| Internet marketing is probably the most modern, and yet the most challenging way to carry out advertising. On the Internet, everyone can be somebody, and every somebody can be nobody. With the preponderance of blogs nowadays, it can be hard to imagine anyone who hasn?t tried blogging and expressing themselves online yet. And with the preponderance of forums and online groups, it can be hard to tell who?s who, who?s your friend or who?s just pretending, and who?s just a poser versus someone who?s a genuine fan. Internet marketing, however, can work toward all these challenges, and can go beyond ordinary text and graphics, into the realm of clever and clean. For instance, the fact that everyone blogs is an advantage for Internet marketers: if a URL or a business is exposed with enough ubiquity, and if a single person is passionate enough about a brand, a product, a service, or a mere website, then that person can blog about that brand, product, service, or website, and can spread the word quickly. A customer, therefore, has become the instant spokesperson for the company! In groups and forums, word on a brand, product, service, or website can spread fairly quickly. If a person posts about it, then the news about a person?s satisfaction can get out at once. However, this also works on the negative side: if a person?s dissatisfaction gets out onto email, forums, or groups, then many other people will tend to follow this person?s views and may avoid a brand, product, service, or website altogether. Work a forum, group, or blogger to your advantage, and you can carry out Internet marketing wonderfully well. An efficient way to do this is to practice niche marketing. Niche marketing is simply marketing to a select slice of the market by providing it with the things that it wants and needs. This narrow kind of marketing can be difficult to carry out without prior knowledge of a market?s behavior and needs: thus, the requirement of carrying out a marketing plan, and a wide market study, which will investigate the wants, needs, whims, desires, dislikes, and quirks of your target market. An example of a niche market would be science-fiction fanatics. Such a market would have people of different ages, but often with a single goal: spend a lot of money to feed a fan?s fantasies. This means that science-fiction fanatics tend to spend a lot on something that means a lot to their fandom. These fanatics also tend to cluster with each other in groups that have homogeneous tastes. If you can tap into these groups, if you know what kind of things they like or dislike, then you can spread the word on your brand, product, service, or website even more quickly. Another niche market would be teenagers. This time, the age range is narrower, but there are certain trends that are more prevalent in this market group. For instance, makeup, fashionable clothes, and gadgets appeal to teenagers. There are many things that don?t, such as highfalutin books, real estate, or car insurance, which is often left up to parents. If you know how teenagers behave and what they like, you can tap into this largely web savvy market and get word out quickly on your products. These are only a few niche markets that you can look at, and these are only a few tips that you might want to take into account. Niche marketing is not simple, but with practice and a good deal of work and effort, you can make things happen. |