The Internet is growing and businesses are jumping to get on board.  There is a lot of money to be made online.  The competition, however, is so intense that it will take a powerful marketing strategy to reach the masses.  The modern online marketer needs to be connected to the latest in marketing techniques to not only survive, but thrive online.

Before approaching their market, businesses must accurately and specifically define who that market is.  Establishing this niche enables a marketing team to direct its advertising efforts for the greatest return on their investment.

Every online business has a different focus.  Each business must assess the areas of concerns within their niche and adjust their company’s approach in order to best meet the current, though often changing, needs of that demographic.  For example, a weight loss niche may be discussing the latest media hype about a drug’s negative side effects.  The marketer should be offering reliable information and possible weight loss alternatives.  Companies dealing with alternative energy sources could present educational material for free to members wanting to free themselves from the grid.  By keeping on top of the major issues within a demographic, companies show a caring, understanding nature and a connection to real people and their needs.

A previously popular strategy was filling sales pages full of hyped-up promises and veiled sales-speak.  Up until recently, this type of marketing was very effective and profitable.  Today, fewer and fewer people are falling for the old sales tricks.  A marketer can no longer rely on just hype to sell a product.  A sales page full of implausible promises and partial information will only turn visitors away.  Marketers who want to gain a strong base of savvy buyers will skip the spin and shelve the hype.

A better way to reach out is to make use of current trends in online marketing and technology.  Videos are a particularly useful form of marketing.  As they grow increasingly more complex, they involve the viewer in the onscreen action in interactive ways.

Even simple video productions results in a product that holds attention.  Viewers can garner a lot of information in a short time with little effort.  Videos statistically hold people on a site longer than text pages alone.  This increases the visitors’ exposure to the site and increases their likelihood of making a mental or emotional connection.

One of the most crucial components of a strong marketing plan is often overlooked.  It is the customer service department.  Site visitors should easily be able to reach a customer service representative at any time, at least to leave a message.  A business should present at least one of the following options to customers: email address, telephone number, chat room, and physical address.  At the very least, an email is essential.  When a customer writes the company with a complaint, concern, question or suggestion, the concerned person should immediately receive a reply.  The use of an auto-responder is becoming popular, but some less effective customer service departments lean on this option too heavily.  A follow-up email should be sent as soon as possible, and the concerns dealt with satisfactorily.  Failure to supply quality customer service will chisel away at a company’s customer base.

At one point the list was the main focus of marketers.  They would buy lists and send masses of emails to the list addresses.  Spam is no longer welcome.  Spam is generally filtered out of inboxes.  When it ends up in an inbox, disinterested viewers delete it immediately.

Today marketers encourage voluntary subscriptions to newsletters and other lists.  Marketers also encourage people to follow them on sites such as Facebook and Twitter.  Any effort a marketer directs toward socializing within their niche, building customer relations, and building an organic list will improve a company’s overall customer base.

There is no upper limit on the number of people that can achieve financial success online.  A business that is focused on the changing needs of its demographic will be able to reach the people with what they need when they need it.  Flexibility is the name of the online marketing game.