Internet Marketing

Please Note: This article was last updated in 2003.

A strategic approach to internet marketing will help you establish and maintain your web presence.

Internet Marketing Strategy

The foundation of my core internet marketing strategy is search engine marketing. Focusing on reaching customers while they are looking for you is genuinely customer-focused, and it makes intuitive sense. It is also a strategy that is backed up by data on how people use the web.

Why do you want to be online?

The first thing you have to ask yourself when you decide to build a web presence is, Why are you online?

Do you want to make money by selling your products and services online? Then you’ll take the e-commerce path, building and promoting an online selling machine.

Do you want to sell information online? Then you’ll take the online publishing path, building and promoting web and e-mail publications.

Or, as is the case for many independent professionals, do you want to promote your traditional business using this nifty new medium? If so, then you’ll take the marketing path, building and promoting a site that will enhance your professional reputation (your “brand” in marketing-speak) and help you attract new leads, prospects, and customers.

Of course, just as your existing professional practice may encompass commerce, publishing, and marketing activities, your web presence can also accommodate a mix of activities. But, like your current business, these activities will be built around your unique capabilities.

Your internet marketing strategy should address both your intention (commerce, publishing, marketing, or a mix) in being online and your unique selling proposition (the reason customers would choose you over a competitor).

Internet Marketing Planning

Once you have articulated these crucial components of your web presence objectives, you are ready to begin your internet marketing plan. Like any marketing good plan, it should consist of thorough SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats), competitive, and market analyses, as well as consideration of the 4Ps (Product development, Place/distribution considerations, Promotion tactics, and Pricing decisions).

My Internet Marketing Qualifications

I have been marketing online since 1989 (when I conducted my first e-mail marketing campaign). I have held senior marketing positions with three internet start-ups and have managed conventional marketing programs in the publishing and software industries. See my resume for a complete list of my marketing accomplishments and positions.

This page created 4/5/03; last updated 11/21/03.