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Introduction

Are you passionate about technology and the increasing impact it has on people's lives everyday? Do you feel creativity is one of your strengths? Do you believe in the potential of Internet as a new medium of communication? Would you rather have an
exciting career rather than a traditional marketing job? Well, a career in Internet Marketing may be the right one for you.

The beauty of Internet is that it's the most democratic of marketing channels. As you build-up traffic, your site becomes more and more prominent in search engines; thus, attracting more traffic. A website can be compared to a popular television program. The more the number of viewers who are watching the program, the more valuable is the advertising rates for it. Similarly, the more the traffic of the website, greater is the chance of people clicking on advertisements on the website, and the website owner makes money from it. Unlike television, print and other media, Internet marketing ensures that advertising money is spent only if people click on the advertisements, and not just view them.

Product marketing on the Internet is also quite smooth to execute. All it takes is a payment gate-way for secure credit card transactions, and the customers can order what ever they want sitting from their home. Since the cost of creating Internet catalogues is much cheaper, and there is practically no need for other overheads like display rooms, etc., these cost savings are passed on to the customer; thus, ensuring that products from the Internet are competitive in terms of pricing as well as added convenience to the customer.

Types of Websites

1) Customer to Customer Websites - These sites help individuals link-up with each other, acting as virtual intermediaries whether for the purpose of playing games, buying or selling things, socializing, or even for marital purposes. Example - www.shaadi.com, www.ibibo.com, www.baazi.com

2) Business to Business Websites - These sites help businesses link up with each other for buying or selling of goods and for informational purposes. Example - www.alibaba.com

3) Business to Customer Websites - These sites help businesses reach customers by selling specific goods. The sites can be company or product-specific, and have credit card transactions enabled to help customers. Example - www.amazon.com, www.dell.com

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* Ajay Ohri is an alumnus of IIM Lucknow, and has worked with some of the largest BPOs in India (including two BPOs listed on NYSE).
Currently, he is running his own database consulting firm, and is the founder of his website business
http://decisionstats.com.
The views expressed in the article are his personal views.
Article posted on September 7, 2008.