Thursday, December 11, 2008

Advantages of Internet Marketing

By Justin Harrison

Although internet marketing has expanded very rapidly, there are still many businesses out there that stay with the tried and true marketing strategies. These techniques actually work well in parallel with internet marketing. Internet marketing can actually enhance the probability of having a successful campaign. Let's look at a few ways why:

The web is exactly what it says it is - world wide. This means that you are not restricted to a brick and mortar business but have a 24/7 online shop which caters not only to your local clients but to customers from all over the world. Since millions of people use the internet every day to search for products or services the opportunities for expanding your customer base are unlimited.

In today's competitive marketplace, online marketing can be one of the biggest advantages for a small business. Online marketing replaces traditional advertising mediums including TV, radio and print for a fraction of the cost. Customers will be able to view product and service information on a website. This will allow business owners to have more free time to concentrate their efforts on growing their companies. Another benefit is the ability to track the effectiveness of individual advertisements. Knowing which advertising campaigns work the best will maximize the return on your investment.

Unlike newspaper advertisements, for example, internet advertising enables you to reach your target audience effectively. Interested consumers can find your website by searching for the specific product or service that you offer. You can also place your adverts on niche websites which will be visited by your target consumers. By using email marketing to promote new products or services, either by buying email addresses of potential customers or by following up on visitors to your own website, you are able to target thousands of people at once, whether they live across the street or across the world.

Finally, and importantly, the advantages of internet marketing are apparent because they are easy to measure. Advertisers in TV or print newspapers can't figure out how many customers saw their ad or responded to it. Web advertisers can use analytics software to find out not only how many customers saw the creative, but also what the demographics of those customers was. They can track the number of visitors that come from any particular advertisement and how many visitors are repeats. Thus, advertisers can analyze the effectiveness of their marketing strategy and modify it in response, all in real time.

To sum up, participating in internet marketing can allow you to expand your business across the globe with few limitations and minimal costs. There is also the advantage of continuously being able to see how effective your efforts are.

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