Internet Marketing and Media Placement in Multiple Channels

The Internet is an excellent a tool for you to rake in cash, if you have the skill, mindset, and drive to stay ahead of how the web is changing. The Internet reaches all kinds of people around the globe. Its network capabilities enable you to find, target, and profit from highly specific audiences with niche products.

The Internet is a network of interactive media that anyone can use. Learning how to place media to reach your audience is one of the keys to making money with the internet.

For years now, the Internet has been exploited very profitably by a cadre of "results-driven" direct marketers known as "internet marketers." This group - with such pioneers as Corey Rudl, Declan Dunn, John Carlton, Armand Morin, Jonathan Mizel, and Yanik Silver - has grown rapidly.

At this point, large numbers of people are getting on the bandwagon. But at the same time, the web is changing, and many techniques become ineffective after just a few years as laws, attitudes, and technologies change.

Several pioneers of the internet marketing movement were direct marketers in the traditional business world of direct mail and direct sales, who applied their skills to cyberspace. Most of the sales techniques that are in use on the Internet are applications of traditional direct marketing methods.

Multi-channel internet marketing is a term I use to describe the approach used by a breed of cross-domain marketers who can drive a larger share of the total potential market to specific sites.

As of 2007, Internet access is approaching universal levels in the industrialized nations of the world. But most people do not "live" in cyberspace. People tend to think of the Internet as a reference tool. They get in, find what they're looking for, and get out.

If you want to really drive maximum targeted traffic to a site, you need to reach people where they live, and generate an eager desire in them to get on-line to take a look at what you've got. That means using targeted media that reaches people in the "real" world.

Don't just focus on cyberspace advertising like pay-per-click or search engine optimization. Cast a wider net, and you'll pull in more visitors and make more money.

There are two facets to multi-channel internet marketing.

First, is the business operations side: offering multiple buying channels for someone to get information and place their order.

Second, is the marketing side: using multiple media channels to reach your target audience. These two facets work together to increase profits.

If you are a beginner, I suggest you look at the Certified Media Placement Specialist (CMPS) program which is touted to be a hands-on, step-by-step, "show you all the ropes" program. I am currently part of the program and learning about affiliate marketing using multiple media channels to generate traffic. It features extensive mentoring opportunities. Click here to apply for the CMPS Program! If you're skeptical, you can check in on my other lens which chronicles how it is going for me...if it turns out to be a scam, I will definitely be letting the world know!

To maximize their income, internet businesses now need to offer their prospective customers multiple means for ordering product. While direct purchase via the web is the primary choice for internet-based businesses, you also need to consider options for allowing your customers to order by telephone, by mail, and even by fax.

A lot of people like to know there's a human being at the other end of the transaction. Some internet-based entrepreneurs have begun to integrate these multiple buying channels into their businesses in order to provide a more personalized approach.

For example, customers may be told to make a telephone call to "receive a free consultation" after the on-line transaction is completed. Or, they may offer the buyer a phone or fax line to place their order, avoiding the on-line transaction completely. This human-to-human interaction personalizes the sale.

Given a trained sales staff, this also allows the business to gauge the customer's needs for other products or services.

Last but not least, a telephone conversation provides a great opportunity to "upsell" the customer on another higher-value product or service tailored to their needs.

The goal here is to reach the people who are either very sociable (who LIKE talking to new people) or who are technophobes (people who avoided using the internet for as long as possible).

Right now, most internet marketing approaches reach out to people who are in some way antisocial (who DISLIKE talking to new people) or who are technophiles (savvy cyber citizens who live on the 'net). But this represents only a fraction of the potential market out there for what you've got!

There are multiple channels that can be used to drive prospects to a website or to make a phone call to a company you work with.

Every form of media is a potential traffic generator: websites, blogs, email subscriber lists, e-zine ads, podcasts, You-Tube viral videos, postcards, direct mail, radio, banner ads, classified ads, magazine ads, television ads, flyers, word of mouth, billboards, etc.

Rather than limiting your universe of potential buyers to "full time" internet users, the multi-channel method expands marketing to persons anywhere who may have a desire for the product or service being promoted.

It reaches everybody with potential internet access, even the grandma who doesn't have her own internet connection, but relies on using her grown-up childrens' computers a few times a week.

In a sense, multi-channel internet marketing brings Internet marketing full-circle. This multiple-media affiliate methodology unifies the "new school" internet marketing approaches (search engine optimization, pay per click ads, viral marketing, etc.) with "old school" direct marketing methods (direct mail, postcards, classified ads, flyers, radio, infomercials, etc). All of it aimed to generate traffic to generate buyers and make money for you.

Because the awareness of particular niche products may be greatly expanded by targeting people in both the real-world and cyberspace, it can be very profitable to become a media placement specialist with expertise in multi-channel internet marketing.

Media placement to drive "traffic" from multiple channels to your website or company telephone-line will generate new buyers in segments of the population that you may not have been able to reach before.

I highly recommend Mary Gersten's Certified Media Placement Specialist Program, which was recently rated as a 5-star program, and comes with a 100% money-back guarantee.

The program mentors you through everything, step by step, on how to place media in multiple channels as an affiliate marketer. Click here to learn more about the Certified Media Placement Specialist program.

For now, the return on investment for the multi-channel marketer can difficult to assess compared to a purely on-line marketing strategy. On-line marketing efforts are relatively easy to assess through "click-tracking" data. It can be hard to get data on the effectiveness of marketing efforts in the "real world" in comparison.

But as networking further permeates consumer electronics, this problem is likely to diminish. I believe we are in the very beginning of the next marketing revolution.

Most internet business entrepreneurs isolate themselves in cyberspace, with only one channel available for buyers to get their product (from their website). Until more businesses catch on, the multi-channel affiliate marketer can just focus on using multiple forms of marketing media to drive specific audiences to particular websites.

The term direct marketing media covers various types of websites, radio ads, television infomercials, direct mail pieces, flyers, billboards, classified ads, etc. Any piece of information provided to a person to harness their desire for something (turn it into a sale or action) is a form of direct marketing media.

For the time being, the best success strategy for affiliate marketers is to use all available media to drive people to specific website links which will generate a profit for you.

This will typically require you to have a website URL of your own with a catchy, easy to remember name, that you can forward to your affiliate link. You need your own URL so your off-line target audience can remember it or easily copy it down and type it in correctly when they get on-line later.

Your marketing efforts must provide enough information to ensure the targeted type of person will eagerly desire to visit the URL right away. With the proliferation of hand-held devices with internet access, the feasibility of this strategy is at an explosive breakthrough stage.

At its heart, internet marketing is direct marketing.

Individuals are only enticed to visit a website if they desire the information that they believe is there. General advertising and brand advertising can provide a small competitive advantage for some businesses and websites on-line, but in general - people only visit a site when they think there is something on that site that they need at that very moment. Branding has very little power in direct sales marketing online.

If you are seeking to make money from home using internet marketing, you must use direct marketing techniques to be profitable.

Corporate "click-and-deliver" mega-stores do not need to rely on direct marketing to the same extent, as they use a different business model than individual entrepreneurs. Unless you plan to start a warehouse business like Amazon.com, you should stick to direct sales methods.

Success in multi-channel marketing may be understood in analogy with crab fishing.

When a crabbing ship is underway, they put down multiple cages to capture their target crustacean. (Do you watch the TV show Most Dangerous Catch on The Discovery channel?) The more cages are dropped in the water in different spots, and the longer those cages are allowed to sit with their bait, the more crab will be brought back up and sold for profit.

In essence, the multi-channel internet marketer is placing numerous marketing pitches (traps with bait) in multiple media channels (multiple spots on the sea floor).

Each media advertisement is analogous to a trap. The more marketing media that are placed where people will pay attention to it (and with the appropriate bait), the greater the potential number of visitors that can be converted to buyers and affiliate profits.

These same principles apply to any business where traffic needs to be driven to a particular buying channel.

For example, an affiliate marketer who focuses solely on pay-per-click advertising will generally not generate as much traffic as one who also uses blogging, classified ads (online and offline), e-zines, and direct mail marketing.

In all cases, the principles of marketing apply:

1) Get their ATTENTION first, then
2) Keep their INTEREST long enough to
3) Build an eager DESIRE.
4) Then give them a Call to ACTION.

In the affiliate marketer's case, this all takes place in a relatively small attention-getting advertisement. The call to action is for them to immediately visit the website, where they will get the full sales pitch (hopefully consisting of a professionally-written long-form sales letter).

The first challenge to marketing on the internet, is knowing how to pick the right "bait" and how to "frame" that bait in a written, verbal, or visual marketing pitch. This is as much art as it is science. It is a vast area for you to study and gain understanding.

As I update this lens, I'll add some resources you can use to build those skills.

Because cyberspace is an information domain, the most profitable products to sell through the internet historically have been digital information products.

Such products feature direct on-line download of information (such as E-Books), on-line access to restricted access websites (membership sites), or delivery of access codes to teleseminars and "webinars."

The key feature is that they do not require the physical exchange of a tangible product. So there is a very low "hard" cost (what it costs to deliver a unit of product). The primary operating costs for internet direct sales derive from website domain name & hosting fees, customer support costs, and media placement/advertising costs to get traffic to the website.

Digital products meet the Robert Kiyosaki ideal of something that is developed once and pays the originator/copyright owner over and over again, with minimal recurring costs for the seller.

For the "Average Joe" just starting a business on the internet, digital information product marketing offers an easy path to making your first buck of profits on-line.

If you have an idea for your own product but are brand new to Internet Marketing, you'll want a guide to show you what to do. I recommend Yanik Silver and Jim Edwards' 33 Days to Online Profits as an inexpensive introduction to the subject. It walks you through the process to generate a digital information product and make money from it.

Click here to learn more about 33 Days to Online Profits!

If you don't have an idea yet for your own product, I have good news. You don't need to have your own product to make money!

Most digital download products require economies of scale to make large amounts of money. You need lots of people to buy products if you get a small profit per sale. For example, a $49 e-book will have to be sold to more than 20,000 customers to gross $1 million. As the profit per sale (or per click) gets smaller, the number of customers (or clicks) you need to earn a given amount of cash goes up accordingly.

What profits most in cyberspace is constantly changing. In recent years, there has been a large growth in profits from on-line sales of products delivered to a physical address.

We've all heard of the "Internet Malls" like EBay.com and Amazon.com that are "click-and-deliver" retail superstores. But at a niche level, internet marketers are making large sums of money selling home-study courses and by promoting live seminars - all of which generally charge a premium of hundreds or thousands of dollars per sale.

For the past couple of years, the most affluent internet marketers have been doing on-line promotion of large-ticket information products like motivational seminars, training seminars, home-study courses, and other high cost/high margin products. They are still selling information, but it is packaged in a more personalized way that delivers more perceived value to the customer, justifying a large price tag.

These ventures have proven extremely profitable, some netting around $14 million in a single day.
You see, if you charge $1999 for a seminar, you only need about 500 customers to gross $1 million. However, the high-priced products require a significant investment by the seller to provide the expected value to the customer given the high price tag.

You can make serious money without even having your own product, by taking the role of a "media placement specialist" who can drive traffic to sites in return for a percentage of the buyers generated from that traffic. This technique is widely known as "affiliate marketing."

The fact that the internet "affiliate" is just a middle man doesn't diminish the importance of the role. Affiliates provide a "traffic direction" or "traffic capture" service, very similar to an advertising agency. Except with affiliates, there is no payment up front. Affiliates only get paid when they deliver traffic that converts to buyers.

Traffic is a primary factor affecting the profitability of websites. For each internet-based business that uses a direct marketing approach, profit equals the number of site visitors multiplied by a "conversion ratio" of visitors to buyers. So website profits are directly related to number of website visitors. If you get 10x the number of visitors, you can expect to make 10x the amount of money.

It is relatively easy to boost the number of site visitors, but if you've already got a winning marketing approach on your website, it isn't easy to change that conversion ratio. The affiliate marketer specializes in driving internet users to specific websites to boost the number of site visitors.

One of the most popular resources for Affiliate Marketers is CLICKBANK. Setup is free, fast and you'll have instant access to over 10,000 products with commissions as high as 75%. They have a fast & accurate tracking system and dependable payment services.

To get started with CLICKBANK, Click Here.

A key factor leading many businesses to failure is lack of training. You need to know what you're doing, and have a plan to do it, if you are going to succeed.

If you are not yet an expert in Internet Marketing, look into the Certified Media Placement Specialist (CMPS) Program as a resource to get the mentoring and training you need to do Multi-Channel Internet Marketing. More than half the students receive their first affiliate check within 45 days!

As part of the program - which has a 12-month money-back guarantee - you receive all the tools you need to get started as an affiliate, and over the duration of your training, you receive around a dozen bonus online training courses.

Click Here to Apply for the CMPS Program.