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Tracking The Rise In Online Marketing

Tracking GrowthWhile there’s been precious little to be positive about during this most brutal of recessions, one of the brighter lights in the retail environment has been the continued growth of online marketing. The platform itself may also have suffered during the 2007 to 2009 “great recession,” but it has continued to see growth during the entire period, quite unlike conventional or off-line marketing, which has actually seen a contraction.

It seems clear now as we start to emerge from the recession that internet marketing and online business is likely to lead the recovery forward. In fact, the recession has probably served to elevate the position of online marketing in the overall marketing sphere and many companies will now place much greater emphasis on this form of media and approach to their ongoing business model.

Unlike the original “dot com” boom and subsequent bust, Internet business is today much more mature and more grounded than its predecessor of the 80s. The fact that it has been able to weather the worst economic storm since the 1930s is testament to this position. Entrepreneurs are realizing that the consumer is turning in much larger numbers to online solutions in many areas of their lives. As the world gets more complicated, streamlining is the buzzword and it is much easier for consumers to interact with the Internet now than it was before, versus traditional methods of shopping.

Giant payment processor PayPal has just released its UK Online Retail Report. It suggests that a 137% rise in money spent online will take place during the next two years in Britain and £21.3b will be spent this way. Nine million adults already shop online every week and for every £14 that they spend, at least £1 will be spent on Internet purchases within the next two years.

These figures should give any organization that has not yet embraced internet marketing cause for concern. Major retailers will, however, be quick to reflect on the revenue that they have earned through online marketing during the recession and will surely start to redesign their business models accordingly as they push forward.

While marketing spends on traditional media may have been cut back and may indeed remain in remission, more emphasis is likely to be spent on online marketing as it produces a much stronger “bang for the buck.” It will become much harder to justify spend on the traditional media methods.

While people do not actually stop purchasing during a severe recession, they are more targeted with their pocket books. The severity of this latest recession seems likely to have ingrained any significant changes that consumers made and it is likely that online marketing has risen to a new position in the pecking order. This metamorphosis will undoubtedly result in significant online marketing growth going forward.

Have you seen a significant growth in online marketing?

Matthew Toren

Matthew Toren
 

Matthew Toren is a serial entrepreneur, mentor, investor and co-founder of YoungEntrepreneur.com. He is co-author, with his brother Adam, of Kidpreneurs.org, BizWarriors.com and Small Business, BIG Vision: Lessons on How to Dominate Your Market from Self-Made Entrepreneurs Who Did it Right (Wiley).

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