Internet marketing is one or more ways similar to the retail marketing with its own advantages and also limitation. It is also known by web marketing or e-marketing and involves the promotion and sales of products or service over the web. Here the company makes its sale by making their own website and posting their advertisement banner over third party website or blog. The company makes business relations with various third party sites, social media website, search engine, and forum to bring traffic to company’s own website and increase product awareness and sales. Internet marketing uses creative marketing strategies on the technical platform of internet and explores the vast opportunity of web and wireless media to connect with the peoples all over the world and thus advertise their product or service  globally.
The various ways in which marketing is done over internet are as follows:-
Email marketing: -it is a method by which we can contact people or a group by using electronic mail which is very much easy to convey message to the target group by directly messaging them on their respective email-id.- Display advertising: – here the company places a banner of ads on a third party website, which on click direct the user to a page where the descriptions of products or service are given.
- Social networking: – with the constant increase in the users of social networking sites like facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn all types of business are getting lured to the social sites to increase their product endorsement.
- Affiliate marketing: – here the third party website asks its new user to go to a link before downloading any content the site offers. The link redirects the user to the company’s website and thereby increases their product awareness.
- Search engine: – in this type of internet marketing the company wishes to increase the traffic of their website by providing free search results.
BUSINESS MODEL
The various business model which are followed are
- E-commerce: – In this model there is commercial transaction between an organization and consumers (B2C), inter-organizational marketing (B2B), and consumer to consumer transaction (C2C).
- Sell side e-commerce: – E-commerce transactions between a supplier organization and its customers
- Buy side e-commerce: -E-commerce transactions between a purchasing organization and its suppliers
ADVANTAGES AND LIMITATIONS
ADVANTAGES
- Market penetration: – The Internet can be used to sell more products into existing markets. This can be achieved by using the power of the Internet for advertising products to Increase awareness of products and the profile of a company amongst potential customers in an existing market. This is a relatively conservative use of the Internet.
- Market development: – Here the Internet is used to sell into new markets, taking advantage of the low cost of advertising internationally without the necessity for supporting sales infrastructure in the customers’ country.
- Product development: – New products or services are developed which can be delivered by the Internet. These are typically information products such as market reports which can be purchased using electronic commerce. This is innovative use of the Internet.
- Diversification: – In this sector, new products are developed which are sold into new markets.
LIMITATIONS
- One of the limitations is that the dealer is unable to influence the buyer directly face to face as the whole internet marketing is based on advertisement and information given on websites.
- The section of consumer is afraid because they are concerned with the quality of the product and are in no mood of taking such risk of being cheated.
CONCLUSION
If Internet marketing is to become integrated and fully established as a strategic marketing
Management tool, then the focus of attention needs to move towards understanding it’s broader Applications within the total marketing process rather than just using it as a communication and Selling tool.
However, for Internet Marketing to be successful there is a necessity of integration with traditional media such as Print and TV.
This guest post was written by Mahesh Mohan is an Internet Marketer & Investor. He is the author of the Digital Marketing & Technology blog Minterest. It features information on Blogging, Internet Marketing, Web Hosting and Technology.
