Marketing online versus traditional marketing: What can we choose to be sure being known globally?
More and more companies which support strong brands start to abandon traditional ways of marketing and traditional communication channels like television, radio, printed press or events to convey their message. Thus, Pepsi, which was present for years on the “SuperBowl”, the biggest football event in USA, withdrew to participate in 2009.
Representative of Pepsi Co. justified their decision by saying that their communication strategy had changed and the participation in these types of event was no longer a priority for the company.
Why a migration from “offline” to “online”?
Companies find more and more methods to reach their target in the virtual environment. Thus Coca-Cola affirmed that a modern company had to search their customers on Google and on social networks like Facebook and Twitter. Coca-Cola thinks that the company has to use these new methods to create the homepage of the company rather than coca-cola.com
Online, the audience is not limited by geographical barriers and the brand is exposed to an international public. In addition, it can be easily measured by visits on the website or number of “fans” on social networks. The marketing department can easily access a depth analysis of the audience. Moreover, the message is delivered quickly and the return is almost immediate, which greatly simplifies the evaluation of results and facilitates decision-making.
In comparison, a marketing and communication strategy, based on traditional media, is geographically limited and its impact is difficult to measure. Furthermore, the influence of a traditional campaign on sales cannot be measured easily. Finally, advertising space on these media is not really cheap, making it inaccessible to small and medium companies.
These are all explanations for the migration of marketing communication to virtual media, accessible, less expensive and more effective.
Online marketing to open up to international
E-marketing has distinct advantages over traditional marketing strategies. We present here some of them:
- - Opening: The Internet provides SMEs with a limited marketing budget the opportunity to waive their local roots and become global companies with the advantage of costs’ control.
- - Interactivity: The e-marketing creates a continuous communicative flow between the company and its customers, giving a more dynamic relationship with any business. On the other hand, the communication is constant, thus, the company can effectively assess the trends in consumer behavior and can act accordingly.
- - Immediate impact: Imagine, you’re in your favorite chair, you’re reading a newspaper and you see an advertisement for a product that interests you. The newspaper advertising convinced you, but to have the product you need to go out, shopping to find it, and eventually buy it. This action may take several days while if you see an advertisement online for the same product, you can purchase it in few seconds. Online, the consumer has the advantage of saving time and the company can easily measure the impact of its campaigns.
- - Targeting: E-marketers must be very careful when they reach their target demographically. Customers are not a compact group that has purchasing power. They are tempted to organize themselves into groups centered on common interests and creating niches very receptive to messages that relate to their point of interest. The web facilitates the identification of these specific groups and dissemination of marketing messages to them.
In any strategy for online marketing, SEO (Search Engine Optimization) techniques are essential. The research for the keywords most relevant, the constant analysis of search habits on the target market and the website optimization for search engines are required for a good visibility. Therefore, the content of the website must be qualitative and adapted to the target market.
A good SEO and an effective communication adapted to the target audience will finally bring a positive return on investment and purchasing decisions more favorable to a company.
Article by Dan Aldulescu, responsible of marketing strategies online at Lingo24, an international translation company.
Laura G.
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