Over the past decades, businesses were promoting their services and products using analog methods that included newspapers, radio, TV, billboards, business cards and flyers among others. However, things have changed; nowadays businesses all over the world market themselves on the internet. This is because technology has changed people’s way of life. In fact, you will rarely see someone reading a newspaper.
Everything is now available on the internet. And that’s why online marketing has succeeded in replacing traditional methods of marketing. Picture this, in the past, a business had to burn a lot of midnight oil while writing newsletters to different people. That’s now water under the bridge. These days you just need to write a single letter and send it to many people at the click of a button. Below is a list of the benefits of embracing internet marketing.
- Cheap
Anyone who has been operating a business for over two decades will tell you that traditional methods of marketing are very expensive. For instance, putting an advert in a local newspaper can give you a run for your money. This is because they will charge you for every word. Online marketing is very affordable considering that a single advert can be seen by millions of people in different parts of the world. The good thing is that you can still promote your brand without having to spend money. All you need to do is be active on social networks such as Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.
- No Limitations
Traditional methods of marketing are limited by distance. If you opt to use fliers, they will only be seen by a few people, depending on how far you went when pinning them on notice boards or giving them out at events. Similarly, if you put an advert in the local dailies, it will only be seen by people that live in Tampa. Internet marketing can never be limited by distance. You can actually use it to create awareness about your products to people who live in different countries. This is return helps in boosting your market-share much faster.
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- Very Reliable
Online marketing is very effective. This is because there are many tools and strategies that you can use to take your brand closer to the masses. For instance, you can hire an SEO agency such as Tampa SEO to optimize your web content because it helps in increasing your visibility on the internet by targeting the people that really need your products or services. If you sell excavators, your adverts will only be seen by people who have interests in heavy construction equipment. If you were to market the same product using billboards, it would be less effective because it will be marketed randomly even to people who don’t know what an excavator is. At the end of the day, you will have wasted time and money.
- Continuous Returns
Since most of the strategies that are used in online marketing are automated, the efforts that you put in will continue to bring in positive results even when you become dormant. For instance, when you insert a keyword into one of your pages, it will continue bringing in more visitors every month without requiring you to do anything more. The story is different with traditional methods of marketing. If you decide to use flyers and radio adverts, the campaigns must be run everyday or you will not see any results. With online marketing, you just set up the campaigns and forget about them.
- Performance is Measurable
The problem with analog methods of marketing is that you can’t measure your ROI (return on investment). This is because you can’t tell how many people listened to your ad on the radio or watched it on TV. You just hope that it was seen by the right audience. It’s only later that you realize that it was not aired to the relevant people. With online marketing, you can measure your ROI by analyzing the web traffic report using an analysis tool to see how many people visited your website after seeing your advert on the internet. If you are using PPC (pay per click), you can see how many people clicked on your advert. If you are using social networks, you can see the number of likes and followers that you have earned. All these help in determining whether the campaign is yielding positive results.