Internet Marketing: Expect Better ROI at Low Advertising Cost

Today, the internet has not only become the most used medium form of communication but also the most preferred form of advertising and marketing. While print & TV still are leading the pack, the internet is not too far behind. According to BIA Kelsey & Con-stat, 97% of the consumers start their purchase process online. This and the fact that internet marketing can cost a fraction of print or TV advertising, makes internet the most cost effective and viable marketing solution. Spend Less, Earn More For most small and medium business, print and TV advertising can burn a hole to the pocket. This is because, newspapers and magazines have a fixed price based on the size of the advertisement. Irrespective of whether people see the ad or not, business owners need to pay the entire amount for buying an ad space. This is exactly where internet marketing makes a huge difference. With online advertising, business owners can set an ad budget as per their requirements and spending capacity. Today, most advertising platforms work on a CPM or CPC basis. This means that marketers are charged per click or per impression. For e.g. If the local bread store has a daily budget of $100 to run ads on Google search, with $1 as cost per click then the ads will run until the limit of 100 clicks is reached. This means that if the limit of 100 clicks is not reached, the ads will continue to run. This makes online advertising extremely cost-effective. Search Engine Optimization – A Great Alternative Search engine optimization or SEO has arguably been the most resorted forms of web marketing. This is mainly because SEO is free and if business owners do it by themselves then they do not need to spend anything at all. However, most business owners do not have the SEO expertise and knowledge required to rank on the first page of Google, Yahoo or Bing, which is why they outsource SEO to professional internet marketing companies. This outsourcing can result in considerable marketing spend at the initial stage. However, once the website stabilizes its rankings, the company can enjoy long-term benefits, which in turn pushes up the ROI and lower the advertising cost in the long run. According to a study conducted by Hubspot in January 2012, inbound marketing that includes SEO, blogging and social media results in a whopping 61% lower cost per lead than outbound marketing that includes direct mail, trade shows and telemarketing. It shows that the average cost per lead for outbound-dominated businesses was $346 as against inbound-dominated businesses which average $135. These facts and statistics indicate that web marketing is definitely more cost-effective driving better ROI than any other marketing medium. These facts and statistics indicate that web marketing is definitely more cost-effective driving better ROI than any other marketing medium.