If you follow the entrepreneur, internet business and internet marketing discussions and ecosystem online you would be forgiven to believe that internet marketing is a business model or niche target market in itself.
For sure, all of those of us who operate real businesses and happen to market online do represent a niche market – just as small business owners, sales people and businesses are a niche market where consultants and software products target to improve our businesses.
But…too many people think that because they operate a website with some ads, market affiliate products or publish their own information products that they sell online makes their business "Internet Marketing".
For example, is the ebook publisher who has written a book about weight loss in the business of internet marketing?
What about the stock trader who sells his digital information on a paid membership site – is he in the Internet Marketing business?
No – these people use a variety of marketing and distribution techniques one of which is internet marketing. They may also market their information through direct mail, at seminars, through offline partnerships, advertisements in magazines or a whole host of other methods.
WHAT IS YOUR BUSINESS
Your business should not ONLY be marketed on the internet or even dependent on the internet – unless of course your business is providing part of the internet such as web services or web service consulting.
Information publishing, as an example, existed long before the internet and will always be an in-demand business model – sure the internet brings the possibility of electronic distribution and a new avenue to reach your customers, but mail order and physical infoproducts have (and continue to be) strong businesses.
Your business is to bring the most valuable and most desired solutions and information to your market matching demand in a format that is both attractive to your customers and profitable for you.
WHY IS THIS IMPORTANT
Let’s say you are starting your own online business marketing affiliate products or your own product in the health marketplace…how much time and energy do you spend learning your REAL business versus how much time and energy you spend learning how to market your business on the internet?
Therein lies the problem – we have a growing ability and understanding of internet marketing, but a fundamental lack of understanding by all of these new internet entrepreneurs of what their core business really is, what value they will bring to the market AND how else they can market effectively to their marketplace.
So what should you add to your list of focus areas when starting a business?
1. Market research – fortunately there are many online methods for researching market demand, keyword search techniques, trends in sites and requests for information, and even data on what is selling best, in the past and right now. But offline data from bookstores, research groups, surveys, books of lists, etc…are very powerful ways to tap into hidden pockets of massive demand.
If you want to write a book about yoga, go join a group, interview yoga instructors, talk to those who take it and find out why? What do they get out of yoga? What do they struggle with? What are their plans for next steps? What else would they like to have seen, but haven’t? You can outline an entire business proposition using these techniques.
2. Test market position. You want to develop a value proposition that positions you uniquely within your marketplace – but it needs to hit an emotional sense of urgency with your marketplace. You can test that online or you can test it by talking to people in your marketplace, testing ads, etc…
3. Plan your own product strategy. We teach systems within InfoMarketer’sZone for product creation – low-end to higher-end information-based products that you can develop as physical and/or digital products. WIth a six-week checklist and accompanying training program, you can understand exactly what it takes to quickly develop your own products to sell online so you can develop a longer-term plan to have a portfolio of products that create a REAL, highly profitable, automated business for you that you can market online or offline.
4. Explore multiple marketing techniques. Yes, internet marketing is a terrific way to reach your marketplace in a cost-effective way, but you can radically expand your marketplace by marketing offline through offline advertising, joint ventures, marketing to clubs, associations or organizations, retail outlets, etc…
For most of you reading this, internet marketing is a combination of marketing channel and distribution channel, but you need to first define what your business is – what value you offer your marketplace and who your target market is.
By building a real, value-based business you will find your profits going through the roof AND the equity value of your business will be much higher allowing you to cash out in the future and enjoy your retirement work-free if you so choose.
Now, doesn’t that sound better than being in the internet marketing business?
I agree that Internet marketers need to do market research, and I believe that a vital area of market research is market segmentation.
Keyword research, monitoring forum and groups, and talking to people are important, but a less time-intensive way to learn much about a target market is by using market segmentation.
Market segmentation does require that Internet marketers already know some demographics about their target markets, which they can get from the above mentioned research. Once Internet marketers know some demographics about their target markets, they can use those demographics to discover much more about their target markets, including the best appeals to use in their marketing.
Hey Jeff
Even though I have read ‘cover to cover’ every article and gem of information you have sent me, this article is a great reminder of what I am trying to do and how I can aim for that. As I have been building my website and its products, I have been very aware of ensuring the establishment of other avenues for those products and services, i.e., my ebook and games in hard copy as wellas e-copy, my mentoring services advertised to local and national organisation here in NZ, etc. So thanks for confirming that I am thinking wider than being “an internet marketer”.