The marketing and sale of goods and services using the Internet as a means of sale and distribution is called Internet marketing. The Internet has turned the world into a small town and people from anywhere in the world can buy or sell products or services.
Internet marketing allows people above a certain age limit who have an Internet connection to a computer to start a business with little or no start-up costs. This business is done in two different ways. One involves selling your products and services as a merchant or working as middlemen known as affiliates. These affiliates earn a commission by providing a merchants link on their website and earn money when a customer clicks those links and goes to the merchant’s website. It is important that this website brings prospects. This is done in three ways:
* Advertising: This is done on third-party websites.
* Word of mouth referrals – This is done if someone tells you directly about a website or if someone writes about a website on your own website.
* Passing traffic: This is nothing more than search engine marketing.
Internet marketing has become so popular and the reasons are summarized below:
– Internet marketing involves very low risk as you can try then buy and most internet marketers started during their spare time and if they were successful they took it mainstream.
– It takes a lot of investment to start a normal business venture, but in the case of internet marketing, the investment is very low or none at all. All you need is a well-designed website.
– In normal business, you are confined to your area, but it is not the case with internet marketing. Anyone from anywhere in the world can be your customer.
– You can track the advertising efforts made through internet marketing and you can discard if it doesn’t work.
– This business works 24 hours a day without the involvement of humans. You can use this free time to develop another website that can generate good income.
affiliate marketing
This is not direct marketing of a product, but getting a commission by promoting another business. You need to provide a link of another business on your website for which you will get paid and for every customer click to that business site you will get paid.
Benefits of Affiliate Marketing:
– The market they reach has expanded.
– This implies a much lower cost.
– The affiliate is paid only for the results.
– The cost of failed advertising no longer exists.
– You can start earning even without having your own product.
– There are a number of merchants and products and therefore an affiliate marketer will never face a situation of having no promotional links.
– It is a hands-free process once a website is set up.
– Multiple products can be promoted without increasing work stress.
– It implies less risk since you can change an unpaid product at any time.
Some types of affiliate marketing are:
* Pay Per Click, which involves payment when the merchant’s link is clicked.
* Pay for performance which implies payment for a specific result.
* Cost per Action is the model most chosen by many affiliates and is very close to the Pay Per Click model.