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The Flevy Blog covers Business Strategies, Business Theories, & Business Stories.
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Editor's Note: Take a look at our featured best practice, Digital Marketing Plan (34-slide PowerPoint presentation). Introducing our new and improved digital marketing template plan designed to capture your audience's attention, generate interest, create desire, and prompt action (AIDA model). This template is not just for a one-time campaign but for ongoing business activity. It's perfect for [read more]
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The Internet allows us to do so many things, even some of the manual tasks that we have to do like shopping, we can already do while sitting in front of our computer in the comfort of our home. When we browse the Internet, we usually see advertisements for various products and services embedded in the sites that we visit. Have you also noticed that the product ads that we see somehow relate to our needs and preferences? You may think that it’s pure coincidence, but it’s actually not. Online advertisers make use of algorithms to target potential customers of a specific product or service. But let’s go back to how digital marketing came to be.
The dawn of digital marketing
The introduction of the Internet in the last couple of decades paved the way for advertisers to look for other avenues to promote their clients’ products and services. They found their answer on the Internet. The ads that we usually see on TV or read in newspapers or magazines took the Internet by storm. And because we now rely on the Internet to help us do virtually anything, we can see ads popping up on the sites that we open and on social media where billions of people all over the world spend hours and hours of every day browsing.
Easier targeting of market
It is now easier for businesses to focus their ads on their preferred demographic. When we sign up on a website, they usually ask us a series of questions, and other sites use this information to tell them what type of internet user you are, from your age, preferences, etc.
Advantages over offline advertising
Offline advertising has a limited audience. Only those who pass by a billboard, the store, read a newspaper or magazine and watch TV and listen to the radio will become aware of the advertisement. Online advertising, on the other hand, has a far wider reach. Since the Internet is global, one ad can reach billions of people all over the world. If your business is international, all the better. Your target market will become aware of your products and services in real time. It is also easier to expand a business if it reaches a wider audience. Most offline advertising methods are paid ones. You must hire a professional advertiser to create a compelling ad to entice your potential customers. But with online advertising, you can create content yourself, particularly on social media where you can post photos and text only to promote your products and services. But for search engine marketing and optimisation, you will need the services of a professional digital marketer for the job.
Even though online advertising is very popular, offline advertising is not going away soon. It will still flourish even if digital marketing is taking over. Still, many businesses prefer to put up banners printed by companies like UK-based Roller Banners and give away flyers and leaflets on sidewalks. Both online and offline advertising will continue to go hand in hand in helping business owners grow their ventures.
You can download in-depth presentations on Digital Marketing Strategy and 100s of management topics from the FlevyPro Library. FlevyPro is trusted and utilized by 1000s of management consultants and corporate executives.
For even more best practices available on Flevy, have a look at our top 100 lists:
These best practices are of the same as those leveraged by top-tier management consulting firms, like McKinsey, BCG, Bain, and Accenture. Improve the growth and efficiency of your organization by utilizing these best practice frameworks, templates, and tools. Most were developed by seasoned executives and consultants with over 20+ years of experience.
