PDA

View Full Version : Cost Savings of Internet Marketing



KristineS
08-18-2008, 08:30 AM
I came across this article (http://www.internetworldstats.com/articles/art042.htm) which claims that marketing on the Internet can save you lots of money when compared with traditional marketing. The article was written in 2003, but it does make an interesting point. One thing displaying product brochures and catalogs on the Internet does is relieve you of the need to have printed materials and all the costs associated with those materials.

Still, I don't think having everything on the Internet would work for every situation. Am I wrong or right about that?

billbenson
08-18-2008, 01:35 PM
The point made in the article about being able to make instant changes is an important one. Pricing is an obvious example. People usually use pdf's for downloading printed documentation. I personally hate pdf's. There is a CSS for print. Lets say you have a large number of products and categories on a web site. You could probably dynamically create a printable catalog for a customer depending on what he was searching for. Instant custom product catalogs!

The savings over having stuff printed and throwing away obsolete stuff would probably pay for a decent color laser printer for the occasional current printed material you want. There would be some upfront cost in the web design though.

vangogh
08-18-2008, 02:47 PM
To me one of the main advantages of online marketing is how much more you can track the success or failure of your marketing. Offline if you run an add in the paper about a sale you're having and someone comes in and buys you may never know if that was a result of the ad or not. You can of course place certain offers specific to the ad to find out, but overall you're generally doing more guesswork offline.

On the other hand if you run an online store and place an ad through AdWords you can easily track what % of people who visit through the ad do make a purchase. As with offline marketing you won't be able to track everything. You still many not know if someone visited and bought later for example.

Still online it's easier to track specific marketing tactics with a greater degree of accuracy. That helps you refine your marketing more quickly and also helps you be more efficient since you have a better grasp of what does and doesn't work.

Leatherneck
08-31-2008, 08:52 AM
I was just thinking about starting another thread, but I came across this one and my question would fit in here.

With the internet marketing growing all the time. Do you think some day it would be jiust as costly as say a huge ad in the yellow pages or say even a nice magazine ad somewhere?

I was wondering if it will work its way too be just as, or not more costly with supply and demand?

KristineS
08-31-2008, 10:17 AM
In some places it already is, Mak. It depends on what you're buying. I've come across some web sites that charge a couple thousand dollars for a banner ad that runs for a month. It depends on where you're advertising online and what you want for you money. Not all internet advertising is inexpensive.

vangogh
08-31-2008, 10:57 AM
I think it depends on the type of advertising and where you advertise. For example it won't surprise me to see banner ads cost as much or more per month on certain sites than an ad in the Yellow Pages.

In general though the advantage of marketing online is that it's easier to track what works and what doesn't work. So while you might place an expensive ad you should know in a month whether or not that ad is bringing revenue to your company and whether or not to keep it another month.

Beyond the tracking online offers more than simply $X for 6 months of advertising. You can pay per impression, per click, per action, per sale, all in addition to paying per month.

orion_joel
09-01-2008, 03:01 AM
I think that the flexibility of online marketing is possibly the biggest advantage of all, there is flexibility at just about every point.

From your site, which you are able to include whatever information you want, and change this as often or not so often as you would like. You can make it as dynamic or static as you like. In comparison print marketing can be very definite, a yellow pages ad is fixed for a year, a magazine ad may need to be created and fixed a month before it will be shown and then is fixed until the next issue. Other printed marketing material may take weeks or months to properly prepare, and organize to have printed only to be redundant in 6 months time, and to have to go through the whole process again.

The other benefit of online marketing is the flexibility of advertising. While there are some fixed for a month or certain period's, many places you can advertise allow for changes as often as you like. Eg Adwords, can be adjusted on the fly, you can pick and choose your keywords to advertise against, you can trial your ads for a day a week or however long, if it isnt working you can change it and get an impression within an day of what the change is doing. As yet there is no way to do this with print media, in any sort of affordable manner.

In saying all of this online marketing still has it's flaws, and may not always be the best option. For example your market may be builders in Oregon, or Amateur Car racers in New York. While a website will be helpful, actually marketing online may not be as effective as print marketing. I think that it mostly comes down to the size of your market and how that market is use to being marketed to.

Leatherneck
09-01-2008, 07:22 AM
Thank you for all the input friends. I can really see an advantage in internet marketing. Unfortunately I feel in my business I still need to do some yellow page ads, because of most of my competition uses it still.

Another thing I have noticed this year that people are taking the phone book, sitting down, and just calling every Tom, Dick and Harry contractor in the book and asking for prices over the phone, if you say you can't give them a fair price over the phone they just maybe say thanks and go on too the next one down the listing in the book.

Another thing if they get an answering machine you just here click and no message, So that makes me think I have too hire a full time live answering service to work for me. Another thing too add to the overhead.

Things will be a lot easier once the word of mouth referals start too increase. Untill then I just have too keep working at trying too put the money where I feel works the best.

orion_joel
09-02-2008, 02:52 AM
Mak, you are absolutely correct, while the internet may be a more cost effective medium to advertise, there is still nothing like sticking to the tried and tested methods that all your competitors are also using.

There is no point in doing twice as much marketing for half the price if only 10% of the people are going to see it. While i do think that the internet will become the primary medium people will use to locate services in the future, as it stands now i think things like yellow pages, and classified listings are going to be the primary source of most leads for localized businesses.

Leatherneck
09-02-2008, 05:38 AM
Thanks Joel, I have noticed more and more people have told me they located me on the internet. So it is working.

Steve B
09-02-2008, 06:00 AM
I probably said this is a previous post, but I get 10 jobs from the internet for every job I get from the 5 different yellow pages I am in (that's is really the ratio - not just an estimate). I just increased my bids on Google's Pay Per Click yesterday as part of my - "if it works, do more of it" strategy. In my case, my product is high tech so it may lend itself a bit more to internet marketing than some others. But, the direction the yellow pages are going is quite obvious so you might as well get going on the internet stuff. I have to do both in order to make my phone ring often enough to survive.

Leatherneck
09-02-2008, 06:54 AM
Steve do you think the phone ad is there mostly for people that find you on the internet just use it too maybe check too see how legit you might be, or are you thinking of getting rid of it completely. I know I have an add in the yellow book this year and it allows me too also have a yellow book .com ad on the net also.

Steve B
09-02-2008, 10:18 AM
There may be some of that. But, most of the people that found me in the phone book had not been to my website also.

At the end of the year I analyzed the jobs that came from the phone book and it just barely covered its cost.

vangogh
09-02-2008, 11:19 AM
Admittedly I'm online a lot, but I can't even remember the last time I opened a phone book to find anything. It's so much easier to do a quick search online and find the same information. Much quicker for me too.

billbenson
09-02-2008, 11:24 AM
I throw out the yellow pages when they come. I suspect that is more of an age and education thing though. I'm sure my parents who are in their 80's use them.