What I learned in Internet Marketing (IS 462) Class

To begin with, I find IS 462 as one of the most interesting and useful course I have ever taken throughout my college career in Seattle University. Not even once I ever got bored in class. The topics discussed each day were very attention-grabbing in nature. The visuals used in class were very helpful and appealing. In addition, I was really fortunate to have being taught by Prof. Barnes whom in my opinion, is an amazing instructor. His ability to deliver all the important concepts of internet marketing to the entire class clearly and in a relatively interesting way fascinates me. To me, the overall course was very challenging because there were never-ending works that needed to be done, but in the end, the important knowledge and experiences I gained from this class really worth the huge effort I put into the class. It has been such an amazing experience being in the class, learning about how the internet marketing has completely transformed the way marketing has been done in the past  and that businesses need to utilize the opportunity to stay ahead of their competitors through creating remarkable experiences to the customers

In this class, I learned that the internet has revolutionized business practices and that there are plenty of ways to get into the pool on this movement. People around the world share their ideas, preferences, likes, disapproval, and so on by a click of a button. In fact, social media is becoming an instrument for people to feel accepted and successful businesses need to utilize this aspect for market optimization. Successful businesses today do not merely sell products or services. They sell memorable experiences for the customers to enjoy and be associated with. In the next paragraphs, I would like to share some of the most important internet marketing ideas in a little bit more detail that I learned from the class.

First of all, I learned that internet marketing is all about the content. Successful businesses provide interesting and relevant content to their customers using social media channels in order to grab the customers' attentions. There are several ways that businesses can do to achieve this. Using content curation is one of them. Content curation is the act of continually identifying, selecting, and sharing the best - most relevant online content and other online resources to match the needs of a specific audience. Another way is to tell interesting and relevant stories to the target market. Stories that engage their emotions and touch hearts, inspire them, influence them, and tap into drama, humor, and surprise. Furthermore, I also learned that it is critically important for businesses to listen to their customers. As a matter of fact, it has always been the problem that businesses do not listen to customers. These customers keep getting marketing messages that are irrelevant to them. They absolutely want businesses to listen. They want to be valued.

Other important ideas I learned from this class include using online videos to grab customers' attentions, mobile marketing, and permission marketing. Online video is a very powerful marketing tool due to its effective ability to influence audiences' behavior. However, to create a big hit video is no easy task. Successful online videos need to tell compelling stories, stories that include all those attributes I mentioned in the previous paragraph. In addition, successful online videos need to also incorporate a call-to-action, meaning that there should be a link through or at the end of each video that leads the audiences to a landing page, enabling them to get further information about the marketing message from the video. Moreover, I also learned that having mobile strategies these days is very important for businesses in order to be successful in terms of their marketing efforts. As discussed in class, mobile has revolutionized consumers' behavior. They use mobile devices such as smart phones and/or tablets to surf the internet, use apps to shop, play games, read news, and many more. For this reason, successful businesses might want to capitalize the mobile opportunities in order to succeed in their online marketing strategies. In class, I also learned about the concept of permission marketing. Nowadays, most online businesses have already implemented this marketing concept in which they incorporate opt-in e-newsletters box, asking website visitors if they would like to be included in the mailing list and received regular news and/or offers from the business. It is important for businesses to realize that interruption marketing have failed and that permission marketing is the key to a successful marketing effort.

In my opinion, the most engaging and useful experience that I got from this class was to create and develop an internet marketing plan for real business. I learned so many things out of this project that I strongly believe will be applicable for my business in the future. I got the chance to think creatively in creating several online marketing strategies that Pacific Science Center (my client) can do in the future that will enable them to build more attendance, encourage donors, and have more advanced brand understanding. Overall, it was such a great and remarkable experience being able to work on a project that will help a real non-profit organization's marketing efforts better off. All the hard work that I put into the project will be paid off if it truly helps Pacific Science Center.

Thank You, Prof. Barnes and all my classmates for an enjoyable quarter!