Internet Marketing or Online Marketing is a new way to promote your product and services through the web.

Your core marketing strategy stays the same as you raise your visibility in the target market while increasing sales and profits.

Today, Internet Marketing is considered the fastest and most economical medium for promoting product and business growth.

Internet marketing strategies cover various services such as search engine optimization (SEO), search newsletters, email marketing, copy writing, web development, blog posting, social media sites, pay per click and numerous others.

And now the power of social media, team buying and twitter, have changed the landscape of how people are finding out about local merchants in Kelowna and throughout Canada.

One internet marketing strategy that has caught on quickly is the Groupon and Twongo models, now in operation in Kelowna, Canada. This new marketing avenue harnesses the power of team buying and can truly drive more new business to your door.

These new marketing avenues are essentially an online coupon service with an immediate call to action, providing a platform to coordinate and facilitate group buying by consumers of retail business products.

The consumers are members of the local community who have chosen to join a free subscriber list. The products are provided by local business vendors seeking to increase their sales and to expand their consumer/client base by accessing the larger subscriber list.

Example One:

In one promotion 250 new visitors went to the website of a local pizza retailer and 157 vouchers of $25.00 were purchased by the subscribers within a 24 hour period. In the last two months, 67 of the sold coupons have been redeemed and his business was exposed to people who were not previously aware of his pizza business. At the end of 30 days he received a cheque from the online services for his portion of the coupons sold.

In a previous marketing tactic, a door knocker promotion was used and 15,000 homes were targeted. In this venture $900.00 dollars of advertising capital was spent and only 18 coupons were redeemed.

In the past three years this pizza merchant has used radio, TV and print. At no time did any of these traditional marketing mediums issue back a cheque to this merchant.

Example Two:

In another case a local shoe merchant used Twitter to tweet out that he was having a 50% off sale and did so at 1:00 pm. By 3:00 pm the same afternoon he had eight people visit his store and 10 pairs of shoes were sold. He is now a frequent user of Twitter to keep his customers in the loop.

The same merchant used Twongo and the power of team buying to sell 230 discounted coupons against the purchase of regular priced shoes.

All money raised by the merchant was donated to the local food bank at Christmas and his store was featured on radio and in print, while donating $2,300 dollars to a great cause.

The marketing power of the internet has grown very fast in a short period of time and there is a whole new generation of shoppers who are looking for great value and great service.

Your job as a retailer in this internet age is to decide how you will market yourself so you can “Build Your Business”.