The Advantages of Internet Marketing
Something that has become so popular will certainly have a lot of advantages. Internet marketing is a popular concept because it gives marketers many benefits. Let us briefly take a look at them.
- This is a form of global marketing. When you are promoting something on the Internet, you are not restricted by geography. You can reach out to people in another part of the world quite easily. In fact, a lot of the big multinational companies have their websites in different languages, and they actually internationalize their content (convert $ into £ for example) so that their businesses can be received well in other areas as well. If you are looking for a truly global business, then the Internet is the best way for you to do that.
- Considering the reach it has, Internet marketing is the cheapest form of advertising. In fact, several of the preliminary things that you do will not want you to spend any money at all. For instance, it won’t take you anything to write an article and post it in a popular article directory with your business link below it. It will not take you anything to join a social networking website like Twitter or Facebook and promote your product through it. Even if you want to build a website, it will cost you abysmally, at least in comparison to the other methods of advertising that are prevalent out there.
- Internet marketing is one way in which you can establish your credibility. While with television and print ads, you have to be inventive and creative in order to grab people’s attention, with Internet marketing you can be all that but the most important thing is that you have to promote using good content. This content should be informative. When you do that—write an article, a blog post, submit a video, etc.—you are getting exposure yourself. People understand that you know your stuff. Naturally, that adds to your credibility. Whether your product sells or not, there is a chance that you can become some kind of an Internet celebrity.
- The other thing about Internet marketing is that it has residual value. Any other kind of advertising—most of the offline methods—have a particular timeframe for which they are exposed to the public. A billboard will remain for a particular period of time. A television ad will be on for a minute. A print ad will have as much life as the magazine or newspaper it is printed in has. However, an Internet ad can stay on forever. Some forms of Internet advertising, like articles, blogs and videos will never be deleted. The networks that people build will never be deleted.
- Online marketers are also enticed by the fact that they can directly reach out to their niche audience. Most offline forms of advertising promote themselves to the world at large, and that is the reason why there is such a lot of wastefulness with them. Exposing the product to a billion people makes no sense if the major part of the population doesn’t form the market. For instance, it is useless to promote pregnancy clothing to everyone. With Internet marketing, such niche advertising is possible. You can promote directly to your target group and get a favorable response. Marketers like the fact that they can concentrate their promotional efforts and get a better response in the process.
- Another thing about Internet marketing is that, if needed, it could be just a one-person process. Like other modes of promotion, you do not need to have a team. You can have it if you want, but it is not necessary. Most people sit on their home computers in their boxers and PJs and do all the amazing stuff they do at promoting their products and services in the online world. If you want help, you can get it virtually. You do not need to have an office premises for handling your Internet marketing work, which makes things even cheaper for you.
- When you are performing your Internet marketing activities for a while, you will begin to understand this great advantage—with online marketing, you are able to chart the progress of your promotional tactics in real terms. You can find measurable terms for each of the technique that you use. For instance, if you run a blog, you can find out how many people visited your blog and from what parts of the world. If you put up a promotional article, you can find out how many people came to read the article. If you have a group of people whom you socially network with about your business products and services, you could find how many other people visited your group. You can find, in real terms, how many people opted in to a list that you have on the Internet. There are so many such ways in which you can get a precise idea of the way your business is heading. This helps people to constantly make improvements in their business methods and get better prospects.
- There are methods to popularize your product in very intelligent ways when you are using the Internet. We are living in a very highly interactive web world right now. It is possible for you to link your promotional methods to reviews on the Internet that are about your product. You could share links with other websites where your product is featured, i.e. your affiliate sites. You could even make videos and post the videos onto your website or provide links. All these are ways in which people get to know your product better, much better in fact than they can know any product that is only promoted in an offline manner.
- Lastly, if you like to move on with the times, Internet marketing is the method you should use without another thought. Most of the new, technologically savvy marketers today are using online marketing to promote their businesses. If you are already in business, chances are that your competitors are already into the game. They are probably already taking the vast advantages that digital marketing has to offer. You do not want to stay behind in this rat race. You do not want to give people that you are technologically lacking. That is one of the most important reasons why you should not ignore this promotional method.
Limitations of Internet Marketing
When we see the vast benefits of Internet marketing, it is also important to see the limitations. There are not many limitations, but the ones that are might cause you to rethink. In any case, these shortcomings of Internet marketing universally apply to all marketers, so it is a uniform game that we are playing here.
- Your customers will not be able to see, touch or smell the products that you are trying to sell them. They will not have the first-experience factor that they can get at, say, a supermarket. They will have to buy on blind value. For most conventional shoppers, this can be a disadvantage.
- Most Internet marketing businesses today do not have a ‘face’. They have a generic ecommerce site with a product featured on them that is calling to be bought, but they do not have a personality. This turns off some online customers who like to get to know a business better before they can buy their product. This is actually not a failing of the system, but it is the erroneous way in which Internet marketing is done by some marketers. With a little understanding of your market and the way this world works, you will be able to overcome this shortcoming and give your online business a personality.
- A third problem is that of security. Most people still feel insecure about buying products over the Internet. They feel that their online identity may be compromised when they buy something over the Internet using their credit card. The various spammers and malware senders of the Internet haven’t made matters any easier. However, the ecommerce websites are making all efforts in order to add to the security of their business. With the help of encryption and other such methods, they have made sure that their customers have a safe buying experience.
In essence, the drawbacks of Internet marketing are fewer than the advantages. This is another reason why this trend has caught on so well. When you are marketing over the Internet, you are almost assured that you will be able to sell your product, because the market is so huge and you have ways to get at your niche crowd. That is why the few limitations should not deter you from unleashing the potential of something that is so popular and an effective marketing tool.