Online Marketing, Local Search and Mobile Search to Drive Six-Fold Increase in Internet Traffic

By: Bruce Online

Recent survey numbers highlight how Internet traffic is growing exponentially and is poised for a 600% increase by 2012. The huge increase in Internet traffic comes at a time when the convergence of mobile search technologies and local search capabilities will drive the growth of online marketing, local search and mobile search to similar heights - while driving foot traffic to businesses large and small that have a "digital footprint" in today's surging digital economy.

Staggering numbers from worldwide networking leader Cisco Systems predict a six-fold increase in global traffic on the Internet, highlighting the increasingly important role online marketing and internet advertising will play for businesses large and small as consumers increasingly move online to do both shopping and "Windows shopping". Cisco released its Visual Networking Index (VNI) Forecast for 2007-2012 on June 16th, which predicts that we will see a 600% increase in Internet traffic by 2012. Cisco's VNI projections predicts that Internet traffic will double roughly every two years as a result of "a combined annual growth rate of 46 p[er cent form 2007 to 2012.

The key component in this surge of Internet traffic will be video streaming. Cisco predicts that by 2012, "video traffic alone will be 400 times the traffic carried over the U.S. portion of the Internet in 2000. Increasingly, marketing agencies and advertisers are moving off traditional media and moving online to exploit the consumer movement to the Internet. Significantly, much of this consumer movement online will result from the increasing tendency of consumers to access the Internet from handheld mobile devices - a trend that will only increase as RIM, Nokia and other cellular phone and mobile device manufacturers move to keep pace with Apple that just recently released its next-generation 3G iPhone.

Cisco is predicting that mobile data will roughly double each year from 2008 to 2012, highlighting the importance that mobile search will play in an emerging digital economy. Jupiter Research, a leader in online research analysis, has projected that annual revenue from mobile search revenues are expected to hit $US4.8 billion dollars annually by 2013.

As technologies converge, the driver behind these anticipated huge jumps in online advertising and mobile search numbers is - not surprisingly for those who have been tracking the emerging technologies of Web 2.0 - local search. Jupiter predicts that in the emerging digital economy, local search will be the most popular service amongst all advertisers and will attract 40% of all mobile search ad spending between 2008 and 2013.

The convergence of technologies that is fostering the growth in mobile search, and particularly local search, was illustrated by Google CEO, Eric Schmidt. Sitting down for a much-publicized interview with CNBC's Maria Bartiromo earlier this spring, the head of the search engine giant touted how improvements in mobile search capabilities on advanced mobile handhelds (such as the BlackBerry or Apple's iPhone) combined with advances in Google Maps and Google's local search capabilities are making real time, and precise geopraphic local search a reality.

"(W)henever I fly somewhere," Schmidt told CNBC, "I open up ... my iPhone or my BlackBerry, and, boom, there's everything in my world as I've landed in a country I've never been in. It's a remarkable achievement." Schmidt notes that Google has been tracking the huge increase in use of Google Maps local search technology. "(T)here's been a huge increase in maps, Google Maps, hugely successful," Dr. Schmidt reports. "(W)hen I want to go to the equivalent of a Starbucks, I just type "Starbucks," it says it's over there. For me, that's just a huge--a huge improvement. And that service is available almost everywhere in the world."

What is common practice for Google's high-flying and technologically enriched CEO is increasingly becoming commonplace for the digital consumer on the street. The predicted growth in internet traffic, together with the radical shift of advertising dollars to online marketing and the growing tendency of Internet-savvy consumers to take up mobile search, clearly forecast where commerce and e-commerce is headed. While there may still be local niche markets that depend on foot traffic to drive their business, increasingly it is a company's digital footprint that drives customer traffic to its online site or storefront. And the vehicle driving that electronic traffic is mobile search. As online traffic balloons between now and 2012, the importance on local search, mobile search and online marketing will also balloon.

The Top 10 Reasons Why Online Marketing Dominates Traditional Advertising

By: Assassin Marketing

Online marketing has become the most successful method of advertising for any kind of business on the planet during the last decade. It is lightning fast and can promote your business to thousands of potential customers daily. As marketing is a primary factor for a long and successful business, the internet facilitates this process in a way that will ensure the maximum exposure to what you are offering.

Traditional marketing is becoming more expensive and slower to produce results. It also requires much more time and effort. It often has to be done by many employees and is restricted by many barriers and regulations which make it hard to get the most beneficial results. Then along comes the internet as it makes the entire globe seem like a short alley rather than a large city where you can reach customers overseas in a matter of seconds. Online marketing is superior to traditional ways of marketing in almost every aspect, and here we list the top 10 reasons online marketing dominates traditional advertising.

1. SPEED

Email marketing campaigns are fast, targeted, cost-effective, highly efficient method of marketing your business. They reach a lot of customers in the shortest time. Traditional mail marketing can take months and a lot of money and effort to generate results.

2. GEOGRAPHICAL RESTRICTIONS

The whole globe can be your customer base when you are marketing your business online, as the internet reaches almost every house on the planet. On the other hand, you are often restricted to local customers from a smaller geographical area when you market offline.

3. MARKETING EFFECTS

Online marketing is based on pull marketing effects, which means that online customers come across your website when they are looking for similar products of yours. While offline marketing is based on push marketing effects, which means you have to introduce your business to every single customer that come into your location.

4. SALES PROCESS

When your business is marketing online, you can make a sale in a matter of seconds; where the customer chooses what product or services they wise to buy, they move to the check out page, pays for the product or services on a secure page, and then receives their purchase. Offline advertising is very different as the selling process is very complex and requires a lot of effort and persuasion and sometimes can't be completed after all.

5. HOURS OF OPERATION

Your website is self-managed and requires you only to make few changes, and after that it can operate non-stop and can be selling products or services while you are sleeping. Offline stores are restricted to the human active times, this means you open in the morning and close in the evening and you can't make a sale while you are closed. In other words, the offline selling process has a shorter sales life than the online one.

6. COST OF MEDIA

If you want to make a commercial on TV or radio or a newspaper, you will pay a fortune. While online marketing allows you to make a short video or audio commercial and submit it thousands of media communities and it will cost you next to nothing.

7. LIMITED ADVERTISING LIFE SPAN

When you post an ad online about your business or website, with an article for example, it can be online forever and the place where the ad occupies will be untouched for a long time. On the other hand, offline ads can be only active for an agreed-upon period of time and then it will be replaced.

8. COST PER CUSTOMER

These costs are reasonably low with online marketing but relatively high with offline forms of advertising. They are simply the costs incurred to generate potential customers for the business.

9. CUSTOMER SUPPORT

With one email you can solve all your customer problems and concerns. This process is much more time consuming and require more effort offline.

10. ONGOING MARKETING INFORMATION

It is very easy and only takes a few seconds to collect all the information and data about every aspect of your business when you market online. Offline information and data are stored within piles of documents, where it requires a squad of employees to collect the required information.

As you can clearly see, online marketing is far superior to traditional forms of marketing. Online marketing is all about saving you money, time, and effort; yet brings you the required results you seek and most of the time exceeds your expectations.

Top 10 Benefits of Online Marketing versus Traditional Types of Advertising

By: Assassin Marketing

An old school marketing tenet says that you have to spend money to make money. Sure, when putting up a new business or expanding an established one, you have to spend on additional capital as well as advertising. But in the current state of economy, you have to think a lot before spending. So, when it comes to advertising in this technology- driven but sagging economy, it is best to put your bet on online marketing than traditional advertising types- and here are ten reasons why:

1. "Branding" is out, and measurable return of investment is in. Traditional marketing is great for building brand exposure, that is, if you have a large budget for marketing. But for the small- to mid-sized businesses, online marketing is the smart way to go. When you put an ad on TV, radio and newspaper, you have to wait for certain period of time before you can tell whether your product or service is doing well. With online marketing, you can have a daily reading of how much of the traffic you get is actually converting to sales or not. With that, you can make immediate business decisions for your company.

2. Information in a flash. One major benefit of online advertising over traditional advertising is that you don't have to wait for months before you launch your product or service. In fact, you can publish any information and content immediately and not limited by neither geography nor time.

3. Quality exposure. When a person passes by a billboard or sees an ad on TV, you cannot tell whether he or she is interested in what you are selling at that time or whether they will be interested in the future or whether they even noticed the campaign. However, a person clicks on an ad in the web when he or she is interested. With online marketing, you actually get your target market.

4. Cost-effective exposure. How much does a TV spot cost these days? Running a small ad in a paper for a day can already cost you a couple hundreds dollars - more if the paper has a wider circulation. However, not all of those who read the papers even read your ad. Some people just click to some other channel on TV when the commercials come on. However, you still have to pay for their viewing your advertisement. Even with pay-per-click (PPC) and other forms of paid online marketing you only pay for the views of people who are interested in your service/products. SEO is even more cost-effective in the long run because it could give you quality exposure for a relatively small financial investment.

5. Prime position. With traditional advertising you pay more to have your ads displayed in a place where it can be seen by the most number of people (Prime time on TV, for example or a billboard on a busy highway, etc). With successful online marketing your position is always prime position. Good SEO will help you rise in the search engine results pages for relevant searches, making sure you're right there when people want you.

6. Long-term exposure. You can only place a certain amount of advertisement on TV for a few weeks, on the papers, for a day - but with good SEO, you can maintain the same site for years. However, online marketing can complement traditional media by providing directories towards previously made advertisements or those of other brands.

7. Online marketing is best for brand engagement. Studies reveal that among customers, particularly non-techie female internet users with children under 16, the Internet has a greater effect on brand engagement than print media, TV and outdoor advertisement. Brand engagement is one of the factors that ensure brand loyalty among customers. And in this time of recession, it is important to maintain buyers.

8. Online marketing provides insight and other interactive mediums. Studies also show that the internet also has a crucial role in the propagation of indirect experiences of brands through customer reviews. Online video directories for brands are a good example of interactive advertising. Customers can also choose to visit the brand's website, or interact with the advertiser through other channels such as email, chat or phone. Response to brand communication is instantaneous, and conversion to business is very high.

9. Website users buy more online than average newspaper users. In Germany, Internet users are enthusiastic online shoppers, as well. Before making a purchase, either online or in a store, many German consumers research the product on the Internet. By 2005, online buyers rose by 7%, taking the total number of online shoppers to 27.4 million.

10. Product information. Almost as important for consumers was the search for product information. Research online was particularly popular wherein it came to slow moving consumer goods such as cars, domestic appliances, consumer electronics, mobile phone contracts and furniture. During this time of recession, people think a lot before they spend their money. With free and rich information online, people don't mind doing a little research and reading some reviews and recommendations before they go and buy certain products.

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