13 Reasons Why for Online Marketing

As a marketing person you will know the value of online marketing. But perhaps the powers that be, the decision makers, are stuck in the print age and you need to convince them that online marketing is the way to go. Here are 13 arguments that you can use to get your way.

Increase brand awareness

Online marketing is great for increasing awareness of your brand. It is just too easy to skim over the published advertisements in magazines and newspapers and target the brands that you recognise. What you don’t realise is that as you are browsing the internet you are being exposed to so many new companies and brands. It is a subtle way of introducing your brand to your market.

In addition to introducing your brand to the market, the psychological implication of online marketing is that if you are willing to spend money to showcase your brand then your brand must be worth the investment. A brand that is worthy of investment is therefore worth considering as a buying option.

Increase product awareness

The same logic can then be applied to a new product. It is far too easy to pass over new products in the aisles of stores or in magazines. However, if you have seen that very same product advertised on your social feed or on your favourite website then you will be more inclined to trust that product.

Once again that implied worth comes into play. A product that a company is willing to invest in is a product that must be better than those that are not being advertised online or at all.

Reach a wider audience

This is the digital age. Many people do not read magazines or newspapers anymore. They are far more interested in reading their news online, as it happens. Online marketing is a great way to reach those people.

Go global

On the topic of your audience, it is far easier to go global with your marketing campaign if you are using online marketing than if you are using traditional marketing. All you have to do is change the locations you are targeting. There is very little administration involved. If you want to expand your traditional marketing you have to find and contact and pay the relevant local publications in the area that you want to target. This can present a logistical nightmare with international calls and time zone juggling.

Reach the right audience

Although you can reach a wider audience, online marketing also allows you to narrow that audience down so that you reach the right audience. When you post and advertisement in a newspaper, you have no control over who buys or sees that advertisements. For all you know the people who are seeing your ad are not your target market and you have actually wasted your money.

With the demographic targeting available in most online marketing tools you can pin your campaign down to exactly the people you want to target.

Increase traffic

Your website is a great asset if you can actually get people to it. You have all your company and product information right there at your prospective client’s finger tips without you actually doing a single thing. Online marketing is a great way to get people to your website.

People reading advertisements in newspapers are more likely to call you than to go to your website as it is easier to pick up the phone that they have on hand than to get up and move to the computer or to laboriously type your web address into their mobile browser. If they are already online, it is simpler to just click a link. With online marketing they are already online, they see an advertisement that intrigues them, and they click the link and go directly to the most relevant page on your website for whatever the advertisement was about. Nothing simpler.

Increase sales

Of course, the more people you can get to your website, the more opportunity you have to sell them something. Online marketing almost always results in an increase in sales. This is due to the increased visibility, increased website traffic and increased accessibility.

Accessibility

Online marketing is the most accessible form of marketing. You can target your audience and even follow them around as they browse the internet. They can see your advertisements on their social media feeds, their favourite websites, even in their email. Even better, it does not matter if they are on desktop, tablet or phone.

Always on

With online marketing you can be advertising and growing your audience and product awareness every hour of every day. You are not limited to office hours because the advertisements are delivered via computers and they never sleep.

Get it while it’s hot

Not everyone does their shopping during work hours. A busy mum may do her searching for school clothes online once the kids are in bed. A nurse on the night shift may decide that he needs to find out the cost of a new laptop of games console in a slow moment at work. With online marketing your advertisements can be there when your potential client is actually looking for what you are selling. If you get someone’s attention while they are in a buying mood, you are far more likely to actually make a sale than if they have to wait a few hours to get to a store.

Cost effective

A very important factor of any marketing campaign is the cost. The great news is that online marketing can be done for just about any budget. So, if you can’t actually afford a full-page advertisement in the local newspaper, you can probably run a small PPC campaign on Facebook for half the price.

Trackability

Something that is really frustrating to a marketing professional is not being able to see how effective each ad placement is. This is impossible with traditional marketing. Unless you ask each customer where they found out about your product you have no idea if your advertisements are even being seen never mind their effectiveness.

When you place an ad online you can track so many things:

• You can track how many times it has been seen
• How many times someone clicked on it
• You can see what they were searching when they clicked the ad
• You can see where they went on your site after they clicked
• You can see if they bought something or contacted you

Being able to track all of this information allows you to determine which adverts and which campaigns are bringing in the right clients and you can then adjust your other campaigns accordingly.

Instant

In a perfect world, the marketing team will know about a product launch or a special months ahead of time. Unfortunately, this doesn’t always happen, but the boss still expects you to make miracles happen and get the word out. With online marketing this is possible. All you need is a couple of days to generate the creative work and you are ready to go.

An online marketing campaign can be set up and ready to go in a couple of hours. So much easier than booking a spot in a newspaper that only has space the week after the product special has already finished.

The benefits of online marketing are vast. If you dig deep enough you can always come up with enough reasons and benefits to sway even the most reticent of bosses.