Marketing in the past was done through radio, newspaper and television medium because people used to see those medium but since today’s generation is hooked to their mobiles and laptops marketers had to find a way to lure such people to buy the goods and services of companies and they started using digital medium for advertising their products as well as services to consumers. Digital marketing as the name suggests refers to that marketing which is done on the digital medium, hence various advertisements you see while surfing the internet on mobiles and computers are examples of digital marketing, in order to understand more about this concept one should look at advantages and disadvantages of digital marketing –
Advantages of Digital Marketing
Cost Saving
The first and foremost advantage of this marketing is that it results in cost saving because unlike another medium of advertising where it costs a bomb to advertise your products in case of this marketing it is not that expensive and thus even small companies having a small budget can also use this medium to advertise their products and services to a large number of people thus grabbing maximum eyeballs for the company’s products and services.
Highly Targeted Marketing
Digital marketing can be highly targeted in the sense that one can use this medium of advertising for particular niche in an effective manner, hence for example if company provides homework help than it can advertise its services on educational websites or if company offers accounting and financial services than it can advertise itself on financial and accounting websites and so on. In simple words in this type of advertising company make sure that their products or services are visible to only those who are potential customers and not to all types of customers which is the case with other advertising.
Non-Stop Availability
Digital marketing is available at all times and everywhere unlike another medium of advertising which has limited availability, hence for example if company uses television advertising for advertising than company will have to advertise its product during primetime which is in evening time as maximum people see television during that time but if company advertises its products at midnight on television than only a few people will be able to see company’s advertisement.
Disadvantages of Digital Marketing
Dependency on the Internet
The biggest drawback of digital advertising is that this medium of advertising is dependent on internet and if there is no internet which is the case with many backward areas of developing nations than this medium of advertising is of no use. In simple words without internet digital marketing is similar to a car without gas just like without the gas car is of no use in the same way digital marketing without internet is of no use.
Requires Knowledge and Expertise
Another drawback of digital marketing is that it requires knowledge and expertise on the part of the company which only a few companies possess and if you do not have proper knowledge and expertise than digital marketing campaign can backfire and give negative publicity to company’s products and services. In simple words digital marketing is similar to fighter jet just like a fighter jet without a good pilot can do more harm than good, similarly, digital marketing without proper knowledge can do more harm than good for the company’s marketing campaign.
Low Conversion Rate
Another disadvantage of this type of marketing is the low conversion rate because out of 100 to 200 clicks generated for advertisement only 1 or 2 conversion takes place implying that only 2 out of 200 people actually buys the product advertised through this marketing. Hence if the company wants quick results than this marketing strategy may not prove to be an ideal strategy for the company.
As one can see from the above that digital marketing has advantages as well as disadvantages and that is the reason why any company planning to use this medium for advertising their products or services should carefully read above points and then decide whether to use or not use digital marketing for marketing its products and services.