INTERNET MARKETING TIPS

If you are trying to market a service or a product on the Internet, you know that Internet marketing is a challenge when it comes to making your products or services known to the millions of window shoppers on the Internet. The fact is, most of the people on the Internet at any given time are not there for any specific reason. Most of the time people are just aimlessly surfing. People are just window shopping. They did not set down at their computers with any particular intent in mind. They are bored and they are using the Internet to fill in the empty time slots in their lives.

If you can accept this truth about Internet users, you can avoid the illusion that is often sold by marketing agencies that tell you that they can build you a website and create the kind of traffic to your site which will guarantee success for your business. In order for companies that claim to drive Internet traffic to deliver on these promises, they have to use tags for your site that will increase the odds that your site will come up on the search results page. Some companies will guarantee that your site will come up on the first or second page if the site resides on one of their servers and for a fee. Most web hosting companies use multiple methods of driving site traffic to your web page. Tags, link sharing, pop ups, banners, and many other methods are put to use by web hosts. However, in the end, it is the results that matter. You can get so deeply entrenched in this illusion of being in control of the end users response to your marketing strategies that you can find yourself chasing your own tail, because you keep trying the same formulas over and over again with the same results.

Here is the simple truth to successful marketing; you need a product or service that people desire or need and if you have that, people will beat a path to your door. They will find you with minimum effort on your part. A good place to start when trying to figure out what people want or desire is with yourself. Take a day and just sit down at your computer with a pen and paper. Start making a list of all the things you type in the search engine when you are online. Maybe get friends and family members to help you by asking them to keep track of the key words they type in their search engine while on the Internet. This information is not for statistical purposes, but for the purpose of giving you a general idea of how people are interacting with the Internet. This is to give you an idea of what people are randomly looking at in their spare time. The key word here is “randomly.” The random Internet search makes up the largest search category on the Internet. This is the group you want to target, but how do you make a profit from someone who did not intend on making a purchase in the first place? You have to create a desire, a perceived need or urgency.

Another principle used in supermarkets at the checkout line is to market “impulse items.” These are small, inexpensive items strategically placed at the checkout to take advantage of the impulsive nature in all of us. You have to keep in mind that impulse and immediate gratification go hand in hand. A person making a impulse purchase is expecting an instant gratification from their purchase. The question that remains is how and what can you sell on the Internet that could classify as an impulse product or service that you could deliver over the Internet instantly? There is also a psychological, pricing threshold to take into consideration when trying to sell impulse items, or for trying to sell anything for that matter. When you are pricing anything you should remember that consumers like to feel that they got a good deal for their money. Goods and services should be priced so that the customer feels like they were on the better end of the transaction. No one wants to walk away from a transaction feeling like they have wasted their money; if they feel that way, they will not come back and what you want are repeat customers.

There is one thing that everyone wants in one form or another and that thing is “control.” Everyone wants control over some area of their life. We all feel more secure if we feel like we are in control of the events in our lives. We are all frustrated to some degree because of our perceived lack of control over some area of our life. When you examine the words people randomly type in search engines, you will begin to see that people are secretly looking for ways to gain control of something. Their random searches are no longer as random as they once appeared on the surface when you consider the possible underling motives driving their searches.

Current marketing strategies in our capitalist society have led the way, in my opinion, to the decadence of western civilization. The Internet has opened Pandora's box when it comes to scam artist having access into the homes of millions of people. The Internet is like the wild wild west in the sense that the Internet is still young and we are still not using it to its full potential. Also, laws have not caught up with the creative minds of people like hackers and scam artists who are eager to exploit unsuspecting, naive people that are searching for some form of security on the Internet. Which brings me to my next thing that many people are on the Internet searching for.

“Security” is another thing that people are randomly searching for on the Internet in one form or another. Billions are spent every year on security systems for our homes, cars and computers to give us the feeling that our property and out lives are safe. The money we spend on these security systems is usually money that has been spent on systems that do not protect us in the long run, but they makes us feel like we have one more line of defense from the things we perceived as threats. The best and most efficient ways I know to encapsulate my marketing tips would be to simply say... find a need and fill it and when you set your price, try to remember how it felt the last time you felt like you were not getting the best value for your dollar in goods or services.

Good luck!

By: C. C. TURNER