Web Marketing 101: Part 1

Marketing & Advertising Explained

Advertising and marketing are two separate units. Marketing designs the placement of an advertising campaign, which might include press releases, pamphlets, and in newspapers, special sections or themed tabloids that generally are distributed inside your Sunday paper. Marketing does not create the content of the ads; it only identifies the theme and the general categories where the advertising will appear.

On the internet, marketing doesn’t change its definition: it is still figuring out how to increase traffic, revenue, awareness, etc. through strategic placement of advertising.

Of course to direct the marketing of any product or service, you need to know who and where you customer is. Free Demographics provides Census Bureau statistics in attractive format that you can tailor to specific locations like state, county or zip code, if that is your interest.

You can sign up for a free account at Free Demographics. They even have offer free widgets you can download for your site visitors, if you think this type of information would interest them. This would be especially true if your business was providing direct mail advertising, for example.

Much of internet advertising is patterned after TV infomercials; those 30-minute programs dedicated to a specific product. Information in these shows boils down to demonstrations of the product works and how to get it. Sometimes there is a comparison test against a rival product to show the superiority of the product being sold. Testimonials also appear.

Online, infomercials take the shape of the endless web page.

One last word about advertising before we look at the seven areas of free internet marketing to promote your business.

The FTC has stringent rules about advertising off-line. Businesses cannot use bait-and-switch tactics. Also, businesses cannot offer a free or minimally-priced item then require you to purchase something else to make it work. They claim the same rules apply online, but clearly government oversight is under-funded because questionable marketing campaigns are everywhere on the internet.

Web Marketing 101, Part 2 Free Marketing Tools: eZines