Online marketing / Adverttising

Online Advertising and Marketing Name Course Professor Date The onset of the internet era has changed the way of life. Internet is used for almost everything; from communication, education and entertainment. Most importantly, internet took business to higher level. Online business has led to lots of benefits such as brand visibility, global advertisement and reaching the target group with the intended message. Many advertisers ceased the opportunity of ecommerce which can be proved by a report courtesy of eMarketer. This report indicates that online advertising grew by a margin of 23% in 2011 in the US alone. This was way over the $32 billion previously speculated. This was the same trend in 2012. Online spending is continuously growing, therefore, organizations and business with an online presence need to keep abreast with changes in online practices lest they lose future opportunities and customers (Demiray 2011). Online marketing comes with lots of pros to both growing and established businesses. These include a huge presence in the worldwide market. A huge presence promotes the visibility of a company leading to increased number of customers presently and in the future. In addition, current online practices have shown that ecommerce companies target specific prospective customers. This has led to customer involvement in the marketing and also customized marketing. Such promotes satisfaction to the target group and thus more sales. eMarketer indicates that online advertising and marketing is cheap and affordable compared to print. Even though some online marketers become a little expensive, the quality, service and the increased leads are guaranteed (Demiray 2011). This is justifiable. Also online marketing and advertising makes it possible to gauge the success of an online advert. It becomes extremely difficult to measure the success of print advertisement such a billboard. Through online marketing the firm can truck data on the advert by monitoring the subject lines, open rates and click-through-rates. This makes it possible for the ecommerce company to maximize on customer needs and also correct any flaws in the advert (Levinson 1995). The advertising essentials don`t change with online advertising. The purpose of advertising is to increase the awareness of prospective customers in order to sway them to purchase the product or service being offered. The best practices of online marketing and advertising consist of a model with four distinctive steps. These include: attention, interest, desire and action. These steps aim at addressing not more than six areas of online marketing. First online marketing needs to integrate well with the bigger picture of the business advertising including its marketing plan. This means that for overall efficiency, online marketing need to work in harmony with other forms of marketing such as print and promotional efforts. Secondly the firm needs to have a well laid out online advertising plan. The plan ought to indicate the target audience and the advertising objectives. A well stated advertising objective is the second important area. This will answer questions like; what will the advert achieve? What is the purpose of the Advert? Online advertising may be due to various reasons like creating awareness of the firm or the product. In addition the advert may be tactical such as influencing the response of the target group (Plummer 2007). Thirdly, in order to achieve the set objectiv...