A-Z of marketing: Internet marketing.
The number of potential consumers who use the internet on a daily basis to browse websites, research products, and make purchases is consistently increasing.
In 2010, there were 1,966 million internet users worldwide, accounting for 28.7% of the world’s population. Ten years on, this number has now grown to 4,833 million, or 62.0% of the world’s population. With almost two-thirds of the planet now connected online, internet marketing is absolutely essential for business success.
Although there will always be a demand for face-to-face communication, using the internet to promote your business allows you to create and sustain relationships that would never have been possible otherwise. It gives you access to a variety of exciting and interactive advertising solutions that can provide increased revenue with very little initial investment.
At Ketchup, we’re already fully converted when it comes to the advantages of internet marketing. With decades of marketing experience, we know exactly what can be achieved by both traditional and digital marketing strategies.
If you’re not convinced that developing your online presence is right for your business, read on and you’ll see just what internet marketing can do.
It makes it easy for customers to find you
It’s a pretty universal belief that businesses need to have a website these days to reach their customers and provide a great service. However, there’s no point spending thousands of pounds on an amazing website design if it doesn’t get seen by anyone.
Leveraging internet marketing means that customers can find you quickly and search for what they want without having to leave the comfort of their own homes. They can research products, check out your competitors, and even purchase something from you at 3am if they wish.
Internet marketing will lead your ideal customers to your website, Facebook page, or other social media platforms even more effectively than a billboard would lead someone to a store. All a person has to do is click on a link and they’re taken directly to your website. This allows you to take advantage of that initial moment of intrigue and intent, and you could have a sale within just a few minutes.
It builds your audience
Internet marketing gives you access to an audience of hundreds of millions of potential customers. When it comes to marketing, there’s no better way to obtain such an enormous reach.
On top of the huge potential audience, the simplicity and social nature of sharing content online means that people are far more likely to pass on your message to friends and family. Think how often you’ve seen a person tag another user in a post they think they would be interested in, and how often you’ve seen someone pass on a flyer that was posted through their door.
Word spreads much faster when you can share something with the click of a button at any time of day or night. With the right digital marketing strategy, people won’t even realise that they’re promoting your business when they share your content; they’ll simply want to share it because it’s interesting, insightful or memorable.
It promotes customer engagement
The internet is a great place for engagement and interaction, allowing you to communicate with your audience in a way that simply can’t be achieved by traditional advertising.
By its very nature, social media encourages conversations, and you can leverage this to improve communication with your audience, persuade potential customers to make a purchase, or provide real-time customer support that keeps people happy and improves brand loyalty.
Digital marketing also gives you the opportunity to personalise the way that you communicate with your customers and potential customers online. Most people will ignore generic, mass-produced newsletters or flyers, but sending personalised marketing emails with offers tailored to a specific person’s interests and buying habits will make you much more likely to gain sales.
It give you a 24/7 presence, 365 days a year
Before the internet, it was completely impossible to provide constant sales support without incurring huge costs for staffing, training, call centres or brick-and-mortar premises.
However, your website, social media accounts and digital marketing campaigns act as a salesperson that is available 24/7, 365 days a year. People can browse your products, learn about your services, and discover the people behind the brand without you lifting a finger. You can even implement intelligent solutions such as AI chatbots that use algorithms and machine learning to answer questions when nobody is available.
Commerce is no longer tied to traditional service hours, and your website is like a storefront that never closes. The further you are able to expand your presence online, the easier it is for customers to visit that store, find what they want and make a purchase.
It increases your profits
Of course, the more people you reach, the more likely you are to convert those people into paying customers.
The targeting options of online advertising platforms allows you to narrow down your approach to only include the exact people or companies that are interested in what you have to offer. This puts your business directly in front of people in your target demographic, so you only spend money on high-quality leads with a better chance of converting.
Internet marketing is relatively inexpensive but has the potential to yield incredible results. This means that the ROI is much higher than some other methods of marketing. Whatever money you put into your digital marketing strategy; you’re almost guaranteed to see results.
It expands your horizons
While local businesses are still a hugely important part of our economy and culture, it’s also easier than ever before to have an international reach with almost no additional effort.
Internet marketing means that you can be found by potential consumers all over the globe in an instant. This opens up your business to an enormous number of potential customers that you would never have been able to reach through traditional marketing.
If you want to sell your products internationally, a robust online marketing strategy is absolutely essential. Internet marketing allows you to create a global brand awareness quickly, easily, and without a huge advertising budget.
It speaks to your audience on their terms
It’s guaranteed that the majority of your customers use the internet in some form every day.
Whether it’s on a laptop, mobile phone, tablet, smart TV, or any number of other devices, people are living their lives online. It’s important to take advantage of the opportunities that internet marketing presents for communicating with people on platforms they frequent daily.
Digital marketing allows you to place your products and services in front of your audience where they are already spending time. This makes advertising feel less intrusive, turning it into an integrated part of the browsing experience that people actually enjoy.
It’s cost effective
The cost of internet marketing is much lower in comparison to traditional marketing.
Although you may invest in a new website design or spend money on social media advertising, these costs are insignificant compared to what you would pay for leaflets, banners or national magazine adverts. Online marketing also means avoiding the costs associated with printing, postage, call centres or leaflet dropping, so you’ll quickly see a return on investment.
Once your campaigns are up and running, they are usually very low maintenance. This means that not only are you saving money on the advertising costs themselves, you’re also saving time and money in terms of staffing and resources.
Even without the support of a professional marketing agency, the results that a business is able to achieve through online marketing are incredible. Some small businesses are thriving by using social media sites alone to promote their website, so imagine what you can do by utilising the many online marketing options that are available.
It’s easy to monitor
One of the best parts of internet marketing is watching the results happen before your eyes. Not only does this help you to better prove results to key stakeholders, it’s also great motivation to do more with your business and see it flourish.
Whether you use email, social media advertising, or banner advertising, you will get access to useful data which can let you know how your campaign is performing. Open rates, impressions, click-through rates and page views are all very telling, and can help you to constantly update and improve your online marketing activity. You can easily track exactly where your visitors are coming from, and accurately attribute revenue to individual marketing campaigns.
Digital marketing far outshines traditional marketing when it comes to the ease of monitoring activity and accessing accurate, quantifiable data. Instead of running an entire month-long campaign only to find out afterwards that it was unsuccessful, you can constantly monitor the performance of your adverts and make improvements in real time.
It’s constantly changing
The world of internet marketing is fast moving and exciting, which is why it’s so enticing to your audience.
The internet gives you almost unlimited options when it comes to reaching your audience and engaging with them in creative ways: websites, social media, email, display network advertising, video, apps and games—the list is practically endless.
While the ever-changing nature of internet marketing means that you need to make a concerted effort to keep up with it, this also stops you from getting complacent about your advertising strategy. You can’t get away with using the same content over and over again, and there’s a constant demand for something new and exciting that your competitors aren’t doing.
Combined with the enormous competition to be heard in the busy digital space, this pushes businesses to come up with meaningful and creative campaigns to better capture an audience. In turn, this leads to better campaigns, better connections with your audience, and a better ROI.
The digital marketing experts
For help with digital marketing, whether that’s the development of a strategy or the execution and monitoring of your campaigns, you need to speak to Ketchup.
We can handle any aspect of your internet marketing needs, from website design and graphic design to PPC advertising and PR consultancy. Our talented experts have supported businesses of all sizes in a wide range of industries, from helping start-ups to find their feet in the digital world to generating new online revenue streams for established brands.