Why Should I Have An Online Marketing Budget?
The majority of your customers are now online. 87 percent, actually. Regardless of whether you are a B2B or a B2C company, a sizable percentage of your marketing budget should be allocated to an online marketing budget.
A Closer Look At An Online Marketing Budget
While the revenue from broadcast and cable television advertising combined equaled more than 70 billion dollars in 2013, studies like this one showcased in Forbes reveal that online advertising is a strong contender which might equal or exceed all television advertising in the near future. Internet advertising is indeed a rapidly growing market: while internet advertising revenue exceeded 40 billion dollars in 2013, in 2014 it reached almost 50 billion dollars!
The number of Americans who watch television is rapidly declining as video streaming from sites such as Netflix and Hulu are becoming more popular. ABC and other news outlets now offer online streaming of their television shows. It’s only a matter of time before the big, boxy living room television becomes as passé as radio.
Where are you spending your advertising dollars?
It’s more important now than ever before to increase your online marketing budget. The majority of your advertising dollars should be spent to appeal to customers where they spend most of their time.
And, increasingly, they’re spending the majority of their time online.
Here’s where you should spend your online advertising dollars in 2015:
Email Marketing – According to a survey of 350 digital marketers by GigaOM, email marketing is the most effective method of digital advertising for customer retention. In order to keep your customer base happy in the digital age, be sure to invest in marketing automation software in order to email market to your current and prospective customer base.
Display Advertising – Often called banner advertising, this type of advertising appears next to genuine content on web pages and email accounts. Since it often looks like it is endorsed by the web page it is on, users tend to trust these types of ads more than other advertisements. This is a great ad to use to attract website visitors into your online marketing funnel.
Search Engine Marketing – SEM includes search engine optimization and search engine advertisements. 92% of adult internet users use search engines to find information. Ignore search engine marketing at your peril.
Social Media Marketing – As email attracts more and more spam, social media marketing might become the best place to nurture qualified leads and retain current customers in the future. Find out which social media your customers frequent and actively engage them in real time.
Mobile Marketing – With the advent of smart watches, the market for mobile applications and mobile advertisements is only going to continue to grow in the future. Over a billion people current use smartphones, and that number is only going to continue to grow in the future.
The advertising game is changing rapidly. By next year, there will be a new medium of advertising growing faster than ever before. If you want to continue to meet your marketing objectives and increase your marketing ROI, be sure to keep up with the times. Do your research. Find out how your clientele is accessing their information and advertise in those places.
