The Importance of Market Research

Marketing is a versatile, competitive world, and when developing your marketing plan, odds are you will not get it right the first time. You need time to learn about the demographics, geography, and psycho graphics of your customers before your marketing can really be effective. That is why it is important to not stick with your first plan, as you will need to change it frequently for one reason or another.

A good phrase to live by in marketing is, "Learn from your mistakes." Sometimes testing happens naturally. Some of your marketing campaigns will fail, but instead of getting discouraged, analyze what went wrong. Maybe you advertised through the wrong medium, or to the wrong demographic. Collect all the mistakes you have made and really look at them; do not try to forget or ignore them, you have to face your mistakes if you want to be successful.

If you hate making mistakes and want to get it right the first time, there is a way, and that is market research. However, full on market research is incredibly expensive and small businesses cannot afford it, but light end market research is possible. Basically, you just have to look at the demographic of your competitors and make that your demographic. It's not that easy, though. Demographics may vary between businesses of the same nature, and that is where testing comes in. You need to test if that demographic works for you, and if it does not, you need to test another demographic.

You should not spend a lot of money on market tests. The purpose, after all, is to find the medium and demographic through which you should advertise or market. For example, if you have a website, you might want to try out banner advertising. Don't spend a lot of money at first, only spend a little and see the ROI. If the conversion is good, you know you will want to keep advertising through that medium. Executing so many marketing tests is time-consuming and costly, but it all pays off when you finally develop an effective, recyclable marketing campaign.

Pay Per Clicks

There are many advertising options out there for small and large businesses alike. A new phenomenon that has recently hit the scene is the use of sponsored link searches for advertising needs. Are sponsored links really the best way to allocate valuable advertising dollars?

A re occurring complaint I hear from many of my customers is that sponsored links are not developing the return on investment they desire. There are several key reasons to why this may be occurring. Sponsored links, or pay per click advertising, are links on the right hand side of most search engines. These links, historically, are only used by approximately 30% of the online search market. By using only sponsored links in your online marketing campaign, you have essentially cut out 70% of the market that may be searching for your business. Further, did you know that there is a constant bidding war on the sponsored side of the page? Business are having to spend valuable working time managing their sponsored link page to make sure the are staying on the first page, while not breaking the bank. Because most consumers don't search past the first page of search engines, it is a constant war to "out bid" your competitors and stay in those valuable spots. But what is to keep your competitors from clicking your links and costing you tons of money and headaches? Thankfully, Google (among others) have allowed you to set certain limits on the amount of money you wish to spend monthly on sponsored link searches. While pay per click ads may get you some form of business, I do not believe they are the end all in online marketing. It is important to recognize several key factors when thinking about investing in pay per clicks.

1) How can I minimize "fraudulent" clicks by my competitors

2) Are their other online options, for around the same cost, which can give me a better return on investment? and

3) Am I willing to cut our 70% of the search market by spending money on sponsored links?

For some businesses, pay per clicks work. I am not advocating that they don't. The law of "big numbers" may come into play here where if you do something long enough, the average return will be worth the investment. I have found other advertising mediums that allow my customers a better, more stable, return on their investment. Diversity is the key to the marketing game and in order to advertise to all corners of a market, it is necessary to weigh your options and decide if you have the time, and money, to play the "big numbers" game.

Chad Sandifer
http://www.tenlist.com

Internet Marketing - Past Present Future

"Believe the hype. The Internet and the World Wide Web have become the most important new communication media since television, and ones that are fundamentally reshaping contemporary understanding of sales and marketing." - Jim Sterne. During the last part of the 1990s, the Internet boom saw all kinds of brand new companies that were developing services and products that literally capitalized on the Internet's potential.

Unfortunately, the push-to-market often resulted in very poor planning and many business models failed to include realistic and profitable business objectives. When the year 2000 ended, many of the above mentioned companies closed their doors. After this black period, the surviving and the new opened companies realized that the web-based strategies and techniques must be taken into consideration just like any other classic marketing tools.

In the future, websites will be more personalized, as they will cater to consumers and niche markets. Internet marketing through audio newsletters will probably become a more accessible tool for targeted audiences. Other predictions made by experts regarding the future of Internet Marketing are:

• 50% of experts affirm that anonymous, free, music file sharing on P2P (peer-to-peer) networks will still be easy to perform a decade from now

• 59 % of experts agreed with a prediction that more and more business and government surveillance will occur as computing devices proliferate and become embedded in appliances, phones, clothes and cars

• 56% of experts agreed that as telecommuting and home-schooling expand, the boundary between leisure and work will reduce and family dynamics will change due to this reason

• 57% of experts agreed that virtual classes will become more widespread in formal education and that students might, at least occasionally, be grouped with others who share their interests and skills, rather than by age

All things considered, Internet Marketing is one of the most important aspects of the Internet world and many people are considering that this domain will have a very long future, along with the Internet. All website owners will have to take into consideration at least one Internet Marketing technique.