- Newspaper Advertisements or Print Media

- Hoardings / BillBoards at various strategic locations

- TV commercials

- Door to Door marketing

- And many more..

The costs involved in any of the above mentioned means to promote your product or service are going up day by day with the promoters understanding the value they deliver by marketing your product. This calls for huge capital investments and does not guarantee returns so its a high risk venture for Start Ups and SMEs.

In our country i.e. India the rates for some of the top advertisers are as mentioned :

- Newspaper ? Rs 800 - 1600 per Sq Cm

- Hoardings ? Lacs of rupees based on location

- TV comercials - Rs 1.5 million for a 30 second spot on Star Plus' Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi and Kahani Ghar Ghar Ghar Ki

- Marketing Executives - Average domestic salary on offer in the marketing sector was Rs. 10 lakhs.

Average domestic salary on

offer in the marketing sector was Rs. 10 lakhs.

Average domestic salary on

offer in the marketing sector was Rs. 10 lakhs.

This is certainly not affordable to small and medium sized businesses that are just trying to make a mark in the market. Does this mean that Small Industries don't have a scope of being seen or noticed unless and until they pump in enough money to cater to their advertising needs?

Well, there is a better cost effective solution to reach the masses than the above mentioned alternatives. With the arrival of the internet, advertising and marketing has got a new face. Internet knows no boundaries and your product / service will get a global exposure and that's more than you wanted. Whats more is that with the ever growing popularity of the Internet , this medium of promotion is here to stay for a long long time.

So how do we take advantage of this new medium? Do we need to have any special skills etc to make the best possible use of it? How much does it cost? Will it achive the purpose?

The answer to all these questions will be clear as we explore the world of Internet Marketing and Promotions.

The difference between traditional marketing methods and Internet marketing is that where traditional marketing focuses on getting your product to the consumers , Internet Marketing works to bring the consumers to your product. Whats the difference? There is a significant difference. In traditional marketing methods be it the print media or the visual media , the ads are thrown out to the maximum number of people who may or may not be interested in your product / service. So it means that you have to get the maximum number of eyeballs to get one interested customer and sometimes it's a total waste. Just imagine showing an ice cream ad on a hoarding in the North Pole.

Internet marketing on the other hands brings only the people interested in your product / service to your web site. And how does that happen? There are a lot of techniques to make this happen but the major role is played by dominant search engines like google and yahoo.

Search Engines play an important role in Internet Marketing. Everyday millions of Internet users are searching for information on sites like google,yahoo,msn etc. So someone out there is searching for the products / services that you have to offer , a probable prospect for you. All you have to do is get your site listed on the search engine and drive traffic to your site. The site will than act like a perfect marketing executive / sales executive to see that the propect is converted to a customer and he buys your product / service. Some sites have thousands of unique visitors on a daily basis.

And the cost of all this is ZERO. Yes search engine submissions are free of cost and will remain so for a long time to come.

Does it end here? No a well designed site not only ensures that you get new customers but also sees to that the customers return to you site more often.

So what are the steps required to achieve the goal?

Step 1 : Identify your target Audience : Design the site in accordance of the people whom you want to visit.

Step 2 : Generate product/ service related Content for your site

Step 3 : Get the required Traffic on your site.

Step 4 : Convert the visitors into customers

Step 5 : Ensure that the customers Return again and again.