered a discount on products or services in return.

Solo E-zine Ads - Solo ads are an advertisement or article sent by itself to a list of newsletter readers. Many solo ads are competitively priced and offer a generous amount of room for your message.

The young man learned a lesson that we can all appreciate. There is no “get rich quick schemes” that work on or off-line. The only way to prosper hasn’t changed over time… build client relationships with hard work and excellent customer service. Cultivate patience and find your own internet magic by following in the footsteps of the young man.

Types of Click Fraud:

Forced Traffic and Robot Traffic

The most egregious form of click fraud comes from forced traffic. Utilizing pop-ups, start page exchanges, and other mass traffic generation tools, the person committing the fraud forces traffic through paid listings. For example, if the person committing click fraud were to use pop-ups, rather than have a pop-up display the content of an ad, the pop-up is used deliver a visitor to the click URL that the engine uses to track traffic. The search engine does not know that the click was not user generated, but rather generated by a pop-up. As a result the search engine deducts money from the advertisers account and considers the pop-up to actually be a click. The affiliate then gets paid for delivering nothing more than a pop-up.

Many PPCs have attempted to reduce the ability of affiliates to force traffic to their listings. Using unique session logging and requiring a valid HTTP referrer are a couple of ways click fraud is being reduced by some pay per click search engines. Even with these methods in place, some people have still discovered ways to force traffic to paid listings. The best defense a PPC has against forced traffic is to perform routine audits on their network and their affiliates.

Robot traffic is a form of forced traffic, however, instead of having the click URL load fully in a users browser the click URL is merely called by an automated program. Search engines that do not guard against this type of traffic will once again consider this to be a legitimate click. The danger with robot traffic is that it can be generated innocently by search engines crawling the web. Fortunately most search engines distinguish between spidered traffic and real traffic.

Excessive International Traffic

Although the Internet transcends most international borders, excessive traffic from Asia often signal generally poor quality traffic from your search engine. This traffic is particularly dangerous to your advertising campaigns as most advertisers do not know how to distinguish traffic origins by country. More dangerous yet is the fact that many search engines do nothing to filter out excessive international traffic. International traffic is considered valid traffic by these engines as it is user originated traffic.

International traffic is not what most advertisers are hoping to spend their money on when starting a pay per click search engine campaign. The target market of most advertisers includes the U.S., Canada, Great Britain, other European countries, and possibly Australia. In addition to the traffic not being truly focused, this excessive international traffic also has a greater chance of being generated through incentives or fraudulent means.

Sport and Competitor Clicking

In highly competitive pay per click scenarios advertisers may turn to dishonest means to hurt their competition. Such is the case with competitor clicking. Competitor clicking is the act of clicking on listings for the sake of costing another advertiser money. In an extreme case of competitor clicking, one company may click a listing several times in a row with the hope of depleting their competitions funds.

Sport clicking works in a similar fashion, however, instead of a competitor clicking on a listing a non-interested party clicks on expensive keywords. When a person comes across an expensive pay per click listing, many times they become interested in who would pay for such a listing. Other people just simply click on listings because they know it costs the advertiser money. Regardless of their motivation, advertisers have unfortunately become familiar with visitors from pay per click search engines that do not have any real interest in their service.

Although it is not possible for a search engine to completely eliminate competitor and sport clicking as it is impossible to know initially the difference between an interested visitor and a visitor with ill-intent, it is possible for search engines to guard against excessive clicking. Frequency caps are the most effective means to guard against this form of click fraud. A frequency cap will limit the number of times an advertiser is charged for a visitor within a set amount of time. For example, if a listing is clicked by an individual, the advertiser will be charged. If that same individual clicks on the same listing again within a short amount of time, the advertiser will not be charged for the second click.

Avoid Companies Who Don’t Avoid Click Fraud

It is a simple rule, but a rule that is not followed very closely by most marketers. If the search engines you are advertising with are not careful to avoid those who are prone to committing click fraud, chances are good that advertising with them will result in losing money to click fraud. Search engines that are actively pursuing click fraud tend to have stringent requirements to become a distribution partner. Other search engines that actively pursue click fraud set themselves up to not encourage click fraud, possibly by not using partner networks or possibly by not paying their partners on a per click basis.

Look for Publicly Held Companies

Search engines that have stringent guidelines on who can distribute their results tend to have more success in reducing click fraud. Publicly held companies, because of their accountability to long-term profitability and their shareholders are masters at performing due diligence on a website before accepting it as a distribution partner.

The two largest publicly held pay per click search engines are Overture and FindWhat. Both companies examine sites wishing to distribute their search results with great detail. Every partner site is required to perform a minimum amount of traffic. Sites that achieve their minimum traffic requirements are signals that the site has a loyal and committed customer base. In addition, every site goes through a rigorous audit which is intended to reveal sources of traffic and fully understand how their feed will be used on that site.

Besides filtering out click fraud through initial partnership requests, publicly held companies routinely perform audits on their distribution networks and employ the latest technology to find instances of click fraud.

Use PPC Spin-offs

Frustrated by the vast amounts of click fraud and the rising costs of keywords at most PPCs, many advertisers have left the world of pay per click search engine marketing in search for other advertising venues. To meet the needs of this ever growing demographic, a few search engines have developed programs similar that resemble pay per click search engines in the results that advertisers see without the negative effects such as click fraud.

The most successful model of these spin-offs is TowerSearch. Rather than using a pay per click model requiring that advertisers deposit funds, bid on keywords, then subsequently deduct the bidded amount from their deposited funds for every click recorded, TowerSearch opens up their traffic to advertisers without charging them on a per click basis. Their program is an ideal alternative to per click marketing and paid inclusion programs. Where paid inclusion programs do not guarantee a top position for any of the keywords you target, and where pay per click marketing does not offer the flat fee for inclusion in their database, TowerSearch steps up. TowerSearch guarantees both a top position as well as a flat monthly fee for that guaranteed top position.

Highly reputed ExactSeek also offers a program that guarantees placement for a flat fee. Advertisers can buy a guaranteed placement of a featured listing box for any keyword they choose for a flat fee. With the draw that ExactSeek has in addition to the cost benefits, ExactSeek is the perfect alternative to the relatively highly priced Google AdWords.

By offering flat-fee guaranteed placement, both TowerSearch and ExactSeek have taken click fraud out of the equation of search engine marketing. Neither company currently offers an affiliate program to distribute listings on a per click revenue sharing basis; rather, they both rely on traffic they can generate without tempting other webmasters simply drive clicks to their listings. In addition, neither companys model lends itself to click fraud as clicking on a listing will not cost the advertiser any money. By adjusting their models slightly TowerSearch and ExactSeek are safe bets for advertisers looking to spend their money wisely.

Do Not Rely On Pay Per Click Marketing

Pay per click marketing is a valuable resource, however, with the vast amounts of resources available to find quality top placements in free search engines, no marketer should be relying solely on pay per click marketing. For most webmasters, the prize search engine to obtain a top ranking in is Google. With all the free information available from sites such as JimWorlds Forums, FreeWebSiteSubmission, and SearchGuild, it is possible for every webmaster to learn how they can capitalize on the extreme success of Google.

In addition to offering a great pay per click alternative, Exactseeks free listings are a great resource for webmasters looking for free traffic. Exactseeks offers several different programs to help every webmaster achieve a higher ranking in their listings. Recently they announced a change in their ranking algorithm. Rather than focusing solely on keyword relevance which has so often been abused by dishonest webmasters, Exactseeks now takes into account a websites popularity as judged by Alexa. Two websites that are equal in relevancy will achieve their position by how popular Alexa judges them to be. Not only does this provide better results for end uses, but it opens up new possibilities for webmasters to capitalize off of Exactseeks popularity.

Conclusion
Search engine marketing is still the best marketing available to bring high quality visitors and convert visitors into paying customers. Whether it is through pay per click programs, pay per click spin-offs, or through free listings, every marketing plan needs to include search engine marketing. Unfortunately the reality of search engine marketing is that click fraud exists. By focusing your search engine marketing on companies that are less susceptible to click fraud, your marketing campaigns will see a solid ROI.

PPC-List.com is an online resource for pay per click search engines. This article may be reproduced in its entirety as long as PPC-List is attributed as the author.

This actually delineates what are you looking for. What goals you have set for your business and what are you looking to achieve through your marketing plans?
Deciding business marketing system. Every growing business should address the need of Internet or online marketing. Apart from the conventional advertisement systems in newspapers, magazines, online marketing tools should be incorporated in the business marketing plan, which may include: search engine optimization, e-mail marketing, banner ads, etc.
At the end, we can say that business marketing has grown wide and wild with the added horizons of Internet and online business, and a business owner should be proactive enough to handle the situation steadily and should incorporate all possible techniques for better business marketing plans and strategies.
However, there are non-marketing approaches to business marketing. They generally require less money to implement and are often more effective. The only catch is that they require time and creativity to develop.

Here are some examples:
Database Business Marketing
Whether you’re a partner in a consulting firm, a house painter, or president of an international conglomerate, database marketing is crucial for your success.
Database marketing can be simple or sophisticated. The key is that instead of just having a mailing list of prospective customers or a single list of current customers, you can use a computer to evaluate and manage the information more precisely.
For example, you may want to send a reminder mailing to every customer once a year; a monthly mailing to more active customers; and even place a phone call from time to time to your very best customers.
Business Fax

Broadcast fax marketing is a great way to reach a large target audience. If you have a generic fax to send to many locations at a specific time, you can set many fax machines and most computer fax programs to dial multiple numbers. If your customers rely on you for updates and product changes, then broadcast faxing is a terrific way to communicate that information.

Business Marketing With Coupons
You don’t have to distribute coupons in print advertising or in big direct mail campaigns. You can hand them out on the street corner, at trade shows, or just about anyplace else. You can send a few to your best customers, or you can include “next purchase” coupons in customer orders.

Busines Marketing With Counter Displays
Counter displays are sometimes called prepacks when the display also serves double duty as a counter item. Merchants generally use counter displays for low-priced items that a consumer might decide to purchase on impulse while they are waiting for sales assistance or standing at the cash register. Small novelty items are ideal for counter displays.
There are almost as many opinions and views on marketing as there are companies to market. The big names and multinationals will have an extraordinary amount of funding set aside in which to convey their marketing message to the masses.
Once you are getting the returns that you want from the first media, or if you decide that it is not working for you, you can branch out into another form of busines marketing. Over time you will build up a very diverse marketing plan.
Moreover, business marketing is a process that involves researching, informing and persuading customers in taking hold of products and services in an effort to increase sales as well as to increase the sharing or the transfer of ideas between the business and its customers. Although the process of business marketing may take a great amount of time nevertheless a well planned business marketing solution will result to a more stable influx of sales revenue most especially when customers’ trust in your company is built. All future marketing endeavors will promise sweet success.
I hope this helps in your Business Marketing decisions.

Although that article is itself a great resource, I still find myself being asked questions about the use of email marketing online. Since I didn’t go into depth about the specifics of marketing using email in that previous article, I thought another was in order.

How do you go about sending email or marketing yourself online without crossing into the “SPAMmer” category? First and foremost, KNOW WHO YOU ARE SENDING YOUR EMAIL TO. You don’t have to be familiar with each recipient personally, but you’d better know whether or not they really want to hear what you have to offer. Always keep that in mind when sending an email to anyone, especially if it’s an email meant to market your product or service.

Building An Opt-In List
For anyone with an established website and a known web presence, building an opt-in list is generally an easy affair. The best type of list is the “double opt-in list.” This simply means that the subscriber to the list was required to complete at least two steps - apart from one another - to join the list. Usually this means that the user filled out a web form (name, email, etc.) and submitted it. They were then emailed with a “click here to activate your subscription”-type link. Once they click on the link, they are subscribed to the list. This strategy prevents those who aren’t sure what they’re doing from joining and, more importantly, keeps Bob from signing up his friend/enemy Larry without Larry’s consent. I recommend you find someone who specializes in newsletter list keeping and delivery (such as Topica - http://www.qksrv.net/click-1357406-10280459) to do this for you.

Whether your website is brand new or well established, you should be collecting customer contact information (email addresses in particular) for further contact. You can provide a free newsletter, periodic updates via email, or “exclusive opportunities” for those who join. There must be some kind of incentive or you won’t gather many email addresses. For an established website, this is usually enough. You already have traffic to see your offer and sign up. You need do little more.

For the new site, though, this is only a portion of the battle. The real effort comes in marketing your offer to drive traffic to your website and build your opt-in list. There are a LOT of great ways to do this without causing much of a stir. My favorite is to participate meaningfully in discussion lists related to your business. I spend a lot of time in Web Design and Development forums speaking with others in the business as well as amateurs just looking for tips and help. Doing this without pushing myself down people’s throats has gained me both fame and website traffic.

Another way to gather fast results is to advertise in newsletters/e-zines related to your business. Every business has trade, gossip, or news-related publications both on and offline. An advertisement in an e-zine online can get you 3,000 people looking at an ad you only spent $10 to list! The best thing about the Internet is that these ads can usually include a hyperlink so that they can read your ad (which hopefully contains some kind of call-to-action) and immediately click through to your website!

In addition to all this, there are some great tools at Roving Web (http://www.qksrv.net/click-1357406-1668329) for the email marketer. They offer free trials on many of their services and give top-notch service to their customers.

A slower and more time-consuming way to get the word out is to talk to the publishers of these e-zines, the writers who write articles for them, and even to the website owners of related websites and tell them about your product, service, or offer. If what you have seems interesting enough, they may write an article or include a “blurb” free of charge! Or even trade links with you so you can help each other promote your individual websites.

You Have The List, What Now?
Now that you’ve got a list of those interested, you’ll have more considerations. The first is the question of how each individual subscriber will remove themselves from your list if they so desire. Most list maintenance programs allow for this. At the very simplest, you can make sure they know how to email or contact you for removal. Make sure that EVERYTHING you send to this list of subscribers includes instructions for removal from the list. Not doing so immediately places you into the “SPAMmer” category.

What will you use to email to this list? There are a lot of options, including online email services, server-based bulk mail handlers, and PC-based software that does the same through your Internet connection. Each has pros and cons to consider. For instance, the online service may or may not store your list for you and therefore you may have worries about them stealing the list and selling it. This can happen. Another example is the PC-based system. If you routinely send out several thousand emails from your Internet account, your ISP may start to wonder just what it is you’re doing. Many will shut you down and ask questions later. Make sure they are aware of what you’re doing and don’t have a problem with it. This will keep you out of hot water.

Again, a great way to keep out of hot water is to use a professional service to handle your list, email your newsletters, and even write the newsletters for you! I recommend Topica (http://www.qksrv.net/click-1357406-10280459), Roving Web (http://www.qksrv.net/click-1357406-1668329), and eZine4Hire (http://www.eZine4Hire.com) for these services.

What and When To Send
Don’t send things willy-nilly to your list. The more often you send things, the more often you will have people wanting to unsubscribe to avoid your constant barrage. As a general rule, sending twice a week at maximum is acceptable. The shorter your emails, the less likely you are to receive complaints or unsubscriptions.

Don’t send more than you have to. If you are sending your emails using an HTML format, make sure the design is simple, clean, and uses few graphics. The more you use, the larger the email. The larger the email, the longer it takes to download and view. Whatever you do, DO NOT include browser-control “features” or code that automatically redirects the browser to a website. Very few people like these and it’s not widely supported by many email clients, so a lot of your readers may see only garbage in their email.

Only send useful information for your readers. Don’t send information that you wouldn’t want to read if you were a prospective customer. Your email recipients probably don’t want to read about your dog Tilly, your son’s graduation from Webelos, or your new-found love of dirt farming. They want to know how you’re work/offer is going to benefit THEM. And they want to know this in as little time as possible. Try not to ramble. This is my biggest struggle. :

When You’re Accused of SPAMming
When you do receive a SPAM complaint - and you will, eventually - try to be professional about it. Remove the person from your list immediately and, if needed, send all pertinent details (including the signup process and a copy of your Privacy Policy or Anti-SPAM Policy) to those who need it. Let the person know, in a business-like and non-aggressive manner, that they have been removed from your list and will not receive further contact from you. From then on, it’s best to just ignore them if they continue to harass you with complaints. So long as they aren’t receiving any more of your emails (without signing up for them), they have nothing to complain about.

Despite the horror stories you may have heard (usually perpetrated by SPAMmers who don’t want SpamCop or similar services to exist), you will NOT be blacklisted after only one or two complaints. It takes several complaints about the same instance and issue to get blacklisted. Even then, these lists are generally temporary and will only last a few months at the longest. Unless you are a REAL SPAMmer or are ignoring one of the fundamental rules of non-SPAM emailing, you will never get yourself listed on one of those lists.

In the end, email is still a great marketing tool when used properly. If you take the time to do the research, learn what you need to know, and employ the tools you need to use; you will benefit greatly from this powerful marketing tool. If, instead, you rely on purchased “safe lists” and use nefarious tools like “header screens,” you’ll eventually reap the painful rewards you’re due.

The keys to success are the relevancy of the content provided to the target audience as well as the quality and segmentation of the sender’s e-mail list. Organizations that pay attention to these critical points will increase the probability of accomplishing their goals.

This article contains practical tips that you can use to develop and implement an e-mail marketing strategy.

Developing your e-mail marketing strategy

Who is your audience? What is your message? How often will you launch a campaign? Develop a clear strategy that answers these questions while remaining consistent with your overall marketing strategy. Consider the following four components when developing your e-mail marketing strategy:

Set realistic goalsWhat specific, tangible benefits do you want your e-mail marketing campaign to help your organization achieve? Some examples might include:

1. Increase sales leads from A to B.

2. Increase product or service sales from A to B.

3. Enhance customer relationships by increasing the number of times that your organization connects with customers from A to B.

4. Differentiate your brand by providing customers with expert advice they can apply to their business.
5. Drive traffic to a specific content section within your Web site.

Analyze and segment your e-mail list

Get to know your customers and determine what topics grab their attention. Then segment your e-mail list into smaller lists based on the identified commonalities. Remember to update e-mail addresses that have changed.

Develop relevant content based on your segmentation

A segmented e-mail list gives you the freedom to develop customized content, increasing the odds that your audience will respond. Provide your audience with content that is interesting to them. Highlight product and service features that are highly relevant to your audience and unique from your competitors. These types of features are called drivers.

Providing relevant content also reduces the risk that your audience would consider your e-mail marketing campaigns to be distractions, or even worse, spam.

Measure your results

Most leading e-mail marketing distribution tools provide real-time data as part of their package. The AVS Group uses Constant Contact for our campaigns. For a broader view of your Web site’s performance, Webtrends is a leading Web analytics tool that generates detailed traffic statistics.

Differentiating your brand Can e-mail marketing be useful in differentiating a brand? Absolutely, and here’s how.

Focus on drivers

Earlier we recommended highlighting the features of your products and services that are highly relevant to customers and unique from competitors. These features are called drivers. Drivers are any organization’s true points of differentiation. Drivers are so powerful, they actual drive customer choice toward one brand versus another. Your e-mail marketing campaign should communicate your drivers.

Share your expertise

Share your organization’s knowledge with your e-mail list. Offer recommendations based on your experience. Write papers based on your organization’s research. Comment on industry or marketplace trends. Sharing your expertise makes your brand different - you are not communicating the same message as competitors.

Brand consistency

Your team has invested time and effort toward developing your organization’s logo, tagline, graphic standards, and overall brand identity. To protect this investment, create an e-mail template that can be used for all of your e-mail marketing campaigns. Your audience will receive a professional looking message that is consistent with the positive attributes that your brand identity represents. For each issue, you simply update the content.

Timing consistency

Set specific intervals to distribute your e-mail marketing: weekly, monthly, quarterly, etc. and stick to them. It takes a commitment to consistently develop and distribute relevant e-mail marketing campaigns. Remaining consistent will provide your organization with differentiation from all of the organizations marketing themselves inconsistently.

Driving targeted traffic to a Web site

E-mail marketing is a proven method for driving site traffic. In fact, experiencing traffic increases of 100 percent or more on days that an e-mail marketing campaign is launched is realistic.

Targeted e-mail marketing campaigns can also deliver impressive open and click-through rates. For example, 50 percent of the recipients of an e-newsletter may open the e-mail and 30 percent of those people may click into the Web site to learn more.

Why are these numbers so high? The sender provided relevant content to people who already knew of the organization. The recipients may not have been very familiar with the organization, or even current customers. However, they at least gave the organization their e-mail address.

Use teaser content to trigger interest

Do not provide all of the information within your e-mail marketing message. Support the content in your e-mail marketing campaign with more content on your Web site. Encourage people to click and learn more.

Intuitive design

Drive traffic by using a layout and design for your e-mails that is intuitive. Are the links easy to locate? Is the navigation and overall layout and design simple? Is the content easy to read?

Use references to build credibility

People generally do business with organizations they trust. Highlight your work, press releases, or case studies to serve as evidence of your achievements. Your audience may be more apt to click into your Web site if they perceive your message to be credible.

Increase sales

We have witnessed e-mail marketing campaigns that have generated online sales within minutes after being sent. These campaigns created a sense of urgency and promoted relevant products. However, if online transactions are not a good fit for your organization, consider using e-mail marketing to generate sales leads.

Create a sense of urgency

With a segmented list, you will be able to create special offers based on what will appeal to each segment. For one segment, you might offer free shipping. For another segment, you might offer a discount. Get it right, and you could experience sales increases of 100 percent on the days that e-mail marketing was used.

Promote relevant products

Because your list is segmented, you have the opportunity to feature the most relevant products. Create multiple campaigns based on the product preferences of each segment within your overall list.
Generate leads

Encourage your audience to go online and fill out a contact form or upload a request for proposal to you. For example, we receive requests for proposal from customers and prospects visiting AVSGroup.com. To help facilitate this process, we added a Discuss Project form making it easier to connect with our team.

In closing, any organization can be successful with e-mail marketing campaigns by implementing the right strategy. Developing an e-mail marketing strategy will lay the groundwork to reach your goals. E-mail marketing can be a powerful marketing and brand-building tool for your organization.