Saturday 25 July 2015

Online Advertising, E-Commerce & Internet Marketing

The internet has become the center of popular advertising and marketing nowadays. While traditional direct mail, billboards, radio and more are still utilised, and have their advantages now that there is major focus on the search engines, Google has redefined what it means for a business to succeed.
There is no doubt that the Internet is at the heart of almost every successful brand's marketing strategy. From your local 'mom and pop' shops, local lawyer firms, bulk-buy goods and products stores, to fortune 500 companies - Google drives a massive amount of traffic to these digital and physical storefronts.

It's by the use of internet a business can start to tell people about their services, products, and actively promote special deals and offers. They can then improve their customer service by asking customers to leave feedback. Once you have customers on your e-mail list, you can send them digital brochures and information about your products and services. If a business has created a modern website to present products, their end goal is to get a lot of qualified, relevant people, searching for that solution, to visit the site. That is why it is important to create a memorable name, have a presence on Google, and drive traffic to your website by using Google based internet marketing (search engine marketing) campaigns, such as Search Engine Optimisation.

There are hundreds-of-thousands of e-commerce enterprises, and tens-of-thousands of them selling their wares online, and often-times through the use of Google, have proven to be more marketable brands. They promote their products and services through their website and the difference is their focus is the online sphere. They do not only use websites, they leverage email lists, social blogs and social media sites like Twitter, Youtube, and extend their products onto pricing distribution and comparison networks (i.e. Shopbot and MyShopping). By doing this, they are able to carry out national and international marketing campaigns.

E-commerce has been proven to be very effective. One of its advantages is that it allows more opportunity to reach a large audience. Customer service can also be significantly improved by purchasing directly from a website. The reach is tremendously larger, and while there is a great upside, there are a lot of considerations to think of, such as website design, pay-per-click advertising, search engine optimisation, safe payment gateways, and the higher possibility of fraud purchases, only to name a few considerations.

Online marketing takes advantage of the internet to drive direct sales using electronic commerce. The most successful companies use in conjunction with the Internet, traditional methods of advertising such as television, radio, newspapers and magazines. Online advertising and marketing can be drilled down into three areas which are email marketing, web marketing and social media marketing.

Email marketing comprises of both promotional and customer-connect efforts by using e-mail messages to the customers in the form of newsletters, personal emails, and sales catalogs. Since e-mail is cost-effective, businesses can take full advantage of this to tell potential and existing customers about their latest offers at the drop of a hat. By using e-mail messages, special products and offers can be pushed into the marketplace overnight. This can help drive instant traffic to a built up emailing list.

Furthermore, social media marketing is about leveraging social networking sites such as Twitter, Youtube, Facebook and Digg, and many others. Establishing a presence on this social media sites can help you communicate directly with target customers and connect rather than just communicate. A customer can feel a part of the brand, rather than just an end-user of the product. It is used by many businesses to promote their services online, engage with customers and also, build credibility,  reputation, and one of the most incredible things is the ability for a company to create omnipresence. After all, where the attention goes - the money flows. These are crucial tools to allow you to reach out to target customers online.