What is Internet Marketing?

The term Internet Marketing is used synonymously with Interactive Marketing, Digital Marketing, Web Marketing and Online Marketing as well as the advertising variations like Internet Advertising, Interactive Advertising, Digital Advertising, Web Advertising and Online Advertising.

First let’s tackle the difference between Marketing and Advertising.  The simple answer is that Marketing includes Advertising but not visa versa.  Marketing includes everything from acquiring the customer to maintaining the customer.  Advertising focuses on making customers aware of a product or service.  So we can summarize that Internet Marketing

uses the Internet to acquire, inform and maintain customers.

If we look at the first words we can see that Internet, Web and Online are just different words for the same thing.  The word Interactive tends to mean the same thing as Internet, Web and Online even though interactive can also mean engaging the customer in the execution.  The term came up when the Internet allowed visitors to click on various things on a Web site to gain more information.

The word that’s a little confusing is Digital.  Digital can refer to the Internet but also any form of digital marketing devices that provide communications to others.  Things like mobile phones, digital billboards, iPads, etc. are all included in Digital Marketing.

Let’s look at some of the tactics within Internet Marketing:

Digital Lead Generation - This is probably the most important result you get from Internet Marketing.  We're all trying to increase the number of leads right now.  Our Digital Lead Generation System takes targeted online and mobile tactics, provides a value exchange offer and delivers the leads to your salesteam.  People will look online and find out exactly what they want before they actualy make the purchase.  You have to capture them while their on the Internet looking.

Online Advertising – Graphical/motion based ads on Web sites.  These ads can be highly targeted by demographics, lifestyle as well as a persons recent online behavior.  Online advertising is very cost effective because it eliminates almost all the waste due to the targeted ways we purchase the online media.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) – This is a process where a Web site is specifically optimized for those who use a search engine to find products/services.  Proper and effective SEO requires both on-site optimization as well as off-site back links to be successful in organic placement.

Search Engine Marketing (SEM) – Commonly called Pay-Per-Click advertising.  This usually has the best ROI of any advertising because you only pay when someone clicks on your search ad.  The only way the find your search ad is by keying in the words that describe what they’re looking for.  SEM means you get a highly qualified lead to your site at a very low price.

Web Site Design – This probably goes without saying.  Web site design includes informational sites, ecommerce sites, Flash sites, Content Management sites, private password protected sites, intranets, etc.

Email Marketing – This is the retention side of Marketing.  You must segment your customers and keep them engaged with the brand using relevant emails on a regular basis.  Don't think of email marketing as a blast.  It's not the cost of the email it's the relevancy of the email that's important.

Social Marketing – In general terms, social marketing deals with getting your customers to talk about your products/services within social environments like Facebook, Twitter, etc.  Just don’t go headstrong into social marketing without a strategy.  Your social marketing strategy should fit into your customer communication strategy.

Unfortunately, this article won’t cause everyone to use the same wording to describe our service but hopefully it will explain what we do.  Ontarget is an Internet and Mobile Marketing company.