Features
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Online Advertising. Why Advertise?
Is internet advertising the "new media?" Television had the name about 40 years ago, then cable TV took it. Today, the internet is finding itself in the same position. The question is, does online advertising in any form belong in company's advertising budgets? Yes. Why? Because that's where your audience is. Advertising and marketing isn't about the message or the creative. It's about communicating to your audience, where ever they are.
Where are the people?
As audiences move their attention to this "new media", advertisers who want to stay in the game, follow them. Forrester Research reports show that regular PC users gave up valuable sleep time to spend time on their computers, and gave up the most time in front of the television. Audiences are moving to a more interactive control over what they spend their time doing. On the internet, they can zip through mounds of historical data, surf top-rated entertainment sites or purchase practically every form of product or service through the internet. And they control it. The television's remote control only offered them minimal control over the content. Consider how many channels there are on television, then compare that to how many unique sites there are on the web. It's simple math.
Who's online?
Internet advertising really began in 1994, when the first banner ads (HotWired, Oct. 1994), were sold and the first web browser, Netscape 1.0, was released. Since then, every major research institute has been conducting studies to determine who is online. Past studies and recent studies come back with the same demographic composition. While approaches vary, they are consistent in their findings. The internet users are young, well-educated and high-income. The internet marketers dream group. Both men and women use the internet in nearly equal amounts.
Why?
The internet offers exposure. Targeted exposure. Through single pages at a time, ad banners, micro-sites, destination sites and e-zines companies are build brand awareness online sometimes better than they can on television or print advertising. Most of the time at a fraction of the cost. Since their first appearance on web sites, banner ads have been through the ringer when it comes to standardizing ad rate costs rationale. Page impressions, click-throughs and other metric systems have offered some reliability in reporting, but many sites vary on what they offer. But one thing is clear, each advertising avenue does register more top-of-mind brand awareness than those who don't advertise. It goes back to the premise of being where your audience is most.
Advertising online will continue in developing better technology to measure results, so your company's presence on the internet will be more important with each passing day.
Whether you choose to advertise now or later. Online advertising is here to stay and now more than ever your audience is searching the web first. You want to be there when they do. Contact Empire for more information on where and who you can advertise with and how to get started. |
