| The Internet Marketing Collective
There are many and varied Internet marketing methods used online to promote a product or service, but they are all typically focused on promotion of a web site or web page. The content of that particular web page will display information about the product or service on offer. These methods all fall into the Internet marketing category and all have an important part to play in the overall effect of the Internet marketing campaign.
The term Internet marketing actually refers to a collection of the more creative and technical aspects of the Internet, which would include web site design, web site development, advertising, promotion and sales, and the varying techniques used in Internet marketing include search engine marketing, email marketing, article marketing, affiliate marketing, online advertising and more recently, social media marketing methods as employed in blog marketing, and viral marketing. Here we look at the variety of Internet marketing methods and the differences they make within the Internet marketing arena.
Search Engine Marketing
Search Engine Marketing is a form of Internet marketing that sets out to increase the visibility of a web site in search engine results pages using search engine optimization (SEO) techniques. A well optimized web page will be ranked higher in results pages for a particular keyword or phrase.
Email Marketing
Email Marketing can be a very successful form of Internet marketing if done right, but there are certain strict rules to adhere to if you don't want to lose your service provider. There are basically only two ways to carry out an email marketing campaign. Most Internet marketers use email marketing to communicate with existing customers, through legitimate opt-in lists of email addresses which they have built up over a period of time. The recipients have agreed to receive emails from the sender and have the option of quitting the list at any time. This is known as permission based email marketing, and perfectly acceptable. There are however many individuals and companies who send unsolicited bulk email to addresses which have been harvested from the millions of websites across the Internet. This is known as spam and not only is it frowned upon within the Internet community but in certain countries and/or states is strictly illegal.
Article Marketing
Article marketing involves the writing and publishing of articles around the Internet which fall into a variety of categories and use backlinks in the author biography box to a web site in order to improve the visibility of that site in the eyes of search engine robots. Technically, article marketing is an aspect of search engine marketing, and has become more popular over that last couple of years. It is now considered to be an important part of any Internet marketing campaign.
Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing can be a very lucrative form of Internet marketing, with or without a website to assist in promotion. Typically, an affiliate will be given a unique url link to promote that will have his or her identification embedded in the link. When sales are made from the promotion of that link, the affiliate will receive a commission for his efforts from the affiliate program manager. Without a website to promote their affiliate links, the affiliate may turn to other forms of promotion, for example, email marketing, online classified advertising, and pay-per-click advertising.
Online Advertising
Perhaps the oldest form of Internet marketing, Online advertising comes in many guises, for example, contextual ads on search engine results pages, banner advertising, pop-ups, classified advertising networks and e-mail marketing which includes e-mail spam. A major advantage of online advertising is that the information and content offered is not limited by geography or time. Ads will be displayed 24/7/365.
Social Media Marketing
Social media marketing is the latest Internet marketing idea and the typical format would be websites where profiles are hosted through user submission, and would also include news, photos, videos, and podcasts. Examples of social media networks are MySpace, Facebook, Bebo and YouTube, where brand awareness and visibility techniques are used rather than blatant advertising. A rather more subtle approach to Internet marketing.
Blog Marketing
Blog Marketing is the name given to the technique of using a blog or multiple blogs purely as a means of advertising or promoting a web site or online business. The blog(s) will run advertising links and sometimes Internet marketing product or service reviews along with promotion via entries on third party blogs and a cross-syndication of information across other multiple blogs. Blog marketing is a widely used Internet marketing technique.
Viral Marketing
Viral Marketing relies on a high pass-along rate from one person to another. If a large number of recipients forward information to a large number of friends or colleagues, the overall growth will snowball rapidly. However, if the pass-along numbers get too low, the overall growth will quickly fizzle out, and the campaign flounders. It has been recorded that a satisfied customer will tell an average of three people about a product or service he or she likes, yet will inform eleven people about a product or service which he or she did not like. Viral marketing is a product of this natural human behavior.
So these eight Internet marketing models are the most widely used although some marketers will practice methods which employ two or more of the above models simultaneously. Whichever system the marketer employs, the end product will always be the same... the marketing and promotion of a web site, product, service or affiliate link. That is the sole agenda of The Internet Marketing Collective.
Trevor Taylor
Keywords: internet marketing,search engine marketing,email marketing,article marketing,affiliate marketing, | 
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