There is a fine line between advertising and spam and unfortunately many business owners do not understand the difference between the two. This is important because while a clever, well planted Internet marketing campaign can help to attract new customers and keep existing customers loyal, spam is likely to alienate both new customers and existing customers. This can be extremely damaging to profit margins for the business owners. This article will take a look at a few basic Internet marketing strategies such as banner ads, email campaign and message board posts and describe how each can quickly cross the line from cleaver advertising to spam.
A banner ad is commonly located at the upper part and spans the width of the website. It primarily got its name from the location where it appears. However, it can be also be located at different parts of the page and could come with different shapes and sizes. A banner ad is usually a bought space where a site owner gets to show his product and services ad. In other cases, it is a link exchange between website owners who have a mutual interest in putting each others link to their website. A banner ad can also be an affiliate ad. Affiliate links are links of sites who sell products and services which are being put in a second party site for promotion. The owner of the promoting site gets a commission of whatever sale, impression or lead he made using his site.
After knowing what a banner ad is, let us look at how this widely used internet marketing strategy became spam when overused. Smart marketing using banner ads judiciously place advertisement to a number of relevant sites with relevant traffic or targeted audiences suitable for a product or service being offered. However, on the other hand, putting it mindlessly to every high trafficked site is not wise and economical if we are talking about paid advertisements. People who see your ad everywhere will not likely visit your site or buy your product because your ad is construed as spam. This happens when your are not targeting your audience correctly.
Campaigns using emails are considered important and an effective tool in Internet marketing. Through email campaigns, you can send periodic electronic news letters with valuable information and advertisements, short informative courses and emails offering discounts and reviews of products and services. Customers who opted in to receive emails like this will not regard these messages as spam. Likewise, internet users who intentionally requested additional information about your product could be potential customers depending on how you formulate your email campaigns, but that’s another story deserving a whole new article. However, in a very zealous effort to make a sale or to boost traffic, some internet marketers harvest email addresses and send unsolicited messages to the owners of the accounts. This is where the problem comes. Instead of reading unsolicited emails, people will not bother to open them and they usually mark them as spam. No one wants to read their emails.
Finally, message boards provide an excellent opportunity for business owners to obtain some free advertising where it will be noticed by members of the target audience. If the products and services you offer appeal to a specific niche, it is worthwhile to join message boards and online forums related to your industry of choice. Here you will find a large population of Internet users who may have an interest in your products. You might consider including a link to your business in your signature or posting the link when it is applicable to the conversation. However, care should be taken to carefully review the message board guidelines to ensure you are not doing anything inappropriate. This technique is smart marketing. Conversely, replying to every message with a link to your website when it is not relevant to the conversation is likely to be construed as spam by other members. Once they begin to view your posts as spam, they are not likely to visit your website via the links you post.