How to Meet the Challenges of Modern Marketing
Combining Different Types of Online Advertising is the Solution
Apr 12, 2009
The Internet has now taken over from traditional media such as radio, television and newspapers as the biggest medium of mass communication. Since advertising is a key marketing tool for communicating a brand to the largest number of potential consumers of a product or service, the use of online advertising or Web advertising, has become the best strategy for marketing a brand to the largest target audience.
So long as some consumers remain glued to traditional media as their source of information, the use of traditional advertising will continue to be important but it should be used mainly with the view to complementing Web advertising and not on its own. Whether one is running a small or larger business, advertising in the traditional media can no longer be an alternative to those placed on the Internet.
What Is Online Advertising?
Online advertising can simply be defined as a promotional activity carried out through the medium of the Internet or the World Wide Web, for purposes of delivering marketing messages about a product or service to potential consumers with the ultimate aim of attracting more such customers to the product or service in question. As the days pass by, different ways of connecting people through the Internet are developed. Similarly, web developers and technicians continue to develop different ways of advertising on the Internet.
Types of Online Advertising
The following are some of the common types of Internet advertising.
• Online classified advertising: This is usually a text-based advertising and may be just a piece of information such as a telephone number that one may call for more information. It can also sometimes have more detailed information such as name and address of contact person, place to visit or a brief description of the product. Sometimes a logo can be used in online ads.
• Social network advertising: This is used to describe the type of online advertising that focuses on social network sites such as advertising on Facebook, my space, among others.
• E-mail advertising: This is a direct marketing technique that involves the use of electronic mail as a way of communicating commercial messages to potential customers.
• Contextual ads on search engine results: this is also a form of targeted advertising that appears on websites or other media forms. The advertisements are selected and displayed through automated mechanisms. The ads displayed are usually those match the web content of an opened site.
The choice of any of the above types of Web advertising may depend on a number of factors such as cost of the type of advertising, the brand or product to be advertised, location of business and potential consumers.
Advantages of Online Advertising
Advertising on the Internet has several advantages including the following:
• Opportunities for personalised messages to be delivered to individual target audience or group of audience with similar characteristics. An example of this is e-mail marketing
• The use of the World Wide Web makes it possible to communicate commercial messages to a large number of audiences worldwide. For example, through advertisement on the World Wide Web, a small Nigerian business entity can market itself to worldwide audience and thus become a player in the global marketing game.
• The Internet makes it possible for different innovative ideas to be employed in advertising.
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