What is Affiliate Marketing:

As the video illustrated, affiliate markeitng is a customer go to a affiate site and click through advertisiments or brand logos. Then, it leads the customer to a brand webside or some special offers. The moment a customer makes a purchase of goods or service, part of the profit generated from that particular transaction is credited to the affiliate’s account as a commission. The commission is  based on a fixed value for each visit (pay-per-click), registration (pay-per-lead), or for every purchaser (pay-per-sale).

The affiate programs has different types such as commission-based affiliate, flat free referral  and click-through programs. The most common type is commission-based program. For example, Amozon.com and Beyond.com are all commission based affiliate program. The Flat free referral programm will pay a web site a web site a fixed amount for every new visitors who links from the refrring site to the host site and taks certain predefined actions. JobMatch: http://www.jobmatch.com offers affiliate programs from their web site. Click-through programs is one in which affiliates receive a free fro every unique visitor who click thorugh on the host’s banner ad that has been placed on their web site. For instance, Penny Web.com is an example for this type of affiliate programs.

How to Succeed with Your Affiliate Site: 

Maketers should go out of your way to help make the links to stand out on the affiliate’s sites. Providing different sizes of icons that grab visitor’s attention and are designed to target potiential customers’ mind. Additionally, you also need to prepare proper HTML coding and a tagline to your web site. In that way, you will help your affiliates get visitor’s attention. You also can also inspect your affiliates’s web site regulaly to determine whether or not there is anything you can do to help them add value to the links on their pages. Here are some tips for beginer to do affiliate marketing.

Benifits of Affiliate Program:

First of all, by creating you r own affiliate program you may gnerate a significant increase in traffic to your home web site. Secondly, when your affiliates place links on their web sites linking to your website, you will increase your link popularity. Thirdly, it helps you to increase your search engine rankings. After you lauch a affiliate program successfully, you will be suprised with the new traffic to your website. It provides an opportunity to expand your sales force.The article called What are the Benefits of Affiliate Marketing? provide more insights of the advantages of affiliate marketing.

The quick growth of internet users and on line shoppers has brought up the concept of online marketing and advertising. A new form of advertising joined the traditional forms of advertising such as TV ads, Radio ads and magazine ads. It is widly used by marketers to do product promotion and brand development recently.The web developer notes websites explains the term of internet advertising and different forms of online advertising. It states that internet advertising is one type of promotion which uses internet to sent marketing messages in order to generate more consumers’ attention. It contains different forms such as contextual ads on search engine results, banner ads, social network advertising, online classified advertising and e-mail marketing.

Online Advertising VS. Traditional Advertising:

The video shows that explains the benefits of internet marketing and online advertising and its impact on ROI.  It also illustrates some differences between online and traditonal advertising.

One of advantage is that on-line advertising has traceability so marketers can test and track the reactions of some certain ads. In other words, it provides information for marketers to know which ads works and which doesn’t. Online advertising assists the advertiser to track the number of impressions an ad gets (the number of viewers), and how many visits their business web site gets from particular ads, making it easy to see what kind of conversion rates internet advertisements are getting. Although some TV advertising works well,  we don’t know which ones work effectively. additionally, tracking the reach of newspaper and television advertisements are difficult for markers.

Secondly, traditional advertisement uses push strategy and put all ads there. Audiences don’t have a choice to pick their own interested ones to watch. Traditional media shows same advertisement to all viewers. However,  online advertising can select target viewers and be posted on company’s website. It can be choose by views’ preferences. Marketers also can analysis viewers’ IP address

Thirdly, the cost of placing  on-line advs is relatively lower than traditional ads.  A small yellow-page ad can cost several hundred dollars. However, you can bid for advertisements on Google . bidding cost starts at nicle or a dime per click, you are charged only if  visitor click on the advertisement. Therefore, if  a company have limit budget for advertising, internet advertising would be a good choice.

The article, The Top Online Advertising Benefits for Your Business Revealed , states main advantages of online advertising and suggestion about how it works.  

The term “search engine” includes that both crawler-based search engines and human-powered directories which gather listings in different ways. Google is one of typical examples of crawler- based search engines which create their listings automatically. They “crawl” the web, then people search through what they have found.

Search Engine Marketing:

The video gives a clear definition and explanation about search engine marketing.

Search engine marketing (SEM) is one form of online marketing which helps a company to promote their websites. It uses paid placement, contextual advertising, and paid inclusion to increase website visibility in search engine result pages. The New York Times gives a definition of SEM which is the practice of buying paid search listings. The well-known search engines are google and yahoo which are widely used by people around the world. Major search engines and directories provide opportunities for marketers to generate traffic to their websites. Additionally, it helps internet users to search what they need. Paid placement is one form of search engine marketing (SEM) strategy of choice for most on-line sellers.

How to Optimize Website:

Search engine optimization is becoming a central part for online marketing and business. Increasing visibility of a website through search engine helps a company to gather more viewers or buyers to their website. To be competitive you need to take steps to convince search engines that your website is an authority and your content is relevant for particular keywords. Marketers like their companies’ website to get into the search engine top list.

Here are some tips for search engine optimization:

1. Quantity of the key words

2. Quality of website content.

The video clip shows that how to design a site which can be linked on the top list of Google.

Viral marketing means that marketing strategies attract and encourage individuals to pass on a viral message to other peers, creating the potential for brand or product awareness.  It uses the exist social networks to pass information or message around in order to achieve brand awareness.  Additionally, it can be delivered by word of mouth because of the positive effects of social network on-line. The viral promotions include video clips, interactive flash games, advergames, ebooks,brand software, images or text message. It is more effective and powerful than other form of advertising due to it conveys an implied endorsement from peers.

successful Viral Marketing Example:

Marketers can reach millions upon millions of people by spending under $1000 to create viral marketing advertisements.  Using some well-known social networks such as  YouTube which costs you nothing to upload video on lines. Will It Blend is a sucessful example of viral marketing campaign, blending an iPhone on film is an inexpensive piece of advertising – but the video reaches over 6,000,000 views because of it. Obviously, successful viral marketing campaigns can increase brand awareness among people and increase the product sales eventually.

The video gives some clear idea about how to do viral marketing with expertises’ opinions.  The main  concept of viral marketing is all about how to pass information effectively through peers. Nowadays, people are tired of advertisements in general. Therefore, the viral marketing concept is becoming more and more popular these days. The attractive and successful viral marketing advertisement should be creative, innovative in order to draw audiences’ attention. In some way, if the viral marketing can inspire people’ s thoughts, it will bring significant effects among audiences. The main attractive viral marketing’s ingredients should contain funny, remarkable, unique or controversial elements within the advertisements.  Sometimes, crazy idea might work efficiently for audiences and bring remarkable effects for a brand. 

A creative and attract advertisement is just a start of a successful viral marketing campaign. The successful marketing effects should be enhances by follow-up steps after the viral marketing campaign.

5 Must Do’s After a Successful Viral Marketing Campaign gives more insights of the following 5 steps.

1)Feedback 

2) Analysis

3) Conversions

4.) Referring Traffic

5)Rolodex

Microblogging, which is a form of blogging, allows users to upload brief text updates and photos or short clips to on line. The upload information or videos can be viewed by anyone or particular group which you chose. Some microblogs provide a channel for sharing personal comments, publishing news about a company’s products and services, or writing daily or special events of one’s life. 

Twitter is a fast growth new social network site and a great example of “microblogging” which allows people to post brief contents. mixes instant short message and blog together. Twitter’s page looks like a blog with very short posts. They can follow others posted updates and find out what’s their friends do currently. It makes friends have better and closer connection then before.  People can update their current status, whenever they want to conect to others more. Here is a short vedio which shows us how twitter works for people.

Marketer’s View:

Maketers think Twitter is a effective tool for company to target more consumers and generate more profits because of its large user bases. The Twitter’ users has  singanificantly growth in recent years.  Those users can receive twitter updated information or instant message, email and SMS. Linda Busto analyses the potential usages of Twitter’s ecommerce marketing for one-to one customer service, reputation management and mocommerce marketing. Ecommerce websites can use Twitter to answer customer service and general inquiries or offer Twitter-subscribers-only deals and freebies publicly or privately through private messaging. The artical “Ecommerce Microblogging:More reasons to use Twitter” provides more information about twitter’s usages and benifits.

One usage of Twitter is companies can use Twitter to incress their sits’ traffic. Marketers need to actively use social media to create references to their companies that will outrank other pages.  Addtionally, marketers also can get feedbacks, comments or questions from consumers on twitter. For example, when people search for your company name, your Twitter page is highly relevant, as it’s an extension of your customer service department. You want people to find your Twitter page to see your current updates and one-to-one conversations.Therefore, they can answer customer service and gneral inquiries. In that case, it will creat or enhance brand image in consumers’ mind.

The popular and common social media marketing tools are Twitter, blogs, Myspace, LinkedIn, Facebook, Flickr and YouTube. Those sites give users the ability to share, enjoy and track anything that they would like their peers to see. Facebook is one of the most common social net works by which users can connect to their friends, share their photos and stories anytime. According to the statistics from facebook press room, Facebook has more than 300 million active users around world and 50% of active users log on to it in any given day. Myspace and Friendster focus on the aspects of staying in touch with friends, meeting new people online and sharing ideas. Flickr is just a simple tool for users to share their photos. Here is a vedio which explains what is social network.

 Social Network Marketing:

People have changed from just searching for information on line to creating and joining in social networks with other people through internet. In social network, users can be defined to a group with similar interests and likes. Social network assists users to get rid of the barriers of traditional communication which is physical location. Nowadays, social networks attracts more and more marketers’ attention because of large user base. A lot of well known companies are using social net works to spread their marketing message and get visitors to their websites. Marketers use social network applications to glow endorsements for their business and products. The profile of their companies, products and their messages can be shared and checked by billions of network users. Top Ten Secrets to Social Network Superstardom introduces some tips for marketers in order to do social network marketing efficiently. The video give more insight of rules for social network marketing.

What Works and What Don’t:

Some social network users are influenced by the purchase of their friends. They trust their family and friends rather than sales and advertisement. Social network marketing does work for some users who would like to share their opinion and contact with others. However, it not works for a group of people who want to be unique and don’t want follow others’ purchase pattern.

Marketers can place advs and create viral campaign on social networks to generate more users’ interest to their products. Compared with ads, viral campaign works more efficient for marketing purpose. According to Gupta, who is a professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, The advertising base model hasn’t succeeded on social networks. Users don’t like to click sites’ links to seek product information so the click through rate of ads is really low. Social Network Marketing: What Works? provide details about Gupta’s idea. It provides an example of viral campaign. On Valentine’s Day, Honda gave 750,000 a heart-shaped virtual gift with the Honda logo to Facebook users who can pass them to other friends on their contact lists. This type of virtual campaign has good impression to potential customers.

Therefore, marketers should not use those methods which not work on social networks in order to reach more social network users and generate more potiential customers.

Effective presence in the web is the key to success for many companies in competitive global market. It should effective for both customers and organizations. It not only provides useful information and products for customers but also create value for them. From a marketer’s point of view, web presence can be used to generate traffic and sustain traffic on companies’ home pages. It also  focuses on an organization’s  business goals such as increasing profits, turning visitors into customers, increasing sales and customers’ support. In order to improve the quality of the network, companies need feedbacks from users on how they perceive web presence. Web presence includes both content and form. Enhancing both elements will assist a company to create an effective web presence. An effective web presence should contain both traffic generating and traffic sustainning techniques. The artile, Guide to A More Effective World Wide Web, answers the question about how to develop an effecive web precence. It also includes a chart which illustreats some main factors (shows below) for designing effective companies’ web pages.

The road to on-line success:

• Taffic-generating techniques: Search engines/ Affiliate programmes/URLs /Exclusivity  
•  Traffic-sustaining techniques: Speed/ Graphics/ Interactivity/Cookies/Consistency and User-friendly

Effective company’s web page should also focus on interactivity which enhances users’ onling experiences and creates value for cusotmers. Designing an effective website which satisfies both consumers’ need and orgainizations’ wants  is not easy.  Here is a website which gives 10 principles about effective web design.  It should  be a good guide for website design.

First of all, web designers have to learn about users’ needs and wants from a company’s website.  Next, the website should be user friendly. If the web is too complicated for users, they  might give up and never come back to the site again. Therefore, using appropriate techniques, creating easy of use web page and focuing on users’ interactivities would help a website to gain consumer interests. The youtube video clip shows some common mistakes of website design and how to deal with the mistakes. One of  common mistakes is  a web page might be over influenced by one side of the party. Additionally, another problem is some websites don’t have clear goals for web pages. The last mistake that Dr Dave Chaffey think some company would make  is some companies’ web pages are not flexible enough. Dr Dave Chaffey also gives solutions to solve the problems.

It’s better to be aware of these mistakes in order to make your company’s web presence works well for both your company and consumers.

The video brings up the term of mass customization which is created by Stan Davis twenty years ago. He explains the basic meaning of mass customization and its chanllenges.

Matti Sievanen states that customization is a concept about designing differentiated products to satisfy each customer’s requirements and needs. Mass customization related to the ability to provide individual designed products and services to each consumer through high process flexibility and integration. The business concept provides great opportunities for a company’s development. However, any great idea has drawbacks. Companies also face significant challenges, when they are selling customized products. The paper which is named What is Customization? explains the meaning of customization in details and illustrates its advantages and disadvantages.

Currently, customization is becoming a common and popular term in marketing or other business area. Many companies adopted this concept and designed customized products to satisfy individual customers’ specific needs successfully.  For example, NIKEiD website provides a channel for customers to design their own Nike shoes.Dell is another company selling customized computers. Mass customization obliviously increases individual customer’s satisfaction and sales for a company. Additionally, customized products assist a company to avoid price competition because of products’ uniqueness. However, customization also involved with some challenges. Here are two short videos which illustrates the challenges on customization from management point of views. Both Mike Gray from Dell in supply chain management area and Joshua Young from Nike give their thought about customization. They also mention what their company do to deal with those challenges.  

Dell:   

Nike:

From a manufacture’s point of view, producing customized products need extra inspection and increases in throughput time. Customization is also associated with low volume and high variety of products which create a great challenge to manufactures. For instance, when a customer designs a customized product to meet his or her requirements, they might only purchase one or few items. If 200 customers want their own customized products, it will end with 200 different styles of products.

In conclusion, manufactures have to face their challenges and overcome obstacles on customization in order to increass their sales, maximize their profits and creat more value for customers. If they can deal with those shortages, they will be succeed in the war of mass customization.

In the past 10 years, music player has been innovated from cassette player, CD player to MP3 and MP4 players. New electronic music players drive people’s need for downloading music because it’s more convenient to download music online and copy to mp3 players. Additionally, it costs less to get music from some digital download services than buy CDs from stores. Therefore, downloading music on line threatens current record music industry significantly. Recording Industry Association of America announces that the total sales of industry declined $4 billion from the year of 2000 to the year of 2008. Although revenues from digital services are increasing but it can’t make up for the rapid decrease of CD sales. Forrester Research did a forcast which states that overall spending on music will decreases 4% through 2013. The article in Business week, Music Industry’s New Internet Problem, has detail information about the existing problem of record music industry.  As we have seen, digital music online threatens the total sales of physical form music such as CD albums. If physical form CDs can’t compete with free music on P2P services, recorded industry should try to make profits from this channel. Record company could sell licensing songs to P2P services and legalize the services in order to generate some profits than loss money. Consumers could pay small amount of monthly fee which is similar to cable fee in order to get music services. The Authors of The Future of Music: Manifesto for the Digital Music Revolution predicts the new look of the music industry in the future.

In conclusion, recorded music industry will survive by developing new strategies in order to satisfy consumers’ need for digital form of music.