As the wise entrepreneur Lonnie Sciambi once told me (and it’s a definition that I use all the time) – marketing’s job is getting qualified leads for sales. I think it hits home and the exact bottom line about the role marketing plays or at least should play in any organization.

With Interactive Marketing it tends to be about the tools that you use to qualify those leads. But in the end it’s still taking what you have and addressing your potential customers, helping them understand what your company sells and the advantages you offer so that when the sale begins, they come ready to buy or at least more educated to the table.

To that end I thought I’d list several tools in the Interactive Marketing tool-box and talk about the need to move past having “just a web site” and what you can do in a constantly expanding market space with some amazing ways to reach and talk to your customers.

1. Web Site – Use the web site for what it is. A beginning. It’s the flexible container from which all the things you’ll need to work in the interactive medium flow. But if you let it sit, it will act just like a toolbox and rust.

2. E-Mail Marketing – Is a cost-effective, direct, instant, communication with current, potential or old customers with the purpose of enhancing your relationship. You can “push” the message to your audience, as opposed to a website that waits for customers to come in.

3. eNewsletters – Many popular websites and businesses have online newsletters, known as eNewsletters, which are sent to their subscribers electronically, usually via email. Their purpose is to inform readers of updates to the site and/or provide information relating to the site’s topic. Newsletters are also a factor in building and maintaining a relationship with the subscribers by reminding them of the site, urging them to return.

4. Search Engine Marketing(SEM) – A set of marketing methods to increase the visibility of a website in search engine results pages. The three main methods are; search engine optimization, search engine advertising, or paying the search engine company for a guaranteed high ranking or an ad displayed aside the results (commonly known as pay per click advertising) and paid inclusion, or paying the search engine company for a guarantee that the website is included in their natural search index.

5. Integrated Marketing Campaigns – Coordinating your website design, branding and online user experience integrated with all your other marketing communications is the essence of an integrated marketing campaign.

6. Viral Marketing – A marketing technique that seek to produce increases in brand awareness, through viral processes such as word-of-mouth delivered and enhanced online; it harnesses the network effect of the Internet and can be very useful in reaching a large number of people rapidly.

I must admit I used this amazing resource in helping round out my definitions.

These tools are all the ones in a Interactive Marketing toolkit and one that should be used to thread through your web site, in conjunction with and integrated with your brand and marketing strategy.