What is E-Marketing? Advantages and Disadvantages of E-Marketing

There is no doubt about the fact that we are living in a digital era. Everyone is going digital whether it is for entertainment purposes, news purposes, money transferring you name it the digital world offers it. Although all the sectors of the economy are touched by the internet we are going to discuss one of the most important sectors; the marketing sector.

The Internet had an enormous effect on the marketing sector and that is what we are going to discuss today: “E-Marketing”.

What is e-marketing? Why so much craze?

E-marketing means electronic marketing. Marketing is conducted over the internet. e-marketing, online marketing, internet marketing are the few terms that are very often interchanged with one another. e-marketing is the process of marketing one's brand, product service, etc through the internet platform via computers, mobile devices.

E-marketing aims to attract new business, retain the old ones, and build one’s brand name. It acts as a medium to connect the customers who are looking for a product, service, etc and the business which provides it using different technologies and media.

The best part of the internet is that one doesn't need a lot of money to put their brand out in the world, everyone from small business people to large business people can use it to attract customers. It has become an essential part of the marketing sector and plays quite an important role as a useful marketing strategy.

Features of e-marketing

• Cost-effective: The billboards, newspaper ads, pamphlets that you might have come across many times before are not very cheap to come by, and for small business or start-up ventures these might not be the most affordable set up of marketing and that is one of the best features of e-marketing, with a limited resource one, is capable of reaching out to a large number of audience and cater to their needs without worrying about any limitations being put.

• Around the clock: Another feature that makes e-marketing even more important is the fact that it works on the 24/7/365 approach. It doesn't matter if one is around or not their business, the business continues and time certainly doesn’t interfere.

• Tangible ROI: It becomes important to measure the return on investment for all the marketing and business development efforts one puts in their business. The number of sales that business has made due to e-marketing becomes easier with the help of various automation.

Advantages of E-Marketing

There are several benefits of e-marketing and the ways it proves advantageous to us

• Instant responses: Sometimes there comes a post, story, etc which comes by and takes the internet by storm. The best part about it is that one can show their talent to millions of people and put forward their ideas, innovation, product, service and might get instant responses and even if not in a few days, being consistent with e-marketing helps business.

• Interactive: It becomes important to know what exactly the target customer wants or needs and to be aware of their desire one needs to be in touch with them due to the digital platforms it has become much easier to interact with one’s target group of customers and understand them.

• Accessibility: As I even mentioned before, e-marketing has made the business more accessible. People from all across the world can see the content and it might seem daunting but that is the beauty of digital marketing.

Disadvantages of E-Marketing

• Competition: With the brand being easily accessible in the world, there will be competition and the competition is furious out there with so many people entering the business and trying to make a name for themselves.

• Privacy and security issues: There have been cases of privacy breaches before and just like e-marketing offers us so many advantages there are also certain disadvantages like the personal details of a person might get leaked so one needs to be always cautious about that kind of breach.

• Maintenance cost: The technology is constantly changing and to be able to beat the competition one always needs to be ahead and that means adapting themselves to the changes which might not come by easier and taking some maintenance charge.

Like every other thing, e-marketing has its own set of benefits and boons but in the end, it depends on how it is used. if used properly it is capable of working wonders for business and if not the one has to suffer the consequence.

Written by - Aayushi kumari Singh