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Bhopu / Category /
Internet Marketing
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Posted On
Jan 23, 2008
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 A very familiar term ‘Viral’ most of us encounter as ‘viral fever’ but not many know this term has a more dominant meaning when used with ‘Marketing’. Every organization crawling on the web today wants their brand to me recognized, their marketing message to be passed along willingly and convince people for their product. But how is all this possible? The Answer is VIRAL MARKETING, VIRAL ADVERTISING VIRAL PROMOTION.
WHAT IS VIRAL MARKETING?
It is a marketing technique that uses pre-existing social networks to promote via the Internet and even offline creating spontaneous word of mouth enthusiasm. Viral promotions may take the form of video clips, mp3 clips, images, interactive Flash games, advergames, or even text messages.With the rising social networks on web, a hit email marketing campaign can only be a success if it’s ‘viral’ and if organization‘s message creates a viral effect. But do people understand what it is that makes their marketing message worthy of being passed along? Read More
Look at my list of viral marketing strategies that you can insert your marketing message into - most are simply tools. Not marketing strategies but marketing tools.Be CreativeIt’s all about being creative. How can you engage, entertain and inspire your mass audience. Just like any movie or game live or die on consumer’s imaging and acceptance, the same goes for a Viral Marketing campaign, it also completely depends on the ability of it to communicate with its audience. Just confirm if your Viral Marketing campaign makes it a high concept enough to capture mass appeal?The trick here is to put together material that people want to read and would be eager to share with friends and family. The viral agents that can personify the message you want to spread are digital format (image, video, text, etc). This example examines the most successful viral marketing campaign in the past few years, and as we will see the extent the marketers can go to in terms of creativity in order to get people to talk about a product. One of the companies that realized the potential of the Internet in early years was none other than HOTMAIL. They took full advantage of the networking powers of the Internet and well we can all see where they all today. In Dec, 1996, they had 500,000 registered users, and less than a year later they had over 12,000,000 users! How did they pull off such a achievement? Just one smart move by the company got them a long way. Each email sent from a Hotmail account included a small, subtle ad for Hotmail, and as your user-base continues to grow into the millions, this means that you get all the free ads you will ever need to succeed.As the company approach 1998, Microsoft acquired it for hundreds of millions of dollars. Since then though this company has been challenged by competitors a number of times, they still stand out as today’s one of the world wide web’s most popular free email services. In all these 12 years this is not a small achievement for the company and it shows just how effective can Viral Marketing be. Personalize the Email ApproachWe all spend time reading something coming from our friends, they suggesting a Youtube Video, or some New Video Game taking on everyone. The response rate definitely increases when users can see that a message is coming from a friend, so it is best to personalize the email message to show that it's coming from a recognizable source. Get an email list ready, and think about how can you spread your message beyond that list and how can you make the recipients to do your work for you. Follow a strong angle to your approach and promotion, make it have a ‘Wow’ factor, it should be unusual and different that gets the message to other people how are not in your circle of approach. Forums make another very interesting power on the Internet. Just be careful of not advertising your product, but try and evoke curiosity among people by adding an original signature line to every post you make.Track and Evaluate your OutcomeWith any kind of marketing campaign tracking the results and optimizing performance over time is absolutely necessary. Email marketers can track insightful data that can be used to assess performance. Important metrics to analyze are pass-along, click-through, and conversion rates. Marketers should separate the click-through and conversion rates by original customers from referrals and evaluate their respective performances. These metrics will alert a marketer to which offers and customers drive the highest ROI.
Other then the points I have given you, there are some other main factors as well that you need to keep your eye balls on. First is the vision of the campaign – whether it is brand exposure, conversion, or lead generation – it should be clear from day one. From idea to implementation and reflected in the User Interface, make sure you’re setting the stage for achieving your goal.All good viral marketing campaigns have real value at their center. To get people’s attention about your new product, you could write a free report giving away some information that will tempt people into going ahead and buying your product. Make the report worthwhile and valuable, and you’ll be giving people a reason to recommend it to others.Luckily for Internet marketers, the word of mouth effect is transferable to the internet, and the rise of sites such as YouTube has made it much easier to reach a specific audience with a viral video that gets you noticed.Lastly consider your customers’ likely reactions to what you are promoting before you start your viral marketing campaign, as these will greatly influence its overall success.
Some Related Articles:
Is S Viral + Monetizable = StartUp Magic Quadrant
The Secret Strategies behind Viral Videos
OfficeMax’s Perfect Viral Campaign?
Is Sharing the New Search?
Will Viral Marketing Sink or Swim?
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Posted On
Sep 24, 2007
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Immediate results, instant gratification, instant riches. Today thousands of online marketing products promise the same things and try and make money. And every minute, someone out there purchases a new product right before the price goes up. The new product, which inevitably is going to change the way we do Internet marketing. If you don’t purchase instantly you are going to get left in the dust while early adopters make all of the money.
Internet marketing is like a treasure hunt because the treasure may or may not actually be at the end, depending on whether you believe in it all.
The process needs to be revealed. The process needs to be flexible enough for personal modifications. And the process needs to guide a person through to profits.
The Marketing power of Internet sites
With the rise of individual voices and the eroding effectiveness of mass marketing techniques, it’s no wonder that so many marketing and communications disciplines are enamored with cracking the code on influence, specifically influence among people.
For example to market a book, an old-school form of media, we turn to a couple of the newest: video file sharing and online social networking, create a video spot for YouTube and our own Web site on MySpace.com. YouTube and MySpace, gives us an access to 30 million people, so you can well imagine how many potential customers we can line up with Internet. The reason why this technique is translating into sales is that videos are a lot visible to a large number of people.
The Internet Marketing Plaforms
The most famous social networking sites like Amazon, eBay, Google, Facebook are the new online Platform that don’t require upfront money, but many of them are way too opaque about how revenue is split and about how much money can really be made.
In an earlier generation, Microsoft created a platform that enabled lots of smaller vendors to ride in their slipstream. These varied from very small to large partners. Whatever ill-feeling people may have about Microsoft, it created real income for thousands of people.
Today, lots of small-scale publishers/bloggers make money from Google Adsense. Athough many publishers think the revenue split is unfair, Adsense has enabled a lot of bootstrapping in the Web 2.0 world. On the other side of the transaction, Google has enabled many significant start-ups to get to market using search engine marketing. Done right and for the right type of venture, it is as close as you can get to a “revenue tap”. So Google is definitely a platform.
You cannot write about platforms today without mentioning Facebook. The best way to put it is that the jury is still out. The jury in this case being the hundreds of entrepreneurs who plan to make a lot of money from their web apps on Facebook. At the moment there is a fair amount of money sloshing around the Facebook ecosystem, with lots of people paying for eyeballs - but without clarity on who is finally making money from those eyeballs and how.
Some basic rules to be followed for effective Internet Marketing
One of the biggest factors for your website to become successful is not only to generate targeted and massive website traffic. You also need a high website conversion ratio, which many website owners tend to ignore.
One of the most effective Internet marketing tools are blogs.
Bloggers are quickly becoming centers of influence on and offline. More and more people are turning to their favorite trusted blogs for information, recommendations, and to exchange ideas. The most popular blogs are updated daily and provide faithful readers with fresh new information. This constant flow of fresh content attracts new readers and keeps them coming back.
Blogs are “A Must” for webpreneurs. Blogging is a free and effective Internet marketing opportunity that can take your business to the next level.
The Power of Blogging
The Internet is known as the information super highway because Internet users are seeking information. Blogging allows you to be a provider of information. Demonstrate your expertise in your field or niche. Blogging enables you share your knowledge and experience with others.
- Blogging gives you a platform to introduce your products, services, and/or business to people interested in what you have to say and what you are doing.
- Blogging daily increases your search engine rankings, making it easier for people to find you.
- Blogging increases website traffic and backlinks to your website.
- Blogging creates opportunities to establish credibility, gain referrals, communicate, network, establish dialog, and get valuable feedback. A blog is like your own online community and you are the center of influence. Being an influential blogger opens doors of opportunity for joint ventures and additional streams of income. As your blog grows so will the opportunities.
Future of Internet Marketing
The pool of prospective clients continues to grow; this is a trend that will give dedicated marketers the opportunity to build their business. Of course this situation already exists for those who have the knowledge to take advantage of it.
There shines a bright future for Internet marketers who are willing to treat it like the business that it is. If you are willing to put forth the time and you advertise wisely, there is no reason that you can't be a success in the years to come. Don't expect it to happen overnight and be willing to take the necessary steps to make it a reality.
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Posted On
Sep 04, 2007
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Blogs are changing the world? Yes, you bet they are! They raising money, awareness, hope for causes all around the world. And the best part of blogging is that anyone can do it from anywhere.
What is Blogging?
Blogging is a certain way of collecting links to webpages and sharing your thoughts and ideas with other Internet users.
Blogs (or Weblogs) are basically online journals or diaries, which are great for sharing information and ideas.
Why people blog?
As we all know that surfing is no fun if you can't tell people what you've found.
Not many of us send emails to our friends with URLs of a particularly interesting webpage, annotated with your own opinion on it.
Wouldn't it be good to get your own web page where you could publish these comments, plus the links you find, turn it into a daily journal of thoughts and ideas and make the whole thing available to the world?
Well now you can, and if you do, you'll be joining the phenomenon that has become 'blogging'.
Business and Blogging
Today most of the small-business owners and managers are a bit overwhelmed by the available Internet communication tool like blogging. But often when they face some unfamiliar technology, most the users simply avoid it. Well, I would like to discuss how small business can benefit from using blogs. They can help raise awareness, increase customer loyalty, and boost sales.
A business blog is a window into your business's people, culture and values. It allows your customers to connect to your brand in a way that encourages community, trust, and, of course, repeat sales. In today's crowded marketplace, you businesses are embracing any opportunity to win consumer loyalty.
It covers the company culture, industry trends, or even items that are of interest to your business.
A business blog can also serve as a crisis communications tool, providing customers with company’s opinion or defense—instantly.
How does blogging get more transparency to a business?
As we all agree that online visibility is very important for any business in current wired society. People regularly turn to the Internet instead of to phone books, newspapers, or TV to find the vendors they need.
Business blogs has proved to be an incredible online marketing tool that has saved a sum of money and still provided great business opportunities in just one click. They have helped effectively position products in the market through the most user friendly and flexible medium.
There are a number of ways blogging is helping business grow:
A huge amount of blogs are added each day and millions of blog readers reading it. We can well imagine how much gain a company will have, if their products are advertised through blogs. With internet information making a spread so quickly, one impressive writeup with a product can grab hundreds of possible customers.
Blogs leads to more open communication with customers that further creates trust and loyalty among them. Through blogs, companies respond more to the customer’s questions and comments that makes them more willing to try products and services.
Blogs is best for product research and reviews. It is easier for the companies to improve on their products if they observe their customers’ thinking and behavioral patterns. They also take immediate action to their customers’ concerns.
And lastly, Bloggers are reasonable, friendly and helpful. They create a kind of blogosphere for a product, all that a company does is participate in the culture and the product. That surely is considered in their next stop to supermarket.
Companies today are actively promoting business blogs by submitting their blog to blog search site and directories for better marketing results. Marketing possibilities are just around the corner waiting to strike sale scales up.
There is another very important thing that goes in conjunction with the blogs to get the best benefits, known as RSS (Really Simple Syndication). Companies use effective keywords phrases to generate high ranking status in the search engine traffic. This gives business a better chance of being noticed by people leading to their blog. And more traffic leads to more potential sales.
As companies are convinced with the potentials of business blogs for marketing and targeting sales increase, they need to be in tune with the business objectives and see if blogging can really help them achieve their goal.
Lets take a look at few examples of the companies that have introduced blogging to enhance their growth
Among one of the best companies to launch blog was IBM. Today IBM maintains a public index of blogs. The company has recently launched their corporate blogs. Employees are taught to blog and are guided to appropriate blogging content.
The idea of blogging is to improve IBM's competitive position in key IT markets by having more of its tech gurus participating in online communities and discussions.
By blogging IBM is trying to cultivate relationships with the open-source developer community. This resulted in a significant competitive advantage for IBM because it reduced software development costs, and it hurt its large competitors.
Another company that entered the blogging splash is Microsoft. Blogging has been largely helping Microsoft communicate better with their customers. With a company of around 57,000 employees customers don’t know who to contact. Blogs are helping Microsoft to listen and become more customer focused.
The move to more transparency within Microsoft is a big change in mindset. Under the direction of blogs and bloggers there i | | | |