Tapping the online potential

Advertising has a greater persuasion power to change spending habits and lifestyle in developing economies than in developed ones. In developing countries, online advertising techniques are seen as valuable tools to be used in order to accelerate the development process, economic activities and to increase revenues. This potential offers new opportunities for businesses. Research shows that online advertising is, on the whole, extremely effective and that users’ acceptance of online advertising is comparable to traditional media.
Online advertising has revolutionised the marketing process by providing new ways for reaching existing and potential customers. Users interact with the web at a far more personal and intimate level than they interact with other advertising media like television, print or radio. The delivery of relevant messages in suitable formats to selected consumers is only possible in computing environments; hence online environments make better advertising platforms.
If time spent online is to be taken as a benchmark for our world in the future, than there has to be a major shift in advertising from being predominantly TV and print focused to something new.
A class exploratory survey reveals that different online advertising formats are already being tried by some commercial concerns in Pakistan. Walk the web and one can find display advertising (banner ads), sponsorships (content as well as link sponsorship), email banners and link ads, paid listings and inclusions and contextual searches, lead generations, classifieds, rich media and digital video commercials pointing to local businesses. Survey also found that telecommunication, entertainment, travel, food, electronics and computing are some of the most active industry categories that are taking advantages of online advertising.
That said; online advertising is still a very small piece of the local market that offers a huge range of formats to provide advertisers the ability to effectively purchase online presence. Getting customers engaged is one of the most significant challenges for marketers in the virtual world. Businesses must understand consumers’ changing needs and motivations, promote participation, and motivate to cooperate by making them feel embedded and empowered. Thanks to the fast developing web technologies that this can be done best through interactive advertising.
Understanding formats and techniques that work best in online publishing ecosystem can help drive online advertising. Some of the techniques provide better accuracy than others. While techniques continue to evolve one thing is certain that a huge opportunity exists for advertisers to target customers at home and in foreign markets. With a large percentage of consumers ready to spend online, there is incredible incentive for businesses to continue to search for better tools to drive local advertising ahead.
With every passing day, the world is edging into an information based era. Local content is one single thing that can improve online advertising in local content. Online local content in text, audio and video formats not only helps more relevant ads matching but it also makes possible to relate. Though users’ base in Pakistan has grown exponentially but there has always been dearth of local content in all formats especially online. Analysts predict that online advertising is poised for impressive growth in the next few years. The expansion of internet and provision of more efficient methods of matching advertisements and consumers will transform the advertising. Pakistan businesses and brand marketers, that have been slow to move to the digital realm, are now starting to realize they need to go where their audiences are going. Sooner they do it, the better it will be.

The writer is Deputy Controller of Examinations at Lahore School of Economics. He blogs athttp://logicis variable.blogspot.com/ and can be reached at [email protected]