The internet has become the ultimate marketing tool for companies with the talent and ingenuity to make it work. This article is about internet marketing.
Social networks, search engines, businesses, large and small, are all pouring money and effort into attracting new customers via the internet.
In fact, two of the biggest companies in the world, Facebook and Google, are built entirely on internet marketing, and both through being excellent platforms for attracting other companies to advertise. This trend is now spreading to mobile phones and is the scene of an ongoing battle between Google and Apple for the revenue that can be generated from advertising on Smartphones.
However, internet marketing is about a lot more than having a prominent presence. Video sites like YouTube have inspired marketing companies to try to create videos that go ‘viral’ and in doing so, take their marketing message to millions upon millions of people. Unfortunately, there’s hardly any science to what will go viral, so often, all that effort goes to waste.
Blogging is another good way of marketing. Business blogs are becoming popular for their ability to reach out to the customers and try to create a relationship between the company and it’s demographic. People are also using subject blogs, such as tech blogs, for example, to advertise new products or to again get exposure to potential customers.
The competition even goes as far as domain names on a private and public level. Wales recently lost a relatively high profile legal campaign to secure the rights to the .cym domain name which is actually owned by the Cayman Islands. There was also the recent sale of the .sex domain name which went for millions and millions of pounds and the ongoing process of introducing a .xxx name for a certain type of internet business. If you haven’t already dabbled, you can throw yourself into the great domain scramble at sites like Names.co.uk.
Another famous example of the importance of domain names was the government of Tuvalu loaning the rights for various usages of its domain names because a range of companies felt that the Tuvalian domain name would be attractive to customers. Some estimates suggest that the Tuvalian government has made over $50 million dollars for its various leasing agreements (if you were wondering, the domain name of Tuvalu is .tv).
Ultimately, there is no recipe for success when it comes to Internet marketing and the trick is to be cleverer than the competition. With so many companies clamouring for attention though, there’s a lot of competition to be cleverer than.