Why should you advertise on the internet?

	As we move into turbulent times, many business owners are looking at ways to run their businesses more efficiently and cut right down on expenses. This is not the time to cut down on your advertising but rather make sure you are spending your advertising budget wisely. If people can’t find you, they will find your competition. The internet provides an economical and effective advertising medium. The benefits of advertising online include:
	Cost effective. The cost of advertising online is considerably cheaper than traditional media.
	More space. You can communicate a larger amount of information about your business to your target audience online. Through animation, video and interactive adverts you are able to get more information on your business offering to your audience. Even a static banner advert with limited size specifications, have click-through capabilities which means your audience can click through to your website to find out more.
	Speed. An online marketing campaign is quick to get online and quick to update. It is also quick and easy to extend the reach of the campaign.
	Availability. Your advert is available 24/7 for the period you have purchased. You have a longer exposure time for the period which you have paid.
	Pull form of advertising. Through the use of keywords on the search engines, you are attracting an audience who is not only searching for your product or service, but is already receptive or open to it.
	Unmatched tracking capabilities. You are able to obtain stats on how many views your advert received and how many click-through’s there were to your website. Monitoring the effectiveness of your online advertising through web stats means you can change those adverts that are not working or re-use those that are. Traditional advertising media is like shooting in the dark.
	Highly targeted audience. You can target exactly who sees your advert resulting in a highly receptive audience. Internet users are more affluent, better educated and more willing to spend money.
	Flexible reach. You can decide exactly how much of that targeted audience you can afford to reach.
	Customer database. Through database driven projects or adverts such as competitions and e-newsletters, you can quickly collect current data on your target audience.
	Direct response. Your target audience can respond immediately to your adverts by clicking through to your website to learn more or even buying from you immediately.
	Rapidly growing audience. The number of internet users grows rapidly every month.