How to Go About Marketing on the Web
By David Golding
| 
Print This Post
I believe very much that e-marketing doesn’t exist. Really, it’s all still marketing.
Now, what do you do when you want to develop sound marketing strategies for the web? Let me recommend some great helps that are much cheaper than paying for that “magic marketing e-book” other sites try to tempt you with.
Books, by the Experts
There are some wonderful reads written by the world’s best experts. Here are some of my favorites on marketing:
- The Marketing Playbook by John Zagula & Richard Tong
- Marketing Warfare by Al Ries and Jack Trout
- Positioning by Ries & Trout
- Cracking Creativity by Michael Michalko
- The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing by Ries & Trout
- The Origin of Brands by Al and Laura Ries
The concepts taught in these books are much better than what you’ll find anywhere on the net, if you ask me. And, what’s more, you can usually fare well on sites like Amazon.com or Half.com. I was able to purchase each of these for less than $10. (Usually around $5 plus shipping.)
Another strategy for getting the right material, and which will typically cost more than the books previously mentioned, is to seek out upper-level marketing instruction. Now, don’t feel like I’m saying to go get an MBA. But, you can follow the same path as MBA students.
What does every professor do? They require one or more textbooks to read during the class. So why not look up curriculum from top classes? You may not have gotten into Harvard Business School, but does it hurt to check out what they have their students read? Many times the professors themselves are experienced marketers and publish their own textbooks. So why not go find their publications? With the internet, it’s all too easy.
I already checked out Harvard Business School and followed links so easily that in less than 2 minutes, I had citations for marketing textbooks used in their MBA program. I can either try to hunt down the books at the library or find them online somewhere. This material is worth so much more than what the next guy is writing about on the net. Why? Because it’s the stuff the top-level marketers behind sites like eBay are reading.
Case Studies, and the Money You Could Lose
A family member once asked me what I thought about the Internet Marketing Center. It’s a site that offers tons of e-books and videos of success stories of people putting up sites on the net. I said that I was wary of sites like that because typically they emphasize techniques that are trendy in nature. Yes, they worked for Johnny two years ago, but now the web market has evolved enough to make it difficult for them to work for you.
Case studies are some of the most valuable literature on marketing that can be read. But you’ll profit more by reading well-researched case studies instead of some guy’s interview on a multi-level-marketing-style website. All the major business schools in the country emphasize case studies when studying marketing.
I recommend you hunt down case studies as best you can. Using the strategies already discussed, you can track down useful, real-life, case studies of what works and what doesn’t. This will add to your understanding of marketing, and internet marketing (cause it’s all the same!) considerably.
Last but not least
Let me conclude this post with another recommendation. I love the site Quick MBA because you can get fundamental, useful business information without spending a dime. Go ahead and browse through their marketing page if you want trusted info on how to market your site and business.
Comments
Submit Comment
