Online Marketing is Sexy

We live in the information age where the byte and the click rule our lives. With technology advancing every day, new mediums are opening up for people to do whatever they want to do. Ever since the advent of the Internet, it has been evolving into something bigger and better, and it is now at a stage where the online technologies have become part of our desktops and our offline experiences.

Like everything else adopted the Internet, so did advertising and marketing which saw great potential in this medium as a cheap and effective way of doing business and reaching the masses (literally). The internet not only helps marketers reach a larger audience but it does it in a most efficient and cost-effective way.  Allowing marketers to target the consumer with the information available down to the dot.

Online Marketing comes in many shapes, sizes and forms of service. Of course because of the great potential some very smart people who think a lot of innovative stuff sat down and thought up of more and more ways to sell. Here is a list of some more commonly used online marketing techniques

1. Article Marketing
2. Inbound Marketing
3. Intext Marketing
4. Lead Scoring
5. Classified Advertising
6. Social Media Optimization
7. Mall Linking
8. Web Directory Submissions
9. Search Engine Submissions
10. Search Engine Optimization
11. Email Marketing

Now individually getting into what each of these terms mean I would have to write a few pages and this blog entry would turn into something unreadable so I`ll leave that part up to the curious reader to figure out.  I am however going to discuss some Advantages and Limitations of the technology.

Advantages

1. Relatively inexpensive when compared to the target audience reached.
2. Convenience for the consumer as businesses can now offer access to services instantly to the end user thus giving their consumers an added benefit
3. Marketers can easily measure detailed statistics. Since it’s on a computer, it can be traced, measured and analysed allowing businesses to tune their campaign on the fly. Knowledge really IS power.
4. Instant feedback. Marketers can get instant feedback from the consumers as they are required to visit a website in most cases
5. No boundaries. The Internet has broken all borders and allowed businesses to go global in a matter of weeks with a well developed online marketing plan and a website instead of waiting years to start offices in another region
6. Businesses are in a position to offer bonuses on product purchases because of the simple fact that they are spending less money in marketing that product
7. Online catalogs/Newletters are less expensive than traditional printed catalogs/newsletters

Limitations

1. Requires customers to use newer technologies rather than traditional media
2. Users with low connection speeds and on mobile devices might not be able to access information if marketers and businesses make complicated websites
3. The traditional way of touching, smelling and trying a product before one makes purchase is absent in this situaiton and some consumers might still want that before they purchase anything
4. Moving to internet marketing might be hard for a company, especially if they have to convince their senior management who have worked hard and manually for years to do what can now be done in minutes with a computer.
5. Security concerns. Consumers still fear giving out information online because of concerns about information security and their information being sold
6. Online marketing takes away that personal feeling that some people would actually pay a higher price for. Businesses may have to work harder to achieve better customer satisfaction levels

Online marketing in Pakistan is still fairly new but it is coming up quite fast and marketers have been quick to adopt it into their marketing plans. We might see a more widespread use of this technology in Pakistan.

In conclusion, Online Marketing IS Sexy!

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Category: Marketing