About the Internet Marketing Course
& Dave Ingalls
Internet Marketing is easy, once someone shows you the way. It is, however, very detail-oriented, and it is a never ending task – you’ll definitely need a guide.
Several of the major Internet Marketing components discussed in detail in this free Internet Marketing Course include the following Inbound Internet Marketing topics: search engine marketing (SEM) including search engine optimization (SEO), search engine advertising and reciprocal link campaigns; blogs and blogging; Web2.0 Internet Marketing (social networking, etc.); web analytics; viral marketing; and site search.
More traditional Internet Marketing topics are also discussed, including affiliate marketing programs, email newsletters, and offline marketing programs that support online marketing efforts.
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How I got “hooked” on Internet Marketing is an interesting story – at least I think it is!
In the mid-1990’s, I was the Marketing Communications Director for a company that produced analytical instruments primarily for the water/wastewater treatment and chemical manufacturing markets. We prided ourselves on the technical support we provided to our Customers via an 800 number technical support group and printed materials. It was just around that time that I started to hear about something called the Internet, especially the World Wide Web portion of it.
As Marcom Director, I took it upon myself to investigate the potential for using this Internet/Web thing to enhance Customer communications. In particular, I was intrigued with the potential to cost effectively reach Chemistry students and their professors at colleges and universities around the world. Historically, it was Chemistry department graduates that ended up being the supervisors in the type of labs that purchased most of our instruments and supplies, so it was important to reach these decision influencers as early as possible in their Chemistry careers to imprint our brand on them. Servicing these college Chemistry departments was always a challenge because it just was not cost-effective to have our field sales force spend a lot of time at these accounts.
Once I figured out how to get on the Web (not an easy task in those days!), the first thing I did was try to find out how many colleges and universities had a presence on the Web. What I found still amazes me to this day. Forget about colleges and universities – of course they all had Web sites. What I found truly amazing was that 200-300 college Chemistry DEPARTMENTS had their own Web sites or Web pages!
Long story short, I built that company’s first corporate Web site nights and weekends. After about 4 months, my boss at the time was so impressed with the amount of information that we could make available to Customers, prospects and our network of distributors via the Web site, that he decided to emphasize the existence of the site by adding the Web site address to ALL offline marketing collateral – catalogs, print ads, data sheets, instruction manuals, etc.
Ever since that experience, I’ve been hooked on how powerful online marketing is, especially as it relates to small companies selling their products and services to other companies. From that point on, I’ve also tried to stay knowledgeable about the “nuts and bolts” of Internet Marketing and how to market a company’s products and services on the Web. That’s one of the main reasons I created and continually update the Internet Marketing Course (original name, “Web Marketing Tutorial”).
