When deciding that you are going to market you product or website online, there a few things to consider first before deciding if online marketing is the best way for you.  I stress that you should not put all of your marketing “eggs” into one basket, sometimes it’s best to use multiple marketing strategies.  People tend to be more attracted to cyberspace marketing opposed to other market areas because it requires less attention span, it’s younger, hipper, and easily accessible.  Companies use marketing online for several reasons,  the top five include  rapid presentation, easy modifications, low cost, buyer involvement and no limits to space or time. Marketing in a journal or newspaper can take weeks, or even months to get designed, printed and published. When creating an advertisement for the Internet it can be create fairly quickly. Normally you can have the ad designed and posted on the Internet the very same day.  Making a rapid presentation is a major advantage for getting your product/company name out there. When you want to change you ad that is online, it can be very simple. Usually much is not involved with these types of changes other than typing in some new copy info or uploading and positioning a new graphic image on a digital page. If you wanted to change something like a four color ad or Direct mail pieces it can be very expense, as well as time consuming.When thinking about marketing, cost is one of the largest concerns that people consider. For a magazine or journal cost given to reach a certain number of readers is measured by a formula known as CPM (cost per thousand) meaning the cost to reach one thousand people. However, for Internet advertising it is measured differently. In various cases when advertising online it can be essentially free, if you build your own BBS (bulletin board system). If you decide to go through an advertiser they may charge you as little as $50 a month for placement of your ad. Then after placement your ad may be hit (viewed) hundreds of times a day!!! Online ads offer more buyer involvement than a Direct mail campaign or magazine would.  Typically, it offers several levels of information in which prospected viewers can interact more to find the information that is of interest to them and retrieve this information immediately.  Magazines and Direct mail can also have people interact by having a reply mail letter for people to fill out or having a number for people to call to get more information.  Finally, there are no limits on space or time when your ad is online. You won’t necessarily pay more for more space online, like you would for Radio, TV or Magazines.  Some advertisers may change you buy the megabyte or according to how many pages are in your presentation. If you create you own Internet server you can place as much info as its hard drive can/will hold. 

In essence, advertising online is the new way to go. It’s faster, cheaper, and easier to update than advertising over the radio, TV, or in magazines. However like I mentioned earlier, don’t put all your money into one type of advertising. It would be in your best interest to try all different types of marketing to see what kind best fits your market.