Social Media Marketing:
Strengths:
- Multi-million users.
- Easily accessed and used via smartphones and tablets.
- Allows easy integration between multiple companies and websites i.e. Facebook provides a platform for multiple businesses to advertise and reach consumers.
- 24-hour access.
- Two-way communication between business and consumer (B2C).
- Ability to reach a wide target audience on a global scale.
- Ability to track website traffic and impressions.
Weaknesses:
- Need to continuously update with fresh content; large number of users mean more content being posted per second, therefore there is less time for content to be seen by consumers.
- Privacy issues and concerns; users concern for personal data shared and websites invasiveness for their ability to track user’s online activity.
- Requires internet connection.
- Challege of converting impressions into engagement; likes and comments on brands social media pages doesn’t necessarily guarantee a sale.
- Complaints that social media is in fact ruining social interaction between people instead of enhancing it.
- Online shopping can be deceitful to consumers; copy-cat websites selling low quality products passing them off as higher end versions.
Rich Media:
Strengths:
- High interaction rates; visually engaging and eye catching; often involves photos/colours/ GIFs.
- YouTube allows businesses to incorporate video as an advertising method; more visually stimulating.
- Ability to track statistics and traffic; i.e. videos enable you to track the amount of views.
- Large advertisement space; more area to advertise than smaller banner ads.
Weaknesses:
- Requires broadband or Wi-Fi connection to view content.
- Higher quality formats require certain browsers or plug in technology to view properly.
- These high-quality adverts can also be as costly as televised advertisements.
- Consumers may view pop-up advertisements and video/audio adverts as annoying and intrusive.
- Some pop-up advertisements come with viruses if clicked.
E-Mail Marketing:
Strengths:
- Ability to reach wide target audience fast and effectively.
- Cheaper than the traditional method of mail marketing; saves money on printing and postage/courier fees.
- Managing client information and details to send and receive emails is easier to store online.
- Ability to track and keep a record of emails exchanged online.
- Can include links to website addresses and promotional material.
Weaknesses:
- Unreliable; can be automatically moved to junk folder and never received or opened by user.
- Invasive; consumers may react negatively to receiving multiple emails in their inbox and as an invasion of personal space and privacy.
- IMessage, Social Media Messengers and SMS mean less people check their emails on a regular basis anymore.
- Those who do check their emails are of an older demographic which limits your audience options.
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO):
Strengths:
- Provides a continuous flow of free and targeted traffic
- “leads generated by SEO can go as high as 6% close rate which is a lot better than the 1.7% close rate you can generate from email marketing or print advertising”, (digitalmarketingphillipines.com)
- Can help with business growth; increases online visibility.
Weaknesses:
- Takes a long time to see results or ROI
- Involves high initial investment
- No guarantee for results
- Do not have full control over googles algorithms
Online Advertising:
Strengths:
- Online advertisements cost considerably less than other traditional forms of advertising.
- Can reach a wide range of audiences.
- You can closely monitor spending; digital ads can reach a cap of exposure as well as pay-per-click.
- Easier to control and track results than it is with more traditional methods; i.e. how many people viewed your advert.
- Social media advertising allows for easier celebrity or social influencer endorsement.
Weaknesses:
- Stiff competition; so many businesses now advertise online.
- Repetitive ads tend to be ignored after a while.
- Need internet to access.
- Can be expensive; slots on expensive sites such as the New York Times can cost upwards of a thousand a month. (smallbusiness.com)
- Viewing problems; slow internet speeds or old versions of desktop software can impact the quality in which users receive content.
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