Posts Tagged ‘Online Marketing’
The Origins Of E-Commerce
E-commerce is defined as the online dealing of business, linking a vendor or seller and a buyer. Various products and services are being offered, but it’s key cornerstones is that the interactions, deal sign-ups and the payment processes happen online. As reported by www.searchcio.techtarget.com, e-commerce can be split into the following:
E-tailing or “virtual storefronts” on Web sites with online catalogs
Utilization of demographic data through Web contacts
Electronic Data Interchange (EDI)
Business-to-business buying and selling (B2B)
An important facet of e-commerce is online shopping. Online shopping was actually developed by Michael Aldrich in 1979. E-commerce has gained a foothold in the today’s world. Nearly in every corner of the globe, people have acknowledged the advancing significance of e-commerce. It led to the development of electronic funds transfer, supply chain management, internet marketing, online transaction processing, electronic data interchange (EDI), inventory management systems, and automated data collection systems.
1. Electronic funds transfer – is the computer-based systems that are utilized to execute electronic financial transactions.
2. Supply chain management – is the management of integrated businesses involved in offering products and services to consumers.
3. Internet marketing – is simply put, the marketing of products through the Internet.
4. Online transaction processing – is employed to facilitate and oversee transaction-oriented applications through data entry and processing.
5. Electronic data exchange – this is the transmission of data among companies or organizations through electronic means.
6. Inventory management systems – it is electronically tracking objects or materials over the use of barcodes, or other automatic identification for the inventory of objects.
Electronic commerce conducted among business is most commonly called B2B or business-to-business. Meanwhile, electronic commerce conducted between businesses and consumers is called B2C. E-commerce in reality falls under the umbrella of e-business and also covers data exchange for the facilitation of the financial and payment aspects of business deals and transactions.
Discover more about E-Commerce principles and how you can increase your Company Sales with different Online Marketing strategies.
Advantages of Internet Marketing
Despite the rapid expansion of internet marketing there are still many businesses who are wary of this new concept and prefer to stay with tried and tested marketing strategies. However traditional advertising techniques marry well with internet marketing while the unique advantages of the latter more than enhance the possibilities of a successful advertising campaign. Let’s look at some of them:
The web is precisely what it purports to be – world wide. The implication is that you aren’t limited to a physical edifice, rather you have the benefit of an online business open around the clock which reaches beyond your local neighborhood to a global clientele. Bacause there are millions of users online daily looking for goods or services, the opportunites to broaden your base of potential clients is limitless.
It is a great advantage for small businesses to use online marketing in contrast with other types of advertising. It is cost effective when you compare it with traditional advertising techniques that employ such things as a sales staff, t.v or radio advertisements or printed page. Placing product and service information on a website is convenient for your customers and saves you time and money. Another advantage of internet marketing is the ability to see which advertisements are working the best so in the end you will come out ahead despite the initial investment.
The advantage of internet advertising is that this allows you to reach your intended audience, which is not the case in newspaper advertising. In the internet, normally it is the target audience who does the search for a product or service and then they come across your advertisement and might get interested. Advertisements on popular and related web pages can also help you in reaching your potential customers. Email marketing is another direct approach, when you send out emails to customers from a list that could be obtained or following up a visitor to your web advertisement, and this way you are able to approach thousands of people, who would be living any where in the universe or right across your street!
Finally, it is a fact that internet marketing campaigns are able to be easily successful. There is no way in finding out exactly how many clients will respond to the advertisements placed in newspapers or viewed on television. But, by taking advantage of analytic software, internet advertisers can check to see how many people visit their advertisements, you will see how many visitors visit the site a few times as well as seen how many visitors click through their site (CTR) from any point of advertisement, however, you will also be able to check on the time spent by customers on your site, possibly required, the profile of the customer. Because of this advertisers can check how effective the market strategies are working as well as modify the correctly.
In summary, internet marketing is a cost effective way to market your business to a targeted audience without geographic or time limitations and has the added benefit of allowing you to assess on a daily basis the effectiveness of your marketing campaign.
Justin Harrison is a leading Internet Marketing expert and is regarded as one of the foremost leaders in the Online Marketing space.