With the information highway and more avenues of promotion and cross-promotion from any website or search engine, it is imperative you know exactly what to do to get your message across and where to reach your target public. Once you have researched and know the buttons for your product or service, know your exact target public (people you want to sell to or attract) and know that Internet marketing is the way you want to proceed, here is the skinny. It works like traditional marketing except for one thing. You are constantly doing a sort of survey-on-line, to find what works. You are constantly trying to refine your marketing, narrowing your search, getting the words right, finding the right placement, in order to successfully marketing on this enormous communications venue that we call the Internet. Keep it simple and follow a few basics,

1. Use every search term you can come up with that relates to your product/service.

Think like your public, and what words they would use to describe your product/service. Try many variations, several words, to see which one or ones get best response. Write down a list of terms that relate to your product/service. Refine it. The main search tools are a) Google Search Term tools, and b) Yahoo Search Term tools. They can help you get words, but it is up to you to try them and see what works best.

2. Run a small ad, or several, that use the terms you selected for about a week online at a modest bid. You can place ads on any search engine and also websites, by contacting them online. A bid is how much you are willing to pay the internet company, such as Google, for a click (or a lead). You can work out several kinds of deals, depending upon your product/service, but most are based upon paying for each click a person clicks on your particular ad on the internet. You can also pay per lead or pay per call in, which some internet lead generation companies offer. Weed out the search terms NOT working, sort of like your own online survey. You want the terms that get the best response and most interest from your target public. Keep running that.

3. Change it as you find the terms don’t get the response, and find ones that do. This is ongoing, since many times you need to bid daily online and keep your ad up on the internet placement. Be flexible, but smart in your ads.

You can pay big bucks to get in the top banner or top of a list, but it is not necessary. Then you compete with huge companies with unlimited marketing budgets. Most of the time SEO (search engine optimization) doesn’t work, because there are millions of searches by millions of people daily and few people get placed in the top. Better to do a pilot---create little ads, inexpensive, using words to test the response, and get a pay per click service. Find what works and use that.

4. Another option for larger companies is to hook up with an Affiliate Program. There are websites of businesses that generate leads that then sell them to others, such as Commission Junction. The trick is finding one that relates best to your product/service and create small text ads and a few banner ads, and get these placed with that service. Oddly enough, often the little text ads do better than big expensive banners. It is cheaper to run them and you get more exposure that way.

Stay away from pop-ups and pop-unders, as they are costly and many people consider them a big nuisance. Bulk emails can be effective ONLY if sent to a targeted opt-in email list. This is a list of people who volunteered to have information sent to them via email on a certain subject. Targeting a public means the same online as it does offline---a specific profile of people, such as women between 35-55, making over $100,000 a year, homeowners, married with children. But you need to comply with all spam laws. Internet marketing is inexpensive, can be controlled daily or even hourly, with statistics monitoring on responses or clicks, and people can search for specifically what they want themselves.

5. For local markets and local businesses, a pay per call program that targets their specific area is popular and inexpensive ($ 4 or $5.) It creates a call to a business, much like a yellow page call, but with an online service. One of the new emerging services is the pay per call service, like "AOL Search". What’s unique about the service is the fact you don’t even need a website and can use a laptop at your local Starbucks, or anywhere that has Wireless capability, and go on the Internet. You will get business you otherwise would never reach. Remember, keep it simple and apply basics.