Market Research This is the most basic part of any marketing campaign. This involves how much you are going to invest in the campaigns and where you are going to invest. Investing the right money at right place is the key. If you don't know your target market and how to reach them; if you don't know the value of the message you're attempting to convey; if you don't know the answer to all the pertinent questions?your advertising and the whole project will fail. This includes the segregation based on * Age group * Qualification * Per capita income * Spending capacity Primary research is research conducted by the primary user of the information. Secondary research is gathered elsewhere and used by you (purchased, leased, etc.). Most small businesses conduct both of these types of market research - customer surveys for primary information and by researching free or paying fees for secondary information. This is called "Combined" research. Search Engine Marketing This has, for a long time now, been a "hot phrase" in online marketing circles. I'm not sure why, since while it is generally an important part of a presence online, it is not the end-all-be-all of marketing on the Internet. Search engines have become one of the most expensive forms of advertising on the Web, but have also become one of the most effective. Great search engine marketing (read: placement, strategy, etc.) is done by professionals and takes a lot of time to do correctly. There are two types of search engines to market towards: search engines/directories and pay-per-click (PPC) engines. Whichever course you take (I would recommend both if you're serious about search engine marketing), be prepared to spend a lot of time and a goodly amount of money in your endeavor. A listing at Yahoo!, for example, is $300/year and the average per-click cost on Overture is about $0.75. E-Zine Advertising If you have researched your market well then you know the general wants and desires of your targets. Using that information, you can find the online newsletters (email or web-based) that these people would be interested in. Chances are that publication takes advertising. There are three basic types of advertising to a newsletter list: solo ads, top-line ads, and classified ads. Top-line ads are just that: ads that appear at the very top of a newsletter or at the top of an article in the newsletter. These are also highly effective and are fairly cost-efficient at about half the price of a solo advert. Email Marketing Marketing online using email is a touchy affair and can easily lead to many problems. Despite this, it is by far the most effective form of advertising online - bar none. An email advertisement to a targeted and strong list of people can generate responses of close to 1/3 (1 response for every 3 targets). That's phenomenal in ANY form of advertising. Opt-In email advertising is extremely effective and carries very little of the weight of SPAM marketing. The idea is pretty basic: you create a list of email addresses and send marketing messages to them occasionally. The hard part is getting those names to start with. Usually other forms of advertising get your website going and this type propels it forward. Conclusion Advertising online is a very time-consuming affair, but essential to your success. If you don't advertise, your business will fail. There are no exceptions to this rule. Some form of advertising takes place for every business type without exception. Marketing requires thought, time, and effort to succeed but as an essential part of your business, it's directly related to your rewards at the end of the day!