Top 20 Advantages Of Internet Marketing For Your Business

Mass marketing isn’t what it used to be. Large corporations still use radio, television and print media to reach consumers. But they have also embraced the internet.

Mass marketing works if you need to communicate to a local audience in a specific area. But the internet is a global phenomenon.

Everyone has a mobile device and more people are using the internet on a regular basis than ever before.

So the fact that internet marketing has begun to displace mass marketing isn’t that big a shock. Mass marketing is too broad, too heavy-handed.

Internet marketing, on the other hand, takes a very intimate approach when it comes to reaching consumers and converting them into loyal clients.

It sands the edges off larger companies, giving them a human voice. Consumers do not want to feel like they are talking to a massive, faceless, media machine. They want to feel like there are real people behind the products they buy and the services they use.

The internet does that. Of course, internet marketing still has a long way to go. There are plenty of corporate entities that have refused to adopt digital media. Their reluctance comes mostly from ignorance.

They have failed to fully comprehend all the opportunities that internet marketing can bring to the table, benefits that include the following:

1). Cost

This is where mass marketing falls apart. Advertising via radio, television and even print media is very expensive.

In fact, it is for that reason alone that small and medium-sized companies have steered clear of mass marketing. They cannot afford to weather the financial rigors of a traditional advertising campaign.

For decades now, larger corporations have benefited from this disparity, using their considerable financial muscle to gain and maintain a foothold in the marketplace

This explains why small and medium-sized businesses are embracing internet marketing faster than their larger counterparts.

The internet as a marketing tool isn’t just cheap. In some cases, it is absolutely free. It doesn’t cost you anything to open a company page on Facebook or to create an account for your business on Instagram.

You don’t have to spend a single penny to enter the homes and lives of every single person in the world that has an internet-enabled device.

2). Convenience

The internet is convenient. It makes buying and selling products, offering and delivering services a simple and straightforward process.

With the press of a few buttons, you can get an appliance delivered to your doorstep, a website designed, a shirt made all without ever having to leave your bedroom.

That same convenience is just as evident when it comes to marketing. You can create multi-layered marketing campaigns all on your own. You don’t need to hire expensive marketing teams or to engage in lengthy but largely pointless brainstorming sessions.

You don’t need to negotiate contracts with TV managers or to haggle over the prices of newspaper ads with editors.

If you have an internet-enabled mobile device on hand, then everything you need to reach your consumers is just a few clicks away.

3). Targeted Marketing

Mass Marketing is very wasteful. They call it mass marketing because you are basically creating a message and broadcasting it towards anyone and everyone who might care to listen.

In other words, you are spending large amounts of money to reach out to an audience half of whom probably have little to no interest in whatever you wish to sell.

Internet marketing is far more strategic. It divides consumers into segments and then helps you tailor and focus your marketing message towards those circles that you actually want to reach.

It takes the guessing game out of marketing. You can design messages knowing full well that they will reach the exact ears that want your product.

To be fair, mass marketing can still generate interest in the people it reaches, even if they don’t fall within the bracket you want to target.

But internet marketing goes the extra mile. It will generate curiosity in potential buyers and then turn them into serious buyers. Studies have proven that online marketing produces far higher conversion rates than traditional marketing.

4). Tracking

Marketing is all about trial and error. You have to prod the market, gauge the response, and then react accordingly.

But doing so is much easier when you have an accurate means of tracking the results of your marketing efforts.

And this is where internet marketing tends to shine. It has been suggested above that traditional marketing is a guessing game. And that is very true.

Whenever you broadcast a message, all you can do is hope that it will reach the people who actually want your product. You can’t know for certain that it found its target audience.

More importantly, there is no way to determine how effectively your message spoke to the people you wanted to reach, at least not until your sales start to either rise or fall in response.

But most companies, big and small, can’t wait that long. Marketing campaigns are a commitment, especially the traditional kind. So if you blunder along the way, you won’t realize it until it’s too late, until your revenue begins to suffer.

Internet marketing takes the guesswork out of the equation. It makes available tools like Doppler and Google Analytics which, when used properly, will help you track the effectiveness of your marketing campaign. For example, keyword “SEO London” with CPC $15 has convention rate 15.16% at same time “London SEO Company” cost $7, but convention rate around 5.5%.

You will find it so much easier to identify weaknesses in your approach and to quickly resolve them before any lasting damage is done.

In a way, the trial and error’ aspect of marketing remains the same. But you can counter your failures quicker and more effectively.

5). Multi-Tasking

Internet marketing is cheap for a number of reasons. First, as mentioned above, most of the tools you need to reach your audience you can utilize for free.

But second, and most importantly, the internet makes marketing teams unnecessary. Small businesses avoid mass marketing primarily because of the expenses involved with renting time on television and radio.

But on top of that, they also lack the experienced marketing personnel required to make a mass marketing campaign work.

So it is only natural that they would embrace the internet. The platform has transformed marketing into a solo endeavor.

You don’t need anyone to help you manage millions of user transactions from all corners of the globe whilst also making ads, juggling social media accounts, and nurturing relationships with other enterprising minds.

Internet marketing isn’t just convenient. It is very easy to use. And as a result, you can carry out a multitude of activities simultaneously.

You just have to arrange your online resources and tools in a manner that allows you to access them from any one of several mobile devices. That way, you can keep working even when you’re on the move.

Now, of course, managing your own marketing campaign while also running your own business can prove exhausting.

But if you have no other choice, especially if you cannot afford to hire additional manpower, it can be done.

6). Reach

This goes without saying. If you are using the internet as a marketing tool, then you are bringing your product to a global market.

Mass marketing doesn’t have that kind of reach. It is greatly limited by geographical factors.

The most expensive mass marketing campaigns will still keep your message restricted to a specific country. Now, most large businesses would kill for an opportunity to attract national interest.

And yet, even the public awareness that an ad on national television generates pales in comparison to the furor that a single viral video can produce.

The internet will take your message to the entire world. No other medium can compete with that. Smartphones are everywhere today and so is the internet.

7). Automation

A number of large corporations are still using mass marketing because they don’t know any better.

They have spent so many years using mass marketing methods and garnering great success as a result that the idea of changing tactics and giving the internet a chance makes no rational sense to them.

But you also have small and medium-sized businesses that have refused to join the internet marketing movement out of fear.

They think the internet is too complicated but they are wrong. You don’t need any technical knowledge to make the internet work for you because many of its processes are automated.

With just a few clicks, you can collect emails, track user activity on your websites, generate unique content, and manage social media accounts to mention but a few.

In fact, the only task of significance required of you is to identify and purchase tools like AdRoll and Eloqua that you will use to bring order and simplicity to your marketing activities.

If you can find the right tools, you can engineer any marketing strategies and campaigns you can dream of with great ease.

8). Consistency

Because internet marketing works on automated systems, it isn’t bound by physical limitations.

The same cannot be said for traditional marketing mechanisms. Ads can’t run on television all day. TV Networks have other programs that have to take priority over any message you need your consumers to hear.

The same applies to radio. Print media is even more heavily restricted. Today, most people only invest in newspapers and magazines when some major event occurs.

On most days, they are happy to simply skim the headlines and move on, which means that your ads have a higher chance of going unnoticed.

Interestingly enough, traditional marketing mediums have fallen in popularity primarily because most people spend most of their time on the internet.

And that is great news for internet marketers because the internet never stops. Once you create and publish an ad on social media, it keeps running.

Your company blogs will remain available and in the faces of your consumers for as long as your website stays up. The same goes for videos on sharing sites like YouTube.

The internet puts you in a position to appeal to your consumers 24-hours a day 7 days a week. You don’t need to put up with breaks or interruptions.

The right tools and the right strategies will ensure that you maintain consistent visibility online.

9). Diversity

Mass marketing is a monolith. It is almost immune to change. Large corporations have spent the last few decades using the same old techniques and tactics to market products, both new and old, to consumers, both new and old.

They have tried and mostly failed to stay abreast of contemporary attitudes. They do not have the capacity to account for new preferences.

This is because they are bound by the limitations of traditional marketing mediums like TV and radio which also haven’t changed that drastically over the years.

Internet Marketing moves with the prevailing trends. You are not bound by any specific rules and limitations.

You have at your fingertips a wide variety of tactics that you can use to appeal to an equally varied audience. Your imagination is your only limitation here.

10). Data Collection

Data is so important to marketing. Before you can broadcast a message that sells a particular product or service, you need to know what your target audience wants.

You have to figure out what imagery appeals to them, what marketing language they understand, and that is where the internet comes into play.

First of all, the majority of consumers use the internet. Secondly, most such consumers have no qualms about providing vital data to the corporations from whom they make all their purchases.

Thirdly, the internet is chockfull of tools that will help you collect, organize, and process this consumer data.

And this doesn’t just refer to all those forms that certain sites expect you to fill out when you visit. There are tools that will track every single action a consumer carries out on your website.

You can accurately determine what drew them to your site, which pages they frequented and what they disliked.

If you can acquire such data, then you can make changes that will drastically improve the effectiveness of your marketing strategy.

Mass marketing also provides avenues for collecting and processing data. However, those avenues are not quite as extensive or accurate as what you might encounter on the internet.

11). Transactions

Online transactions are not just simple. They are practically instant, and that matters because internet marketing is heavily dependent on online transactions.

Whether you are a consumer buying a product online or a business owner that needs to pay for a Facebook ad, third-party processing companies like PayPal are all the rage today because they are vital tools for anyone looking to transact online.

And they can be trusted to take all the complexity out of your dealings with a consumer or an online marketing firm. They will secure your financial information whilst also making certain that you are adequately defended against any fraudulent activities.

Online transactions are not perfect by any stretch of the imagination. But the problems with which they are associated are worth it for the convenience they offer in return.

12). Flexibility

It has already been mentioned above but it bears repeating. Marketing is a very experimental field.

You have to try and fail before you can stumble upon success. But that means being ready to enact changes to marketing plans and campaigns that fail to achieve their objectives.

The problem with traditional marketing schemes is that they are very resistant to change. A mass marketing campaign that has already begun to run is like a train. You need a lot of time and money to change its course.

And even then, if you made mistakes along the way, you can’t truly mitigate all the problems that will result in the long run.

This doesn’t apply to internet marketing. The internet is so malleable that it doesn’t take much to make alterations to even the most complicated advertising plans.

All your tools are virtual, so you can bend them to your will with little effort. This, in turn, means that you will have an easier time staying abreast of changes in market trends.

13). Time

The internet isn’t only cost-effective. It is also time-effective. Yes, you need a lot of tools to market your wares online.

From Web Push Notifications to Autoresponder, you have to keep a diverse collection of applications and programs on hand in order to effectively manage your marketing activities.

But once you have all your tools within reach, internet marketing doesn’t just become easy, it also becomes quick.

This is what automation does. It allows you to execute multiple tasks simultaneously over a very short period of time.

You can create websites, organize marketing lists and notify customers of new products within mere minutes. Forget about spending days and weeks drawing up blueprints and pinning brochures.

With the right tools, you can juggle all your marketing objectives while also managing the day to day aspects of your business, all this without sacrificing your sleep or your social life.

14). Relationships

The internet does an amazing job of nurturing strong relationships between companies and consumers.

Mass marketing has struggled to stay relevant because the tactics it uses lack intimacy. They make the companies in question feel distant which, in turn, casts their products and services in a negative light.

Internet marketing gives companies human voices. It allows consumers to communicate directly with the people behind the products and services they use. This, in turn, builds loyalty and encourages repeat businesses.

15). Variety

The internet is a very variable marketing tool. It is ever changing and that is a good thing because consumer preferences are constantly changing.

Mass marketing really falters in this area because it isn’t particularly flexible. It only has access to a small collection of techniques and methods when it comes to communicating with the market.

It is also bound by the limitations of traditional mediums like television and radio. The internet, on the other hand, has the capacity to tailor its messages and even the delivery systems to its audience.

You don’t have to approach an Asian child the same way you would an Indian adult. Content can be personalized to suit specific sections of any given society.

16). Endurance

The internet doesn’t forget. Once you create and deploy a marketing ad, it will stay online forever, working behind the scenes to attract new buyers and convert curious visitors.

Of course, products and services don’t market themselves online. Web developers have a role to play. But the effort they need to inject into an online campaign to keep it going is minimal.

Traditional marketing cannot even begin to compete with that sort of staying power. Mass marketing strategies are like fires that you have to consistently feed to keep them in the public eye.

17). Proliferation

Online marketing campaigns go everywhere. They are not restricted by time or geography.

Every time you create and publish an ad, you have the capacity to reach every single man, woman, and child in the world.

Your reach is without physical limits.

18). Conversation Rates

Your chances of turning curious consumers into serious buyers are far higher with internet marketing.

The internet allows you to hit consumers exactly where it matters, to create messages that will appeal to their unique sensibilities.

If consumers are like ships, then the internet is like a rudder that has the exact resources you will require to turn them in any direction you desire.

19). Level Playing Field

The internet is fair. Small businesses, medium-sized businesses, and even individuals cannot hope to compete with large corporations when it comes to mass marketing because they don’t have the financial resources to make that field work for them.

But internet marketing cannot be mastered through financial muscle alone. Anyone can dominate the market so long as they know how to manipulate search engine algorithms and social media trends.

This creates a level playing field.

20). Adaptability

The internet works for everyone. It doesn’t really matter what type of business you’re in. Internet marketing can be shaped and molded to fit any business model or market base you can think of.

The key is to apply ingenuity.