Pros and Cons Of Internet Marketing

Being an effective medium of business promotion, internet marketing is regarded as a godsend for businesses that need quality promotion of their products or services at an affordable price. Also known as eMarketing, online or internet marketing has created a revolution owing to its nominal cost of advertising. Online marketing, because to its interactive nature and around the clock availability is a much more accessible tool than a conventional offline marketing campaign but comes with its own set of limitations and security concerns.

The pros and cons of Internet marketing are briefly discussed below.

Advantages

Online marketing is way cheaper than its conventional counterpart when you compare it as a ratio of money spent while marketing to the number of potential customers reached. A very small part of the total capital is required to reach an even wider market through eMarketing.

Online shopping of products and services can be performed at the customers’ own convenience and is not time bound. Tedious and exhausting market surveys and research as required in conventional market system are not essential in internet marketing and the customer can research and purchase his product out of a huge range of products while sitting in his living room. The products thus purchased can be delivered at their doorstep in the specified time.

All kinds of statistics about all kinds of products are available to Internet marketers. Online advertising can be carefully measured through methods like pay per click (ppc), pay per impression (ppi) and pay per play (ppp) and then only the ads that are the most appealing to the customer may stay. Billboard advertising fails in this case.

According to 2007 statistics, the growth of Internet marketing is faster than any other type of marketing media owing to its overall efficiency. The customer response is much easier to follow than in other kind of offline media.

Disadvantages

Internet marketing is an ever-growing phenomenon and requires the customer to constantly upgrade his/her computer hardware and software in order to have a complete and comprehensive view of the products that marketers are offering. One of the biggest barriers is a low-speed internet connection. Although 90% of the American households have high speed broadband connections, the conditions are not so similar over the rest of the world.

From the perspective of the buyer, there is one serious drawback. A customer cannot touch, taste, smell or try a product before making an online purchase. This can become extremely limiting even with rich multimedia advertising. This problem has though been countered and the customers are offered value added services like ”product return-money back policies” if they do not like the product that they have purchased.

Besides these drawbacks, security is a major concern. As far as the sensitive information like credit card numbers etc. are concerned Customers are sometimes hesitant to buy products online because of their lack of trust in marketing websites. Companies that engage in online businesses often claim that they will keep the customer information private and confidential but have time and again been caught selling information.