“Why online marketing?” Believe it or not it’s a question we do still get. But we’re not going to belittle anyone. We understand that there are perfectly legitimate reasons and personal preferences for some businesses to still not have ventured into online marketing as yet and that’s fine. But for those wondering why it’s something that they should explore (or for those who are already engaged, struggling a bit and wondering why they should continue), there is one main reason that cannot be ignored forever to dive on in and that’s the fact that internet marketing is most assuredly not going anywhere. Its growth is undeniable and it would take nothing short of some sort of apocalyptic event to turn back the tide of technological progression. This knowledge naturally leads to the conclusion that there will be very few businesses who don’t need to eventually take advantage. But don’t take our word for it, here are a few more detailed reasons.
Internet Uptake
It might seem to those in the developed world like there isn’t much more room for the internet to grow, but between 2010 and 2017 in the Asia Pacific region alone, the percentage of connected population went from 23% to 43.9%. It is only up to 48.8% currently so even in our own region (for the fellow Aussies reading), there are a lot more customers coming to the market in the coming years.
Worldwide the figures aren’t much bigger, rising to 48% in 2017 from 30% in 2010 and sitting at a current global average of 56.1%. We can barely begin what the internet will look like as we edge closer to full planetary coverage but one thing is for sure; as a business you will have opportunities you could never have dreamed of with regards to reaching new customers.
Platform growth
As far as platforms go, despite all the unhelpful panic mongering around the death of certain platforms, all of the major ones are continuing to grow strongly year on year.
Zuckerberg’s baby grew by 251 Million users from the 4th quarter of 2017 until the first quarter of 2019 and it’s showing no signs of stopping. It’s by far one of the most effective means of interacting with your customers in real time and forming lasting bonds with them that will ensure a more meaningful and fruitful relationship. It’s also important not to forget Instagram (which is owned by Facebook), having hit 1 Billion monthly users as of June in 2018! Your Facebook Advertising platform penetrates this market by default so it’s a valuable extension of your efforts.
This one is two-fold. Both Google Ads (formerly Google AdWords) and SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) can take advantage of the growth of this platform and its growth is still something to behold. Currently Google receives over 36,000 searcher per second. That’s 5.6 Billion searches per day. The Asia Pacific region alone accounts for around 46% of all internet users, so combine those two statistics and businesses asking “Why online marketing?” have a pretty powerful reason to jump aboard. Not only that but we’ve barely even touched on the targeting options available via these various platforms so don’t confuse these blunt numbers to be a suggestion that we think you should throw mud at a wall and see what sticks. There are numerous ways in which you can be highly targeted and precise about who you put yourself in front of. Let’s look at a case study.
Case studies
We’re not going to point out any particular examples here. The reason for that is that a quick Google search will show you that the internet is positively riddled with success stories. Naturally we want to present you with evidence as any good marketing custodian would, but we won’t present other’s findings as our own. However outside of Googling these things for yourself (which we’d strongly recommend you try), we can definitely recommend you take a look at this article from Wordstream in January of this year, this paper from Swinburne University of Technology on Australian case studies, these success stories around Australian online businesses from Business Insider and this great story on some of the internet marketing campaigns that stuck out the most (in all the right ways) to the search marketing institute.
Honestly, we don’t expect that there are a lot of people to convince in 2019 that digital marketing is worth exploring, but if you’re one of those people then we hope that something above speaks to you and inspires you to get started. Mostly however, we expect that this article could be read by those who are losing faith a bit and might need some encouragement to continue. We can assure you, there is a place for you online, you just have to get the approach right and keep at it. It was never easy, but it most certainly is worthwhile once you crack it.
As always, if you’re still asking “Why online marketing?”, would like us to elaborate on anything above or would like to explore internet marketing in Brisbane and beyond then please feel free to get in touch! You can also leave us a comment below if you’d like to continue the conversation below.
