Find out how to market your business on the Internet from an e-commerce expert, even if you have little or no money to spend. In this practical, hands-on course, you'll learn little-understood secrets about the types of businesses that thrive on the Web. Then, you'll discover proven methods that will help you establish an Internet presence and build an online brand identity. You'll even learn several low-cost promotion strategies that you can use to drive visitors to your site, and you'll find out how a media kit can help you earn extra revenue by selling advertising space on your site.

Throughout the course, you'll learn to think strategically about marketing your Web site, products, and services using Internet technologies. You'll know how to use an Internet marketing checklist and other tools and materials to develop a sound online business strategy. Before you know it, you'll have the skills and knowledge you need to develop a winning Internet marketing plan for your own business.

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Syllabus:

All courses run for six weeks, with a two-week grace period at the end. Two lessons are released each week for the six-week duration of the course. You do not have to be present when the lesson is released, but you must complete each lesson within two weeks of its release.

A new section of each course starts on the second or third Wednesday of each month. If enrolling in a series of two or more courses, please be sure to space the start date for each course at least two months apart.

Week One

Wednesday - Lesson 01

With millions of pages already on the Web and more posted online every day, getting your Web site noticed isn’t easy. When students ask me what they can do to increase traffic to their sites, I encourage them to learn all they can about Internet marketing. In this lesson, you’ll receive a brief introduction to the Internet, learn the difference between e-commerce and e-business, and explore different types of business sites on the Web.

Friday - Lesson 02

The terms "Web site" and "Web presence" can be used interchangeably, but there's a subtle difference. In this lesson, you’ll learn how to establish a Web presence. In order to do that, you’ll need to understand your goals and your customers’ needs and interests, accurately identify your target audience, and establish a market position that makes you stand out from the crowd. We'll go over how to do all of that in this lesson.

Week Two

Wednesday - Lesson 03

In today's lesson, you’ll discover the importance of selecting the right domain name for your site. You’ll also find out how search engines work. And you’ll understand how you can use what you learn to drive visitors to your Web site.

Friday - Lesson 04

High-quality content will keep visitors at your site longer and encourage them to return more often. In this lesson, you’ll learn the importance of helpful, informative, educational, entertaining, or useful content. You’ll also discover how search engines use the following factors to determine ranking in response to a query—text viewable on the screen, code not viewable on the screen, and external factors.

Week Three

Wednesday - Lesson 05

In this lesson, you’ll discover the elements that make up "The Marketing Mix"—the four Ps. You’ll learn how the elements of product, price, place, and promotion relate to each other and to your target audience.

Friday - Lesson 06

Today, you’ll learn how to develop a message that will cause the members of your target audience to take the action you want. And you’ll become acquainted with online strategies you can use to advertise your Web site, products, and services.

Week Four

Wednesday - Lesson 07

A lot of people are making a lot of money on the Web by selling advertising. But before you can become one of them, you'll need to build Web site traffic first. When you decide your site is popular with enough visitors to encourage others to advertise on your site, you'll need to create a media kit that you can post to your Web site to announce your services. In this lesson, you’ll learn how to create a media kit and find out how you can make money by attracting advertisers and selling banner and classified ads.

Friday - Lesson 08

In spite of the growing number of junk e-mail messages filling in-boxes, e-mail is a thriving medium. So it’s important to understand how you can use e-mail marketing to keep current customers and acquire new ones. In today's lesson, we’ll examine ways that you can use e-mail to promote your business.

Week Five

Wednesday - Lesson 09

If you want visitors to spend more than 30 seconds at your Web site, you'll need to make it interesting, entertaining, and informative. The factor that causes visitors to spend more time at your site is called "stickiness." In this lesson, you’ll learn the advantages of building a sticky site. You’ll also learn how to use content to make your Web site sticky.

Friday - Lesson 10

In the previous lesson, you learned to build site stickiness through the use of content. In this lesson, you’ll learn to build site stickiness through community. You’ll also become acquainted with synchronous and asynchronous tools you can use to develop a community experience for your visitors.

Week Six

Wednesday - Lesson 11

The last element you can use to build site stickiness is commerce—in this case, e-commerce. You’ll learn how to use commerce to keep visitors at your site longer and return more often. In this lesson, you’ll become acquainted with technology you can use to create an online store, including online catalogs, shopping cart software, and online payment systems.

Friday - Lesson 12

In our final lesson, you’ll have the opportunity to pull together all of the information you gathered during this course to complete an Internet marketing plan. To help you do this, I’ll provide you with an Internet marketing plan checklist and samples of the following documents: Internet marketing plan outline, a calendar, and a budget spreadsheet. You'll want to use this opportunity to complete an Internet marketing plan that you can use to promote your business.

This course includes a knowledgeable and caring instructor who will guide you through your lessons, facilitate discussions, and answer your questions. The instructor for this course will be Patricia Franks.

Dr. Patricia C. Franks—a frequent presenter at workshops and conferences on the local, state, and national level—brings her extensive background in business and education to this course. She has over 20 years of experience as a college educator, teaching courses in business, Web development, information management, and e-commerce. Franks was awarded a New York State Chancellor's Award for her creative efforts in curriculum design and teaching. She is the former owner of a successful small business support center. And while completing a Ph.D. in business organization and management with a specialization in e-business, Franks performed extensive research into the use of Internet technology to promote business.

Requirements:

An understanding of basic marketing principles, completion of Patricia Franks' Designing Effective Websites online course (or equivalent experience), completion of Craig Power's Creating Web Pages online course (or equivalent experience), Internet access, e-mail, the Microsoft Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox Web browser, and the Adobe Flash and PDF plug-ins (two free and simple downloads you obtain at http://www.adobe.com/downloads by clicking Get Adobe Flash Player and Get Adobe Reader).

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