Marketing on the Internet starts with understanding the principles behind subscription services. For accounting, cash flow, design and business planning purposes, almost all marketing tools available on the Internet, from e-mail programs to personal Web sites to consumer newsletters to school reports, are available for use by subscription. Subscriptions, just like they are for newspapers and magazines, are paid in advance by the subscriber for use for a particular length of time. The length of subscriptions can vary - monthly, quarterly, annually or longer, depending on the product and the vendor.

Acquiring marketing tools such as Web sites and other lead generation tools by subscriptions is the normal way business is done on the Web. Even when you buy a domain name, www.yourname.com, you are buying a subscription. In other words, you never own the domain name, you just own the rights to use it under a contract. Your subscription allows you to use the domain name for a length of time. One day, that time comes to an end, and you will be asked to renew. If you don't renew a domain name, for example, someone else can subscribe to it and you will have lost any rights to use that name.

Automation is a convenience for service providers and for customers. When you buy a subscription to any product, you will most likely agree to allow the service to renew automatically at the end of the subscription. Automated renewals are a common practice on the Internet and nothing to become alarmed about, because it saves costs to the service provider and to you in the long run. Some companies will notify you when your subscription is about to run out, but you'll find that most prefer to simply pop your credit card for another three months, six months or year until you say "Stop."

Subscriptions are sponsored

And now a word from our sponsor....

All marketing tools are sponsored, either by the service provider's advertisers or revenue partners, or by the subscriber. If a product is free to you as an agent, that means it is being paid for by someone else. The sponsor may be an organization who has secured bulk discounts for its members, or an advertiser who has bought the right to show you ads. If you don't want to use a product with ads or use content that comes from a certain organization, then you can pay to become your own sponsor, if the product offers that option.

When you are the sponsor, you are buying certain rights. Depending on the product, you might buy the right to use the product, post the product on your Web site, or to have customer leads sent to you by the service provider. You can also buy the right to the exclusive agent in a zip code or a neighborhood.

For example, you may sponsor a school report of some kind for several hundred dollars a year. Your sponsorship should give you the right to capture all the leads that are generated from that report, to the exclusion of other agents. When someone finds your Web site, or clicks on your sponsored school report on another site, you are paying to keep the visitor there and to contact you for more information.

Nothing is really free

If you are using a product for free, expect that there will be something in it for the service provider. The best free deals offer something irresistible to the subscriber in exchange for the opportunity for a service provider, advertiser, or revenue partner to get in front of the agent with an agenda, usually another product that the agent can buy. This is not a bad thing because many of the products that are available on the Web for agents are well done and offer some very real value.

In giving away free products, the service provider may be attempting to build a database of agents so that the company can use the collective names in some way. Some sell the database of names to other service providers. Others deliver the names to revenue partners so that they may contact them to buy a product. Service providers may also use free products as enticements to upgrade you to a enhanced version, or to show you ads from the service provider's sponsors. As long as you are using a product for free, you can expect that there will be offsite links that may lead you or your customers to other Web sites.

Free versions of products may also be offered as a trial at the end of which the subscriber may be asked to renew for a fee. This is a good opportunity in most cases to employ the product to its potential. Many agents sign up for free products without taking the time to do this, and then when they are asked to renew they may not feel the product is "worth it." The best thing to do is only sign up for free versions of products that you fully intend to take the time to explore and use. Then you'll be better educated when it comes time to share your credit card.

Part II - Pick The Right Online Marketing Tool For The Right Job will run tomorrow.