It seems that the Internet has become so pervasive you would have to go to the most remote corner of the world to be outside its influence.  Perhaps a desert island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean comes to mind.  But even then, with the proper hardware, a determined individual could get onto the Internet via a satellite connection.  By now it should be no surprise that online marketing has become such a prominent part of many businesses’ strategy for brand exposure and product/service placement.  However, despite the fact that the Internet is such a valuable arena for marketing, there are still certain shortcomings.  This article will briefly examine both the benefits and the drawbacks of online marketing.

One of the most obvious benefits of online marketing is reach.  The widespread use of the medium, along with its ease of accessibility and myriad facets of interaction, has resulted in a user base numbering in the hundreds of millions (if not more). The speed at which new advancements are being introduced to the Internet continues to broaden its scope and appeal. For example, in recent years, the Internet has expanded to cell-phones, allowing people to access the web, instant message, and upload images and videos.

The plurality of uses allows the “online experience” to be unique for each individual. One person’s daily Internet routine (and I would contend that many of us have one) may be vastly different from someone else’s. We may each have our own set of websites we cycle through on a daily basis – blogs, forums, and news pages for instance, and we may have our own schedule of checking our email account(s). Additionally, information “gathering” on the Internet can be a dynamic experience, underlain by the abundance and accessibility of online multimedia. Missed the news broadcast last night? Log on to the website of your preferred news source and check out video clips of broadcasts. This breadth of options, and the dynamism of the various features, has opened up a tremendous spectrum of opportunities for online marketing.

But perhaps on an even more practical level, there is great upside in potential cost efficiency of Internet marketing. With the know-how and proper tools, a marketer can reach millions of people at a relatively minor cost. Knowing how to “optimize” for search engines, for instance, can raise the exposure of a website (and the individual/organization/product it represents) to a much higher level. Also, one can reach a large number of people via email at a relatively low cost of time and effort. Contrast this with the more traditional means of mail marketing.

Along with the positives there are also some drawbacks to online marketing. On a very general level, when something becomes so popular and easily communicated, certain traditional barriers of entry that maintained a kind of quality control are no longer present. In this way, it often seems that quality (however this may be construed in the world of marketing) becomes eroded by the surge of quantity. While there was (and still is) a definite amount of irrelevant material that comes into our mailboxes via “snail mail,” that quantity can seem to pail in comparison to how pervasive spam is. In 2008, an estimated 62 trillion spam emails were sent. On one level or another, we have all probably encountered this phenomenon.

Although there are some undeniable shortcomings to online marketing, the field remains, on the whole, a very worthwhile area for further exploration. The Internet is here to stay. Even in times of national an international economic distress one can expect millions upon millions of people worldwide to log on to their web browser, check their emails, or go onto a popular search engine. And, just as the Internet isn’t likely to go away, neither is online marketing.