Traditional marketing campaigns Essay Example for Free

Traditional marketing campaigns Essay With the apparition of the Internet, what was generally a cumbersome, costly marketing campaign, with a limited audience (and we are referring here to the traditional marketing campaigns, via the usual channels of communication: newspapers, media, fliers etc. ) became a far-reaching method of promoting your business, at virtually no cost other than that imposed by the necessity to have a functional Internet connection, to pay salaries to people promoting the business online and to building up a presentation website. Easy to commit to, Internet marketing has become a favored tool by many economic agents. First of all, the advantages of Internet marketing are numerous. The first one to be mentioned is the low costs involved. As mentioned in the previous paragraph, the first thing that a small business like this needs is a website. The website virtually plays the role of an online store, with two main functions: presentation and, if the owner wishes it, online sale. The case of the order clothing retail business specializing in children specialty items is reflective in this sense. First of all, the website will present not only the actual product (in terms of sizes available, coloring etc. ), but also the company itself, the people involved in the business etc. It always helps, as a online promotional mean, to have the figures and, perhaps, a short biography of the owners on site, because, this way, the potential clients will tend to gain more trust in online ordering. There are several online marketing tips that can make the site and, subsequently, the business, more successful. Testimonies are always important in businesses. As this is an online business, it may be that some of the testimonies are not necessarily those of real customers, but they will help induce a sense of security to the potential client. The testimonies can in fact be a successful mean of further presenting the mechanism and the way business is concluded. Something like â€Å"I couldn’t believe how easy it was: I just placed the order on the website and I had the item in less than 24 hours† will be a line that will let the potential client know that he is likely to receive a product very fast and with almost no time spent in the process. It is also important to have a page within the website clearly explaining the entire shopping mechanism, in clear terms, so that the client will know the hows and the whens. It is not sufficient to simply point out to the location where he has to place his order. A separate page entitled Process, for example, will let him understood the entire mechanism: the fact that he places his order, his order is received and he receives a confirmation of the fact, he can then pay for the order and this is delivered to him in a certain period of time. This type of exact information will likely improve communication and the business process with the clients. Given the specific of the business, that of a mail order clothing retail business specializing in children specialty items, it is also important to have pictures and presentation pages for the products that are commercialized. This will give potential clients an imagistic presentation of the products they will be buying. As previously mentioned, the website needs to act exactly like a store (albeit an online one, in a virtual environment) in which the client will need to be able to see, compare, analyze products. Second of all, the website will be able to register users and take their orders automatically, without any individuals involved, which obviously lowers costs significantly, since you are not going to have someone paid to look after the clients who place the orders. There are however some technological costs involved, for example the cost of IT maintenance and web-related issues (web designing, web maintenance etc. ) that will increase fixed costs for this form of marketing. The simple creation of a website is insufficient for the marketing of the small business we are referring to. The website needs to be, in its turn, promoted over the Internet, so that a larger number of visitors will take note of the services offered. There are several ways to do this. First of all, search engine optimization (SEO) is important, because it will place the site within the first option when a search operation is made, for certain key words. Taking the specific of our mail order clothing retail business, we may decide, for example, as the main key words to be children, clothing, items and some particular children items (toys etc. ). For these, we will try both to make the text on our website reflective of these key words and to promote them on search engines.