What is Internet Marketing?

Written by Gail on 18 February 2009

People come to the Internet looking for information. Many are under
the assumption that everything on the Internet is free. These are the people who get upset when you dare to charge them for information. Why isn’t it free?

Let’s first review a few definitions:

Marketing is defined by the American Marketing Association as the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large.

Advertising is a form of communication that typically attempts to persuade potential customers to purchase or to consume more of a particular brand of product or service.

Internet marketing, also referred to as web marketing, online marketing, or eMarketing, is the marketing of products or services over the Internet.

~ Wikipedia

Free Information

Yes – there certainly is free information on the Internet….and lots of it. Some of it, like the information in Wikipedia is intentionally provided as a free encyclopedia that anyone can edit. There are also sites that provide free software, often referred to as shareware. Most of this software provides people with a free trial period to use the software. Once the software expires, you are given the option to purchase the basic package or to purchase an upgrade with added features.

In addition to these sites are vast arrays of article directories, blogs, Squidoo lenses, Hub pages and other sites that are built to provide information on subjects of interest. Most of these sites are built around niches that are highly searched by people looking for specific information. If people are searching on something, sites will be built to provide the information in the form of facts, articles or a personal point of view.

There are also plenty of websites giving away free software that is filled with viruses. As soon as they are installed on your computer, a virus is initiated that continues to spread, slowing down your computer and collecting your information through keystrokes and files on your computer. Most websites will check the software they give away to make sure it does not contain any viruses.

Website Expenses

Once a website is built, the owner of the site has ongoing expenses to pay, such as an annual fee for the domain name and monthly hosting fees. For this reason, the owner must find a way to monetize the site to earn enough income to pay the expenses. This is usually done with text ads the reader can click on for more information and with banners and graphics that advertise related products the reader can purchase. Since the site owner needs to earn enough income to break even, the incentive is there to try and earn a profit.

Once a website is monetized, the site owner is then using Internet Marketing strategies to earn as much income from the site as possible. As with any business venture, a website that does not earn enough to pay expenses will soon be out of business.

Internet Marketing as a Business

Website owners who have had success making money on the Internet strive to build a legitimate internet marketing business for long-term success. They use a business model similar to direct marketing businesses to bring in new customers through a sales funnel. The sales funnel is designed to bring the customer in with a free giveaway or a low-cost product to take the customer through a series of up sells to higher priced items.

As the customer progresses through the sales funnel, they move from the lower cost products to the higher priced products. By keeping the customers on specific lists, the business owner knows what price point the customer is willing to pay. If a customer accepts an offer to pay $75 for a product, they are moved from the lower priced list to the $75 list, etc. They will now continue to receive higher priced offers as long as they remain subscribed to the list.

Free Versus Paid Information

If you’re searching for information on the Internet, why pay when you can get it free? Well – that really depends on how much time you have! If you’re not in a hurry, you can spend all the time you want collecting all the free information you can find. Just keep in mind the first rule of marketing free information online: useful, but incomplete. Huh – what is that?

This is a common practice used by most marketers. It allows the marketer to provide information the reader is searching for that is accurate and useful. This internet marketing strategy allows the marketer to retain the “meat” of the information and sell it to the reader after the perceived value is attained. This is exactly the same scenario used in magazines when portions of a book are printed to generate sales for the author.

When you purchase an information product, you are guaranteed to receive insider knowledge the marketer has to sell. This knowledge was obtained in most cases through hands on experience and is therefore a valuable commodity.

Before you complete that purchase, make sure:
•    It contains the information you are looking for
•    You find a refund policy in case the product falls short
•    There is a Customer Service or Help Desk function to process customer issues

Next time you expect free information and find a price tag instead, you’ll be in a position to decide of the product is worth the expense.

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