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According to the U.S Bureau of Labour, 15% of new businesses are unable to survive through their first year of operation, and only 50% make it past 5 years. Hence for any new business to stay afloat, it is important to drum up a crowd and customers. Considering the fast paced and intricately connected world of the 21st century, entrepreneurs must understand and make full use of targeted web marketing.
In the United States, the online marketing industry’s current growth rate stands at 20%. Using web marketing allows businesses to advertise based on audience’s interests and reach people across physical boundaries – this is especially useful for companies providing services which can be exchanged via phone/ email or where transportation costs of the physical goods are low.
Web marketing is the portal to personalized communication with the audience, at lower pricing and higher returns than print advertising. Keeping costs low on advertising will allow some wiggle room in expenses and open up the opportunity to re-invest in the business. Keeping funds focused towards more important things such as the actual good/service of the company will allow for overall improvement, which will in turn leads to more customers.
Spending as little as $5 per day for paid advertisements on Facebook for paid advertising can increase post reach by over 750 people, while the average cost per impression on social media can be as low as $0.38.These impressions are important because it imprints your brand in the viewers brain subconsciously, which causes them to gravitate towards your product without actually realising it.
An experiment was conducted in 1957 in which during a movie the phrase “Drink Coca-Cola” was flashed multiple times and a speed too high to be recognized by the conscious mind. At the end of the movie, coke sales at the concession stand rose to over 50% percent. This method of ‘subliminal advertising’ is similar to the idea of paying for increased impressions on social media – just entering an idea into a person’s subconscious can be enough to attract them towards your product. For example, just seeing the word ‘coke’ in this article, will increase your chances of having coke, as opposed to any other drink ,the next time you reach for a soda can.
Aside from paid marketing, many businesses also maintain a social media presence in the form of Facebook pages or twitter/Instagram accounts. As of 2015, there were nearly 30 million small businesses worldwide running pages on Facebook. Though statistics don’t support organic social media marketing as useful in gaining new traction, it is still significant in keeping current and past customers engaged with the company.
Researchers in Canada found that our attention spans have fallen from 12 seconds to 8 seconds in the past 15 years. This means that readers can no longer be expected to remember information from print ads and recall them while making choices. Having a web presence ensures that the audience is directly linked to your business and is continuously reminded of your goods/services.
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Jason Harris
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