When it comes to marketing on the internet there are many reasons that a person that is very used to marketing with traditional advertising get weary.
After all the practices that have been used in marketing for the past 100 years still produce sales and they can be effective marketing and branding opportunities for most businesses.
So why is everybody so interested in getting their online marketing strategies up to snuff?
The reason is that online marketing is traceable, affordable and results driven in ways that traditional media can never offer.
There are many different angles to any marketing strategy and the fact that the amount of consumers that buy online has shifted in recent years has really changed everything. In fact, there are now over 2 Billion people with smart phones that now have internet access, so the online buying, advertising and marketing opportunities have simply exploded in recent years and if you do not use a online marketing as part of your overall branding and business marketing strategy you are simply missing out on a huge sector of the market that is buying from somebody.
Huge Value Of Online Marketing VS Traditional Marketing
This is something that I have spent a considerable amount of time pondering, when it really comes down to one simple concept. If you are going to purchase advertising in a newspaper, magazine or on television or even a billboard (there is nothing wrong with these marketing strategies), but the longevity of your message is limited until your dollars run out. Much like PPC (pay per click) advertising online, these methods are only effective while you continue to pay. On the other hand, if you invest in a strong SEO campaign, the traffic, sales and effectiveness for this type of marketing can last for years after you stop paying for the marketing services.
There are cases where SEO needs some maintenance to keep your rankings up, but many times once you get stuck on the first page of Google this can last for a long time and bring huge amounts of customers and clients to your front door free of charge.
Social Marketing Reaches New Customers Automatically
This is more than just a buzz word in the internet marketing industry; it is a powerful business tool that truly is a force to be reckoned with. Utilizing the power of the social nature of many of the web’s most popular digital destinations does more than get a quality link back to your web site, it allows people to naturally spread the word about your product using word of mouth.
This is huge!
Using sites like FaceBook, Twitter, YouTube and Google+ you can put out product release information and allow the masses to further distribute your message via shares, likes and mentions. These little boosts can add up to a huge amount of free “word of mouth” marketing that is hard to produce by other media standards without a huge budget.
Mobile Marketing Has Exploded
So, I will start off with a few figures to let everyone understand how big mobile marketing really is. There are currently over 5 Billion mobile users, over 60% of them own smart phones. This sixty percent has access to the internet 24 hours a day and wherever they are.
Now, with that in mind, this means that mobile ads, localized content and other forms of targeted marketing are viable using mobile advertising where traditional media advertising simply cannot even compare. If you own a local “brick and mortar” store, you can do some localized marketing by putting out sign in front of your business, but what if somebody just searched Google for a dry cleaner near them? These types of searches automatically display relevant local businesses, but if you are not listed correctly, your competitor could be getting this walk by business from you.
Can you imagine getting traffic from somebody who has never visited your store before and is from out of town simply because you got your site listed in local search and your mobile web page showed them how to get there? This really is happening for many businesses already and can happen for you too. Mobile marketing can be easier than you think; simply getting listed on Google places will give you a strong start.
Are There Businesses That It Is More Effective To Market Offline?
Of course, there are always exceptions to the rules, but in most every case, if you are currently running successful offline marketing campaigns; they can be complemented by online efforts. If your business markets directly to farmers in India, you may find a market online, but most likely these “odd” types of “clients” or “niches” are not going to be a perfect target for online marketing. With this in mind, there is still a lot of value in traditional marketing, but this is only true for a very very small percentage of businesses in the world.
If you find yourself still wondering if online marketing is right for your business then the good news is that it is very cheap to find out. Unlike spending a huge amount of cash for a television advertisement or a billboard ad, when you look at online advertising you will find that you can use huge budgets, but this is not necessary. With online marketing you can run inexpensive marketing tests before you allocate large amounts of funds for advertising and in many cases this is great to find powerful marketing niches that have yet to be tapped.
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