In this article, we’ll take a closer look at a few of the basic Internet marketing strategies such as banner ads, message board/forum posting, and email marketing to describe how each can quickly cross the line from clever advertising to spam.
This is important because while a clever, well-planted Internet marketing campaign can help to attract new customers and keep your existing ones loyal, spam will do the exact opposite. Spamming will not only alienate both new customers and existing customers but can get you into trouble with the law too. As a business owner, this can be extremely damaging to profit margins.
A very popular Internet Marketing strategy is banner ads. These ads usually appear at the top of websites and are usually within the pages of the websites. It is from this appearance that they earned the name banner ads and the banners can come in various sizes.
Oftentimes, business owners purchase marketing space on these web sites. These banner ads might also be placed on other websites as part of an exchange or an affiliate advertising and marketing campaign. Banner ad exchanges are unique situations in which one company owner posts a banner ad on his web site in exchange for another’s on theirs. These agreements may be made independently between entrepreneurs with companies they partnered with or as part of exchanges promoted by a 3rd party.
For example, in affiliate marketing, the affiliate will advertise your company on their blog posts and/or advertising space for agreed-upon compensation. The banner ad would then generate a wanted impact such as website traffic to the ad or making a sale. The terms of the agreement are usually defined beforehand as well as are generally based upon a range of pay per impression, ppc (pay per click) or pay per sale or lead.
Banner ads are a great way to market your business however, you need to recognize just how they can be overused and be misconstrued as spam. Sensibly positioning your banner ads on a few websites to a targeted audience is considered smart marketing. Plastering your banner ads on any website regardless of who the audience is can be easily seen as spam. When people start seeing the same banner ad everywhere on the internet that has no relevance to what they are searching for, they’ll most likely see you as an annoying spammer rather than take your business seriously.
Message boards are an option for placing your ads and can offer business owners a chance to get some free advertising too. If the services and products you provide attract a particular niche, it may be worthwhile to join some of these message boards and online forums associated with your industry.
A lot of these message boards and forums will allow you to include a link of your company or business underneath your name as part of your signature line when you join their discussions. Care should be taken to ensure thoughtful responses and not just responding to every message with a link to your website when it is not appropriate to the conversation. This is also considered a form of spam and once participants start to view your posts as spam, they are most likely to avoid your website altogether rather than visit it.
Lastly, marketing with emails is one of the best ways to get an incredible ROI for your advertising dollars. Your email campaigns can include sending out a periodic newsletter that provides good content along with your email promotions, discounts or coupons on your product or services. People who opt-in to your email list or your loyal subscribers will often look forward to these emails and not see them as spam. They are more likely to make a purchase as a result of this marketing strategy.
In addition, potential clients who have specifically asked for extra details on your services and products will find this sort of advertising to be very beneficial. On the other hand, collecting email addresses in a deceitful manner and using them to send out mass e-mailings is definitely a no-no and is considered spam. People who get your emails who did not inquire or join your email list is called spamming and can get you into some trouble legally. Never send emails to people who don’t want it. Hopefully, this article was helpful in shedding some light on what advertising, marketing, and Spam are all about.
