Digital Media Marketing Mix – Discussing Marketing Strategy

The internet has become an integral part of our everyday lives, although many individuals view internet businesses with less appeal or less validity then traditional brick-and-mortar business, mostly in part to the virtual nature of the customer traffic. It’s easy to stand on a street corner for hours at a time and physically count the potential customer traffic as they pass by what maybe your new store front. It’s easy to tell your friends and neighbors, your bank and your investors about the restaurant you’re planning to open. Let’s face it, we’re human and for many of us, seeing is believing. So the idea of tens of thousands of potential customers each and every day passing by your virtual store seems odd, almost science fiction! Yet the internet business model works, but only if you treat it like a business!

This new online world is merely another vehicle, another medium; an alternative method to launch a business idea, often times more rapidly and with less risk or less upfront cost. But equally importantly, it provides the ability to get rapid feedback, faster than nearly all other business models or business opportunities. This doesn’t mean it is easy or takes less work. In fact, online businesses often it shares many of the same attributes as their brick and mortar cousins, in that they can consume all your time. But the payout can be significant if you are willing to put in, both the time and energy into build a business.

Granted, the concept of an internet or online business can be a difficult task to get your head around. Where do you start, what do you sell, where do you find your customers? What helped me start to understand the online world was to keep it simple and focused on the basic marketing principles of the marketing mix. That being, the Price, Product, Promotions, and Place (also referred to as the distribution channel).

The price, ok I get that. Product, that’s a bit more unclear in the digital media world. Moreover, an online business doesn’t always mean your product is a digital media product. The truth is, most online business provide either physical products or a combination of both physical and electronics products. Again, this is where the traditional marketing mix fundamentals differ in this new online realm.

Promotions or the advertising methods are slightly more complex than traditional media as well (i.e. print media, radio or television). Many of the internet advertising options are relatively new and numerous which can make it difficult to quantify the advertising campaign.

Yet in my opinion, it is the Place or the distribution channels that really sets people on edge when it comes to describing an online business. What are you selling, how to you get your customers, what is the business model. All great questions, but in an online world many traditional methods of advertising and product distributions are hybrids of one another and the lines between them are blurred. And it’s these uncertainties that tend to confuse many old-school business owners or entrepreneurs.

Even if the concept of an internet business and product distribution is easy for you, the fact that you may distribute and sell products, physical or electronic without ever having seen or touch the actual product. Another online business model that has exploded in recent years is that of affiliate marketing. Why not borrow someone else’s product, provide the marketing and advertising and make a percentage of each and every sale. The affiliate marketing business model is almost completely hands off from the traditional 4P model in that it eliminates the need for your own product. Pricing is set by someone else and even the primary distribution method or place is provided by the product storefront, including all financial transactions, shipping and help desk support. As an affiliate marketer, you simply channel potential buyers to someone else’s store and earn a percentage of the profits.