Internet is the modern mode of information in this age. Its audience is global and response is instant. Both online and offline businesses use the Internet to market their products or services. Internet marketing carries the advantages of interactive models of ads using cutting edge media technologies as well as the instant user handling by active chat sessions.

Business Models as Major Users of Internet Marketing

Ecommerce: Electronic commerce was introduced for Internet and it uses direct sales of products or services. It may be B2C (Business to customer) or B2B (Business to business).

Publishing: Publishing or selling the advertisements.

Lead generation: These websites are aimed to generate sales or sign ups aka lead.

Affiliate Marketing: An affiliate promotes a business or product and gets its commission from the business owner when a sale is made. Promoting others products in this manner is named as affiliate marketing.

Blackhat Marketing: Blackhat marketing uses the deceiving or disreputable means to market or promote a product or service. This method could label as spamming or misleading the Internet surfer’s activity.

Finding the Target Audience

Internet marketing and Geo marketing aims to reach a specific community of audience rather then delivering the message to a broad spectrum of people. Here, interest of a user group is taken in account. A traveling agency will advertise on the travel forums because member of these forums are the target audience for a travel business. An online marketing strategy includes the research analysis to find the actual niches and locations where the marketing efforts are to be made.

Geographic Location

Geo targeting and geo marketing are the methods of finding the consumers physical location. It is important aspect for international marketing as well for the local businesses. There are some specific conditions apply like language and local trends and brands. Some companies like cellular phone Company, made the brands different for different regions.

Advantages of Internet Marketing

Internet marketing is less expensive then the traditional marketing. Except ads, all other modes of advertisements have one time charges and profit remain constant. For example, article marketing, social media marketing, SEO, SEM etc.

Internet’s audience is global and very large as compared to the TV broadcast. Internet marketing gets more viewers and there is a possibility to make focus groups and implement the marketing strategy.

There are numerous free opportunities online to market a business product or service. These free opportunities provide a space to participate in and your voice will be heard by a large online community. These are social media, social networking or bookmarking websites like FaceBook, Youtube, MySpace, Twitter and others.

Disadvantages of Internet Marketing

The major disadvantage of Internet marketing is the lack of physical interaction. A customer can not check your items physically online as it is possible on a store offline. Online advertisements can make or change a trend but cannot provide the physical trust of customers.

Another issue is the online payments privacy. Many people don’t trust the online vendors and they hesitate to share their personal information. Many companies although show the privacy statement on their web pages but fail to apply it actually.  This is a complex issue because in some cases companies disclose or sell out the customer info.  So these blakhat companies degrade the online business and Internet marketing efforts.