In many regards, marketing is marketing, whether online or offline; it is about bringing the customer (with a need) and the product (which fills the need) into direct contact so that a sale can be made. The key difference is in the tools for bringing about that contact; online tools are different than offline tools because the virtual environment of the Internet is different than the world of brick and mortar; of print and paper; of handshakes and eye contact.

Successful Internet marketers understand the virtual environment–the “eco-system” of the Internet–and are familiar with a wide range of tools and resources that belong to that environment. Using an offline tool analogy, if you want a nice, small, precise, round hole, you use a drill, not a hammer. If you just want to bust a wall down, put your drill away and bring out something big and blunt that packs a wallop. It is the same online: understand what you need to accomplish, and use the right tool to get the job done.

Some powerful and widely recognized Internet tools include things like Facebook, Twitter, and Google. But do you know what to do with them?; when and how to use them for marketing–and when and how NOT to use them? The wrong tool, used in the wrong way at the wrong time, can do more harm than good to your marketing efforts.

There are also some far less-well-known tools with funny names like ping, slug, tags, and trackbacks. Do you know what those are and how they can make the difference in whether or not you ever even show up online?

Do you know how search engines work? Do you know what language they speak and how to include the seo language they are looking for in your marketing messages and content? Do you know what it means to be indexed, and how/whether/why you want to be?

Successful Internet marketers have taken the time to learn and understand these things:

How the Internet works;

What kinds of tools exist online;

How to use many different kinds of tools;

and (perhaps most importantly), Which tools to use for which tasks.

Equipped with the right tools, as well as the skills and knowledge to use them in strategic combination, good Internet marketers are able to get their message in front of the customer-base that is looking for it–every single time. Poor marketers just fling stuff around and hope that something lands where it will stick. Others are “one-trick- ponies”–that is, they have the idea that they can do one thing only and bring in “boatloads of cash.” Unskilled marketers waste time, money, and ultimately hope, simply because they lack the skills, understanding, and work habits to get their online marketing organized and working as a system.

The most worthwhile investment any new online marketer can make, is an investment in LEARNING how the Internet works, as well as the right use of the right tools to accomplish whatever it is you have set out to achieve online.

Learn, and you WILL BE both amazed and amazing!

Still scaling the Internet-marketing learning curve, or struggling to get a new online business off the ground? Take Thia’s online Tools For Success survey and qualify for a complimentary 30-minute phone “workout and fitness evaluation” with this Personal Trainer for Internet Marketing Newbies. Learn more about Thia too.

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