Advantages and Disadvantages of Electronic Marketing

Advantages

1. In any business organization, advertisement cost constitutes a major expense in the operations of the business organisation. However, Internet marketing has promised to significantly reduce the cost of advertisement. For example accumulating email addresses and sending newsletters through the Internet is relatively cheaper compared to traditional marketing strategies.
2. Due to the popularity of the Internet in the modern world, almost all organizations have a website. Making good use of the website can significantly reduce the cost of advertisement.
3. The ability of the organization to track the rate of return on investment. For example, click-through feedbacks as well as responses to emails from customers enable the organization to rate the effectiveness of their marketing strategies.
4. The instant delivery of the message enables organizations to make their marketing campaigns faster and facilitates immediate responses or communications between the customer care department and the customers.
5. It enables an organization to personalize messages or more effectively select the targeted clientele. For example, different electronic marketing strategies can be employed for the youths, professionals and other categories of customers.
6. It can easily and effectively be integrated with the traditional marketing strategies. For example, a brief advertisement on the print media can guide a potential customer to the company’s website for more detailed information on the product.

Disadvantages

1. Electronic marketing is limited by the ability of the consumer to access and use Internet services. Although there is an increased popularity of Internet services in the modern world, a large number of consumers are unable to use or have no access to Internet services.
2. It is important to note that spam filters that have become very essential to majority of the users are a major limitation to the effectiveness of e-marketing. There are concerns over the high number of commercial messages being filtered because the spam filters consider them illegitimate.
3. It has intensified competition which is a major barrier to new entrants in the global market.

I consider that electronic marketing compared to the traditional marketing strategies is cheaper and more effective. However, a huge section of the market has no access to Internet services. Although there are many advantages and disadvantages of electronic marketing, the advantages overweigh the limitations.

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