Does online marketing work?

Rajiv — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 09:00:54 +0000

Online marketing seems to work wonders for some companies while others feel that they are wasting their budgets. Online marketing is exactly like any other type of marketing - it’s built around the same triggers. When online marketing fails, it’s because the company or agency didn’t understand the basics. When it works, they “get it.” There is no question that over time, e-commerce sales have continued to rise as more and more people turn to the Internet for their shopping. It’s much easier to take a quick commute to your computer, surf the net for a short while, and purchase what you are looking for than it is to go out to a store for the same thing. Because of this, the future of online marketing is looking bright. Regardless of the Spam problems of these days, email still remains most effective and economic medium for communicating with the prospects from all dimensions of buying & selling. The use of online marketing techniques are the only limitation other than the marketer’s creativity and imagination, or the email marketing automation software, one is using to automate his customers follow up.
Online marketing is to exploit the business opportunities within the global computer network known as the Internet. In recent history, no other marketplace has opened with the ferocity of the Internet with a potential worldwide audience measured in the tens of millions. In order to compete in a marketplace that is open 24 hours per day, 7 days per week. Online marketing is equipped with tools that make marketing experts independent of their corporation’s physical locations. The very nature of the Internet, being a global network, allows one to operate with equal efficiency in each of target markets. The rapid emergence of advanced networking technologies and innovative software solutions has contributed to the Internet’s staggering 30% annual growth rate since 1990,creating a solid platform for rapidly growing e-commerce. Another edge the Web possesses over traditional marketing is the ability to display color, graphics, sound and even animation within each Web page at a cost significantly lower than traditional media publication opening virtual “malls” to distribute the products and services as well as new doors for online marketing. What should we expect with the future of marketing online? As the number of online users grows, and as the speed in which people connect increases, the online marketer will have many more tools available!
The growing prevalence of internet access has enabled new markets to emerge online. Perhaps best known among these market places is eBay, an enormous globally available auction house for products. The Internet has also allowed less common marketplaces to thrive by connecting buyers and sellers from disparate locations. Prosper and Globe Funder for instance enables anyone to offer loans or get loans from other people. Another example is eMove.com an affiliate of uHaul that enables anyone to offer or request moving or shipping services.The formation of online market places often occur quickly in response to social or economic trends. As gas prices were climbing through most of 2006, an online service sprang up called GishiGo that offers a marketplace where people can find ride share opportunity. Guru and IT-Globalized have come about from how the longer term trend of offshore outsourcing now is enabling smaller business to take advantage of lower prices offered by for instance web developers offshore.
Creativity is the single best tool anyone can have in marketing, and the same holds true for the online world. Marketing success by no means goes to those with the biggest budgets. You show me a major company that can be successful with a huge budget, and I’ll show you how a small group with little or no budget can also be successful. Remember the movie “The Blair Witch Project”? With around a $50,000 investment, the film’s creators had an exponentially higher return on their money than George Lucas did with the multimillion-dollar “Star Wars” prequel. Why? In 1998, two Stanford University students, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, created Google, an Internet search engine. Their success was founded in the fact that they could quickly and efficiently deliver relevant search results to their users. Google’s aim is ‘to make the entire world’s information readily available to everybody.’ Google is expected to capture 27.4 percent of the $21.7 billion in United States online advertising this year, far more than Yahoo’s 16.3 percent share, according to estimates by eMarketer, a research firm. Another report predicts,video ad sales are expected to grow from an estimated $775 million this year to $3.1 billion in 2010 and then to $4.3 billion in 2011. Surveys says nearly 80 million U.S. adult Internet users will do some banking activity online this year. That’s a 9.5% increase over the 73 million who did so last year. The report sees 101 million users in 2011.Naturally its all because online marketing has been successful.
Leading online retailers like Zappos.com know innovation and service grow a business,” said Vince Talbert, vice president of marketing at I4 Commerce, “Bill Me Later is a strategic marketing advantage for Zappos.com and other retailers because it helps them to build incremental sales by turning browsers into buyers. Retailers are quickly realizing that when customers feel secure making online purchases and have access to flexible financing options, they are more likely not just to buy, but to return frequently and spend more.” Millions of consumers rely on the safety and convenience of I4 Commerce’s payment solutions when shopping online, via catalog and in-store to help save both time and money. Disney is looking for direct sales as online digital music revenue is expected to mushroom to $1.7 billion this year, up 55% from 2006, according to eMarketer.
United Nations report says–Some developing countries are also using the Internet to market their agricultural commodities, with similar success. The UNCTAD report describes how online sales of tea and coffee can improve prices and producers’ earnings by reducing transaction costs and expanding market reach. Information technology (IT)-enabled services are projected to employ up to 1.1 million people in India by 2008. Worldwide, offshore outsourcing could generate some 3.3 million jobs by 2015, 2.31 million of them in India alone. Business process outsourcing service providers are also emerging in Bangladesh, Brazil, China, the Philippines, Romania, Russia, Singapore, Thailand, Venezuela and Vietnam.
More and more small businesses find it essential to market their products and services online. Customers are increasingly turning to the Web to research companies, compare product features and prices, and to purchase online. A company that does not take advantage of the Web and email to market their business can lose valuable customers. It has never been easier or more cost-effective to market online. If one is not using the Web to sell his goods, services or ideas or to make his corporate presence known on the worldwide scene, he is fast becoming a business dinosaur. We are in a global and cyber-economy and it is essential that one understand how to maximize his Internet presence on the World Wide Web, because it is not only workable but it is amazingly successful.

- Latest Popular Stories, Instablogs Community by Uneducated

Does online marketing work?