Wednesday, August 22, 2012
Internet Promotion - Advantages and disadvantages
The emergence of globalize trade, increase foreign investment and cross-border transactions have put many small businesses under pressure to find innovative ways to continue to market their products and services. This is especially difficult because they often operate on tight marketing budgets.
In the search for cheap marketing alternatives, these small businesses continue to use traditional marketing tools such as newspaper advertisements, magazines, radio and television, unaware of the advantages that Internet Promotion offers. Too often, these entrepreneurs focus on the disadvantages of Internet Promotion and fail to properly take advantage of the opportunities it presents. In addition, the concern with conventional marketing strategies is driven by a misconception that these are more economical Promotion Internet.
For smaller businesses, market or promote their products or services over the Internet can be a daunting task. However, with adequate information small businesses can benefit significantly from Internet Promotion while minimizing the disadvantages that it presents. In fact, it may prove to be the marketing strategy that generates the highest return on investment.
The advantages
Cost effective marketing strategies and Enduring
The Internet has become the information superhighway for the buying public. Most people prefer the operations without any problem that purchases Internet can offer. As a result, the Internet has become the most powerful sales tool. Internet Promotion offers cost effective ways for small businesses to improve their product or service distribution networks. For example, the use of portals can help create new marketing channels and logistics, or provide better or faster product access for customers.
In comparison to other forms of marketing, Internet promotion has the advantage of reduced budget and storage costs, when compared with printing brochures, producing television or radio advertisements or managing a call center. It has a fast and convenient way to penetrate new markets.
Market penetration
With millions of people use the Internet to research products and services, small businesses can penetrate other markets at a fraction of the cost of traditional marketing methods.
Web sites serve as storefronts, allowing businesses to stay open 24/7. Internet Promotion gives a business greater visibility, thereby creating more opportunities for increasing its customers at relatively low cost. It has never been easier for an upstart business to reach literally millions of potential customers and to position themselves for success, without the need for costly infrastructure and overwhelming marketing costs. Thanks to the Internet, new businesses can become popular overnight.
Low Cost, Instant Communication
Email makes business communications instant, whether the customer or business affiliate is across the street or around the world. It makes it easier for customers to maintain contact and readily facilitates repeat purchasing. An effective online strategy can therefore turn a small web company in a cost-saving and income generating virtual machine. The net result is that small business can gain a significant competitive advantage in a given market.
Many online companies have therefore resorted to the use of ezines, blogs, pop-up ads and other marketing tools online to help customers learn about new products or services and to provide relevant information to their respective sectors. The advantages of this strategy are two times. Marketing can actually increase brand awareness for relatively new products on the market, while strengthening customer relationships, with shorter times.
The content is Timeless
Internet Promotion also provides the advantage of being durable. Whereas participation at a trade fair or conference loses sales impact, once it is finished, and an advertisement in a newspaper or business can quickly lose its sales generating value within a day or two, or when the next issue is released; Internet Promotion is often timeless. In addition to dates and prices, sometimes a lot of your web site remains valid years after.
Real-time statistics for measuring the success of the promotion campaign
One of the most significant advantages of Internet Promotion is that its success is measurable. Marketers can use tools that provide real-time statistics, unique visitors, repeat visitors, click through rate (CTR) on advertisements, allowing them to evaluate the effectiveness of a promotion campaign. This allows marketers to determine what works for their particular market and to make specific changes in their marketing strategies.
Save time
Another important advantage of Internet Promotion is that it saves time because it usually does away with counseling on product uses and benefits, service information and sales administration. Visitors can access "frequently asked questions" to help yourself, and you can buy online, without the involvement of staff. This saves time and money. Thus, if 10 or 10,000 visitors visit the site, the cost has increased marginally, while the savings can be immense.
But like any business approach, Internet Promotion is not without its risks and weaknesses.
Disadvantages
Difficulty of attracting customers
Small and medium-sized enterprises may not have the resources to pay for paid directory inclusion, pay per click inclusions and often have to rely solely on search engine optimization or word of mouth to drive traffic to their sites. With millions of businesses selling the same product and services, competing with more established businesses can be frustrating and expensive undertaking for small businesses.
On the other hand, larger companies can offer promotions, pay for directory inclusions, implement pay per click campaigns as well as employ the "who's who" in internet marketing to develop campaigns that generate traffic and leads.
Difficulty of assessing the legality of the transaction
Another major disadvantage of doing business online promotion is that it can be difficult for business people and consumers to evaluate carefully the legitimacy of a transaction. Small businesses are particularly vulnerable to thieves using stolen credit cards and stolen information to make online transactions.
Internet credit card fraud and identity on the rise, small businesses are forced to finance costly security measures to reduce their vulnerability to fraudulent transactions.
Vendors and customers are isolated
Another disadvantage of promotion via the Internet is that customers and business people are isolated. There is little personal contact between buyer and seller, before and after the sale is closed. Thus, the prospect for repeat sales may thus be diminished. Entrepreneurs are therefore compelled to adopt marketing strategies to drive online users back to their site.
From all indications, it seems that the advantages of Internet promotion, far outweigh the disadvantages. With adequate knowledge, entrepreneur can benefit significantly from Internet promotion, business owners, particularly small.
Increasingly, the growth and popularization of the Internet, the ease and accessibility for customers is becoming inevitable. Small businesses would therefore be well to start their web advertising function, in order to improve their competitiveness in line....
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