Story behind Internet Marketing

Before we talk about internet marketing, let trace back to Electronic Commerce (e-commerce) & Electronic Business (e-business). Early in the year of 2000, Electronic (e) is widely used for the activities engaging in the internet.

E-commerce is more on macro environment. It is the buying and selling of products, services and information on internet. It is about doing business electronically and it can also be defined as where the business transactions take place via internet.

E-business is more on micro environment. It is also about conducting business in the internet, but it includes servicing customers and collaborating with business partner.

The development of E-commerce and E-business has brought to the change in several aspects. The changes include Finance & Accounting, Production & Operations, Computer Sciences, Economics and Marketing. To support the rapid change of environment, there is a fast space of development at computer technology and network. Human capital needs to equip themselves with knowledge about new business model and issues of accounting, transaction costs, and auditing implications. The online processing has reduced the process time, it takes only seconds to deliver the digital products and services electronically. It hence brings to a great impact on local and global economies when there is no barrier of trade between countries.

E-business is a new channel for direct sales and promotion. The E has soon been dropped and nowadays people more recognize it as Internet business. The change from traditional business to internet business has brings to the change of the marketing strategies. Door to door, mail order using catalogues or leaflets are no longer applicable for internet business.

Here, we come back to internet marketing. Internet marketing can be defined as the process of identifying prospective customers, tracking and collecting data on these potential customers and then targeting them. It is the technique that leverages the internet for driving the traffic to the business.
Internet marketing comprises of the followings: -

• Affiliate programs
• Article marketing
• Banner & link exchange
• Branding
• Email marketing
• Pay per click
• Social bookmarking
• Search engine marketing (SEM)
• Search engine optimization (SEO)
• Website development
• Web directories
• Website traffic / ranking

The above marketing strategies are widely used to boost the internet business substantially. Quality internet marketing thus result in the growth of customer base, improve the sales and products branding. By attracting quality traffic to the website, advertising costs can be reduced but increase the global brand exposure.