Today’s economic climate

Deep into the recession it is very easy to make cutbacks in marketing and advertising.  However, statistics from the last recession in the 1980s point to the fact that companies that continued to spend on advertising and marketing came out of the recession stronger and ahead of their competitors when the recovery came around.  Therefore, it is important to work smarter and decide where and how to spend your hard earned marketing budgets.

Ads are everywhere

From the moment we wake up we, the consumers, are bombarded with marketing messages all day long and marketing is everywhere.  There are ads for cars, ads for beer, ads for fashion items, ads for holidays and lots of ads for all those gadgets that promise to make our life easier.  For the most part this is brand marketing and it doesn’t really register as we are concentrating on our driving our making sure we get off the bus at the right stop.  However, building brand recognition is important and when it comes to decision time we are influenced by what we have seen and heard.  However, there lies the problem.  Radio, TV and print ads can all be targeted at specific audiences, e.g.,  a  print ad for a quality Mercedes will do better in the Sunday Times Style supplement than in the local parish magazine! However, whilst it may be a targeted ad, it loses effectiveness because they are not hitting the target audience at the time when they are making a buy decision.

This is where digital internet marketing enters the equation.

All the recent reports and statistics are pointing to the fact that traditional newspapers and print magazines are losing circulation numbers and consequently advertising revenue.  For the first time in the UK, during the 3rd quarter 2009 the online spend on internet advertising surpassed that of the TV.  Today, we all have DVD players, SKY+ and TV remotes that allow us to skip past the commercials.  The rise of the IPod, MP3 players and internet and satellite radio has decreased the popularity of local and national radio stations.  The one form of advertising that is seeing tremendous year on year growth is the internet.  Used in the right way, the internet is an amazing opportunity to, not only provide highly targeted advertising and brand recognition to your target audience, but you can engage with your audience at all those crucial times in the searching, selecting and buying decision process – including right at the buy phase.

All forms of digital internet marketing are rapidly growing in popularity

As the online population continues to grow worldwide, so does the popularity of using the internet. In addition, the current economic downturn is forcing all those across the generation divide to hunt around for the best deals on products and services they can find. The internet is where these best deals are being found. Digital internet marketing offers your company an exceptional opportunity to allocate your marketing spend towards a medium that allows you to increase exposure to consumers who are actively seeking your product or service.  This is making the internet much more effective than other forms of advertising because it is targeted, effective and relevant.  It has been said many times before but this is the equivalent of McDonald’s only showing you a Big Mac commercial when you are hungry.