Should all businesses use E-Marketing?

The Internet has brought media to a global audience. The interactive nature of e-marketing in terms of providing instant response and eliciting responses, is a unique quality of the medium. E-marketing is sometimes considered to have a broader scope because it not only refers to the Internet, e-mail, and wireless media, but it includes management of digital customer data and electronic customer relationship management systems.

All businesses may see e-marketing in the positive light because of the many forseen benefits.
According to the Business Link Guide by the UK, e-marketing gives businesses of any size access to the mass market at an affordable price and, unlike TV or print advertising, it allows truly personalised marketing. Some benefits of e-marketing include:
Global reach - a website can reach anyone in the world who has internet access. This allows you to find new markets and compete globally for only a small investment.
Lower cost - a properly planned and effectively targeted e-marketing campaign can reach the right customers at a much lower cost than traditional marketing methods.
Trackable, measurable results - marketing by email or banner advertising makes it easier to establish how effective your campaign has been. You can obtain detailed information about customers' responses to your advertising.
24-hour marketing - with a website your customers can find out about your products even if your office is closed.
Personalisation - if your customer database is linked to your website, then whenever someone visits the site, you can greet them with targeted offers. The more they buy from you, the more you can refine your customer profile and market effectively to them.
One-to-one marketing - e-marketing lets you reach people who want to know about your products and services instantly. For example, many people take mobile phones and PDAs wherever they go. Combine this with the personalised aspect of e-marketing, and you can create very powerful, targeted campaigns.
More interesting campaigns - e-marketing lets you create interactive campaigns using music, graphics and videos. You could send your customers a game or a quiz - whatever you think will interest them.
Better conversion rate - if you have a website, then your customers are only ever a few clicks away from completing a purchase. Unlike other media which require people to get up and make a phone call, post a letter or go to a shop, e-marketing is seamless.
Together, all of these aspects of e-marketing have the potential to add up to more sales.

With the technology that exists today, many businesses are taking advantage of the internet to promote their goods and services. But are all the businesses equipped enough or know their market well enough to do this?

I do not believe all businesses should use e-marketing strategies. For instance small business that may lack knowledge of technology should not use the internet to try to sell. Hardware safety and quality assurance, software that facilitates the unique business requirements, setting up or tagging with online payment channels, online distribution costs, maintenance of site and upgrading are all the requirements for a successful sustaining business on the net. Lack of technological knowledge may cause the small busines to spend more money trying to learn and use the technology rather than just marketing the traditional way physically. Thus, e-marketing would not be a cost-effective approach for the business.

Additionally, e-marketing does not cater to markets with people of low income status/older people who do not utilize newer technologies/people that just simply do not use newer technologies like the internet. People with lower income statuses are most likely not to have a computer or access to the internet. If your product or service targets these poorer people, there is no need to try to market online because most of your market would probably not even have a chance to see your online marketing. This also applies to the older people and people who are not familiar with/do not use these newer technologies.

There are some consumers who do not trust information online that they cannot physically see and would still rather do the traditional way and go to a store, that is, orthodox buyers who prefer physical interaction and physical review of goods/ services before buying them. Building up the trust that interactions in the virtual world are real and honest is an ongoing process and it would require some more time to achieve this dependence on internet marketers. Marketers who are selling commodities where they need to build good relationships and trust with customers or who promote to older people that rather physically review their goods should minimize or not use e-marketing.

The internet is still regarded as a source of information and not all customers are comfortable making transactions on the World Wide Web. Many of the businesses that exist offline use internet marketing just for showcasing and promoting their products and services while purchases and transactions take place physically, in person. So maybe this is what some businesses should do to still capture online users if you know your target market is not very much online-oriented.

Therefore, it is very important that businesses are aware of the reward and inconveniences of internet marketing before they really strategize to optimize their revenue on the advantages and nullify the disadvantageous effects of virtual e-marketing. Not all business would be capable of taking advantage of the great benefits of e-marketing and they should realize this before attempting to show out online.