Online Marketing in its inchoative stages Introduction:

Gone are the arduous days of glitchy paper work to maintain the particulars of business. Now, one need not get into the clutter of paper work with the advent of computers. Devoid of bias towards a profession, computers have served everybody; from a petty shop owner to a Fortune 500 company manager.

In the wake of developments in the field of computers, e-commerce (off late) portal have proved to be of greater significance. E-commerce is the process of commercial transactions conducted electronically on the internet. The introduction of e-commerce has benefited the home internet based business opportunity sector the most, in the recent past. There are managers who affirm that carrying out business online have been one of the reasons for their soaring profits as they save money and time.

The diversified computer applications have not only aided the business populace, but have also catered to house wives, students, retired, and unemployed people, by providing employment through online marketing. The cropping online marketers have emerged successfully by providing employment to such masses and also earning profits in the course. Profits are earned by online marketers through online marketing. But, what is online marketing

Online Marketing or home internet based business opportunity or Web marketing or Web site marketing refers to the strategies that are used to market a product or a service online. Strategies include search engine optimization and submission, website design strategy, online promotions, reciprocal linking and e-mail marketing.

Statistics of Online marketing sites

Online marketers are always on the go to devise new methods of online marketing strategies and have been successful. To quote one, is the blogs which crept into the home internet based business opportunity sometime back and have been in all the rage.

Increasing popularity of online marketing is most felt in US, where 50 per cent of the population i.e., 138 million people are believed to be working online. The following sites offer the current statistics into the projected online US users.

U.K. Search Engine Search Engine Referral Share

Google 74.67%

Yahoo 9.30%

MSN 5.46%

AOL 4.21%

Ask Jeeves 2.28%

Online Marketing- Unsung hero hitherto

Unlike the US statistics, online marketing is still in course of molding a niche in the present market in India. Online marketing is still in its inception stage in India. Despite the fact that online marketing is quite acquiescent by the US population, the same is not in the case of India. Some of the Indians feel that online marketing cannot make its presence sensed in a country like India for varied reasons.

India is a country which still believes in conventional means of living. A retired person or a house wife would always want to use the postal system to send mails instead of e-mails. In such a scenario, adapting to modern methods such as online marketing is out of question, says Pallavi, an employee in an Advertising agency.

However, many of them are not even aware of the fact that online marketing exists at all. More awareness about online marketing has to be created in India, if it has to carve a place in the present market, she adds.

Responses regarding online business

There are instances of embezzlements in our country. When there are two partners, one of the partners misappropriates the business fund without the knowledge of the other. This is the case even when the partner is in close acquaintance with the other. Cropping of such cases have made people get more cautious about making an investment in a business. Consequently, trying out their luck in online business becomes inconceivable, says Swaroopa, a house wife.

Some of them take the stance that financial resources have to be best exploited. This can be well attained, only when secured in a Fixed Deposit or in a savings account. Investing the resource in online marketing or business to earn extra income, would create a dicey situation as there are no returns guaranteed.

We have heard of people losing their money by investing on a website which promises to pay huge returns and end up paying nothing. Ive lost a lump sum of Rs 5000 by paying out to various sites as registration fees. I gained nothing ultimately, says Venugopal.

There are websites that speak about helping build websites for their clients. The registration fee involved is very huge, along with the extra charges incurred against placing banners and ads in some websites, placing the websites in search engines and such others. The website when visited by visitors fetches money. The registration fee and other expenses specified will be in dollars which we find it exorbitant when it is converted to rupees. After all the expenses incurred, patience is what is required as the website might take its own sweet time to earn returns. It is necessary to give a thought that when there are thousands of websites which aim at such returns, there are very meager chances of our website being clicked. Losing patience, one might give up efforts, adds Venugopal.

Responses to online promotional ads

The products and services promoted online through mails and websites are called online promotions. Online promotions are too irritating. They use up half of the space in the inbox (website account) and bulk mail giving no space for fresh mails from our kith and kin. They eat up half the time in getting deleted. Some of the mails are obnoxious enough to make us get abashed, says Mohan.

Responses regarding search engines.

Search engines are the programmed to retrieve documents or files or data from a database or from a computer network (especially from the internet). Search engines provide a browser with links requested for. If noticed, there are a number of search engines mushrooming. Most of such search engines are a result of home internet based business opportunity. Online marketing also provides the services of search engines. The fate of search engines is also that they need advertisers who can place their website links as database of the search engines. There are major players like Google, Yahoo, Ask Jeeves and many others and the people again will not be aware of new search engines. Like other websites and online products, even search engines should also be popularized, says Swaroopa.

It is not only our ascendants who are not aware of the online marketing strategies, but, even most of the present generation students and employees are not aware of online marketing. Hence awareness is the need of the hour.