For many, that term conjures thoughts of websites or spamming or search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing. For others, it’s all about graphical design, writing fancy code or even affiliate programs. All of those answers correct, but the essence of internet marketing is much simpler.

At its core, internet marketing is about these things:

* Understanding the target market to which the product/service/cause you’re marketing will appeal
* Determining exactly how your target market interacts with the internet
* Positioning your content on the internet to attract the attention of your target market
* Collecting information about your target market (also known as “leads”) for follow-up and conversion into sales
* Design of offers or incentives to induce the desired actions from your leads

Since there is insufficient space in this article to give all of these topics adequate attention, let’s focus on just one specific topic with the realm of internet marketing: Email Marketing.

My best payoff has always come by focusing on permission based email marketing. Permission-based email marketing refers to the practice of collecting information (including email addresses) from website visitors and communicating with them via e-mail with their direct consent. The “permission” aspect of permission-based email marketing is what separates legitimate email marketers from the spammers that everyone despises.

My love of email marketing is strong for one reason: It works very well. Email marketing has been much like a never-ending goldmine: It enables us to produce income on demand simply by sending a good offer to our list. When you have thousands of loyal subscribers – as we do – and you put a strong and compatible offer in front of them, income becomes nearly automatic.

However, the key to successful email marketing is the development of a legitimate trust relationship with your subscribers. If you opt to send your subscribers a request for purchases every single day, they will likely tire of your badgering and cease reading your emails altogether.

Alternatively, if you take the time to provide good content to your readers on a regular and frequent basis, you’ll discover that your readers take all of your emails far more seriously, and as a result your emails will be opened, read and acted upon with greater frequency. Essentially, email marketing is really an exercise in trust.

Even though there are more sides to internet marketing than just email marketing (permission based), email has been the foundation that our business sits on.

In 2001, Business Week cited advertising for the Blair Witch Project as a striking example of viral marketing.  The advertising campaign insinuated that the footage was “real”, filmed by a group of college students that had disappeared, presumably leaving only their video camera behind.

Teasers were first seen on TV and then posted on the internet.Viewers were highly encouraged to share the footage with all their friends.The film grossed over $248 million and cost only $35,000 for the production.Who wouldn’t want to see sky high profits like that?

Burger King’s “Subservient Chicken” was listed in Wired as a highly successful example.Although it is quite difficult to assess the amount of new customers that Burger King has attracted with this specific campaign, it is a popular website.

Some more “down to earth” viral marketing examples for those of you that may be trying to grow your own business are newsletters and automated e-mails campaign.With very minimal software, you can drive visitors to your website to sign up for your newsletter.  That gives you their e-mail address.

With each newsletter, you might ask for the e-mail addresses of friends that would also be interested in your products or services.  You can see how this could increase your contact base relatively quickly.  You don’t have to worry about being called a spammer, because the customer requested the newsletter.

One of the most effective viral marketing examples, according to many experts, is the single line method used by “Hotmail”.They offer people to sign up for free e-mail.At the very bottom of every complimentary email a person sends, there is a single message that reads “Get your private, complimentary email at http://www.hotmail.com”.The website address is essentially a link.

All that they had to do was stand back and wait for thousands and thousands of people to sign up.  People love free stuff.  The most effective campaigns always offer something free, whether it be playing with a virtual chicken or reading a newsletter relevant to their interests.

When you are able to get people to tell their friends about your product or services, the ripple effect spreads like a virus, which is why the phrase was originally coined.There are many viral marketing examples.  Anyone that is not at least trying to do it is not growing their business as much as they could.