Market Your Site

Advertiser or Marketer - Which are You?

Internet marketing can be a challenge for anyone. But for the newcomer, it can be a time of total confusion.

Most people just starting a business on the Internet do not know the difference between marketing and advertising and often use the two words interchangeably.

Merriam Webster Dictionary gives the following definitions:

Advertising:

1. The activity of attracting public attention to a product or business, as by paid announcements in the print, broadcast, or electric media.

2. The business of designing and writing advertisements.

Marketing:

1. The act or process of selling or purchasing in a market.

2. The process or technique of promoting, selling, and distributing a product or service.

3. An aggregate of functions involved in moving goods from producer to consumer.

You're probably saying to yourself, "Self, Why should I care?" Well, let me tell you why. If you want to be successful in business, you must use all the pieces of the whole; the whole being marketing.

Advertising is just one part of the entire process. It's the part that gets the word out to your "market."

There are numerous kinds of online advertising. You can place classified ads in newsletters, on classified boards (or FFAs - but I wouldn't recommend it) or even in offline newspapers. The most common form of online advertising are banner ads that are placed on a website. In fact, these are used so much that a reader's eyes don't even see them. They are more likely to "see" text ads. Other forms of advertising are Pay Per Click advertising, affiliate programs and bulk email. (Be careful here.)

So what else does marketing involve besides advertising? The "short" list would include market research, public relations, pricing your product, distributing your product, customer support, and sales strategy. All these components work together to achieve your end result: selling your product.

Does this affect affiliate marketing? Yes. You will still research the products, their company and you should know their methods of product distribution and their means of customer support. And you will do the advertising.