The emergence of globalize trade, increase in 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 given that 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 offers free promotion. Too often, these entrepreneurs focus on the disadvantages of Internet Promotion and fail to adequately take advantage of the opportunities that it presents. Moreover, their preoccupation with conventional marketing strategies is driven by a misconception that these are cheaper than Internet Promotion.
For the majority of small business entrepreneurs, marketing or promoting their products or services via 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
Convenient and Enduring Marketing Strategies
The Internet has become the information superhighway for the buying public. Most people prefer the hassle free transactions that Internet shopping can offer. As a result, the Internet has become the most powerful selling tool. Internet Promotion offers cost effective ways for small businesses to improve their distribution network of products or services. 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 presents the advantage of reducing the budget and storage costs, when compared with printing brochures, producing television or radio advertisements or managing a call center. It presents a fast and cost effective solution to penetrate new markets.
market penetration
With millions of people using the Internet to search for products and services, small businesses can penetrate other markets at a fraction of the cost of traditional marketing methods.
web site act as virtual 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 be able to reach literally millions of potential customers and to position itself for success, without the need for costly infrastructure and overwhelming marketing costs. Thanks to the Internet, new businesses can become popular almost overnight.
Low Cost, Instant Communication
Email makes business communications instant, whether the customer or business affiliate is across the street or across 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 business in a cost-saving machine and virtual income generating. The net result is that the small business can gain significant competitive advantage in a given market.
Many online businesses have therefore resorted to the use of ezines, blogs, pop-up ads and other online marketing tools to let customers know about new products or services, as well as providing relevant information for their respective sector. The advantages of this strategy are two fold. Marketers can effectively increase brand awareness for relatively new products on the market, while strengthening customer relationships, with shorter time.
Content is timeless
Internet Promotion also provides the advantage of being long-lasting. Whereas participation in a trade fair or conference loses sales impact, once it's over, and an ad in a newspaper or business magazine may quickly lose its sales generating value within a day or two, or as soon as the the next issue is released; Internet Promotion is often timeless. Apart from the dates and sometimes prices, much of the website content remains valid years after.
Real Time statistics to measure the success of the promotion campaign
One of the most significant advantages of Internet Promotion is that its success is measurable. Market can use tools that provide real-time statistics, on unique visitors, repeat visitors, click through rates (CTR) on advertising, enabling them to evaluate the effectiveness of a promotion campaign. This enables marketers to determine what works for their particular market and to make timely changes in their marketing strategies.
DST
Another important advantage of Internet Promotion is that it saves time since it generally does away with counseling on the uses and benefits of the products, service information and sales administration . Visitors can access "frequently asked questions" to help themselves, and can buy online, without the involvement of staff. This saves time and money. So whether 10 or 10,000 visitors visit the site, the increased cost is marginal whilst the savings can be immense.
But like any business approach, Internet Promotion is not without its risks and weaknesses.
Disadvantages
difficulty attracting customers
small business may not have the resources to pay for paid inclusion directories, pay per click inclusions and often have to rely exclusively 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 costly venture 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 is who" in internet marketing to develop campaigns that generate traffic and leads.
difficulty of assessing the legality of the transaction
Another significant disadvantage of doing online promotion is that it can be difficult for businessmen and consumers to thoroughly evaluate the legitimacy of a transaction. Small businesses are particularly vulnerable to thieves using stolen credit cards and stolen information to make online transactions.
With Internet credit card and identity fraud 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 entrepreneurs are isolated. There is little personal contact between customer and seller before and after the sale is closed. Thus, the prospect for repeat sales can be made smaller. Entrepreneurs are therefore compelled to adopt marketing strategies to drive users to their site.
From all indications, it appears that the advantages of Internet promotion, far outweigh the disadvantages. With the proper knowledge, entrepreneur can benefit significantly from Internet promotion, the owners of small businesses in particular.
More and more, the growth and popularization of the Internet, its simplicity and accessibility for customers is becoming inevitable. Small businesses would be well to start their web advertising function in order to improve their competitiveness online.
0 Komentar