We outline the key area's of online marketing, and also offer a brief description of exactly what online marketing is.

1. Basics of Online Marketing
‘Online marketing’ (interchangeable with internet marketing, i-marketing and e-marketing) is used to describe the
practice of using the internet to market products or services. The obvious advantage of internet marketing is the
low cost compared to other marketing activity, coupled with the global reach and interactivity of the media
involved as well as the high degree of measurability and control.
With the use of the internet growing year on year, and the increase in desire for less wasteful, more
environmentally friendly ways of working, online marketing is something which almost all businesses in the twenty-
first century should embrace. Key Online Marketing Channels are:
Affiliate Marketing
Affiliates drive sales on behalf of your company in exchange for a commission on these sales. Affiliates come in a
variety of guises – the best known being cashback and voucher code websites.
A closely managed affiliate programme can offer substantial rewards to your business, encouraging both new
customers and repeat business. Affiliate marketing is highly accountable and offers a low risk way of generating
sales because you pay on commission. Used efficiently, affiliate marketing can offer a wide scope of exposure for
you and your products, offers, promotions and news.
Comparison Shopping
Comparison Shopping Engines (CSEs) allow online consumers to compare similar products from different retailers.
Well known examples include Kelkoo, Shopping.com, Shop.com and Pricerunner. CSEs aim to provide internet
shoppers with the different product options available to them on the internet.
Email Marketing
There are a range of benefits to be gained from using email marketing: from the sales focused,
i.e. driving targeted traffic to a website and converting to sales/leads, to those related to development of brand
reputation and relationship management.
Email messages can, and should be, tracked in order to both maximise the effectiveness of the email campaign –
for example read rates, click through rates, conversions, etc - and to tailor messages to specific audiences.
Search Marketing
Search Engine Marketing involves using a variety of tools and knowledge to get a company or website placed in
the most cost effective position within the listings on each search engine. A combination of organic search (SEO)
and Pay-Per-Click (PPC) is the ideal and it is important to share results between them to ensure progress and
opportunities are maximised.
While Organic Search is very attractive as you don’t pay for every visitor, it takes 3-6 months to see any results
and often over 12 months to see significant results.
PPC on the other hand provides an almost immediate response and, due to the intricate tracking available, it can
be optimised to bring traffic at the right level of profitability for your business.
Social Media
Over the last year Social Media has come into its own. With ever increasing options for the online marketer –
including LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter & more.
It can be a great way to build brand advocacy, drive traffic and ultimately sales.
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