Nowadays everything has gone online – the electricity bill, water bill, banking, mobile recharge, and hundreds of other things. In today’s world, when most things are becoming increasingly online, how can the corporate world lag behind in this race? That’s why marketing has become online in today’s online world, which we know as Online Marketing.
For small businesses, finding a successful, cost-effective marketing strategy often comes to a decision between digital and offline methods. This is not always simple – only 61% of marketers believe they have an effective marketing strategy. There is a whole range of benefits of designing a digital marketing strategy to help you reach your business goals.
With the growth of both the use of the Internet and the continuation of traditional marketing, even the most successful business, it is important that your decision is well informed to prove beneficial. Gaining an understanding of the advantages and disadvantages of both methods is important in achieving this goal.
Whether you are a business person or a learner, online marketing can prove to be beneficial for you in every situation.
As a businessman, you can use online marketing to promote your business, while as a learner you can earn a lot by learning online marketing.
Through internet marketing, we can easily reach a narrowly targeted audience i.e. only those people who are interested in our products or services.
Benefits of internet marketing
1.Lower cost
Offline marketing, also called traditional marketing, is very expensive marketing. Unless a good amount of money is invested in it, the chances of getting results are almost nil. On the other hand, this is not the case with online marketing. You can start it from 50 rupees as well and results in it are often better than traditional marketing.
Many businesses have opted for online marketing over offline marketing, due to lower costs. Internet marketing provides cost-effective, flexible, and better-managed budget control. Search engine optimization is free, all that is required is a good web page and knowledge. Cost-effective is relatively high compared to newspapers or outdoor. Pay-per-click is also a great way to save money and track costs as payment is based on actual clicks received by your ads. TV commercials cost a lot and you can’t even tell how many people have actually paid attention.
2.Measuring the ability
A failed marketing strategy is a waste of time and money with little payoff. With digital marketing, measuring the success of a campaign is easy. You can track the number of people who have reached, who are associated with it, and who have been purchased as a result.
This is difficult to point to in offline ways of marketing because it is unclear how many people would have ignored newspaper advertising or thrown out brochures. You will, therefore, have difficulty determining how effective a strategy is, setting goals, and tracking progress throughout its lifetime.
3.Real-Time Results
Although internet marketing is a long process, it is possible to see results after the implementation of a new strategy. If you buy Ad Words for example, you can directly measure clicks and then analyze the impact with Google Analytics. This way the efficiency of your strategy can be measured and real-time changes can be made if necessary. For example, there are more opportunities in Internet marketing than the Yellow Pages that appear once a year because the website can be updated every minute.
4.Demographic Targeting
Compared to offline marketing, determining your target group online is much more accurate. Online sites like Facebook can target your ads directly to the chosen target group and display how many people you reach. Traditional marketing channels allow you to direct advertisements to some extent just as you can place home appliance advertising in a magazine that has a specific target group who are more likely to buy your products. But the division is far from internet marketing opportunities.
5.Long term exposure
The average life span of a traditional marketing campaign is 1- 4 weeks, but Internet marketing is a continuous process that will yield similar results. If you have reached the first pages of the search engine, then you can appear for a long time to potential customers. Updates are necessary to capture this situation and maintain the regular low cost of your strategy. Content marketing will help build and maintain the image of an opinion leader and a professional that will increase your reputation and credibility which in turn spreads as word-of-mouth advertising.
The conclusion
The trend of traditional marketing is declining, with some forms also being replaced by new media. Marketing opportunities on the web are affordable for any company and the development of new marketing channels is in progress. Therefore it is advisable to increase the volume of internet marketing sales.
The main benefits of internet marketing in offline marketing are low cost, measurable, real-time results and campaign management, better targeting, and long-term risk. By using the advantages and opportunities of internet marketing skills, you can create a cost-effective campaign to increase your competitive advantage.
To conclude, it cannot be claimed that one form of marketing is ‘better’ than another. You should use digital and offline marketing for the most effective strategy.