It is 2016. The time of billboard ads, YellowPages, radio commercials and any other form of old-school advertising should be behind us. Why? Because it is a waste of money! Nowadays with online marketing, you can be highly specific in who you target and how you reach them. Here are 5 reasons why your business needs online marketing.

Consumers Trust Google More Than Commercials

That’s right. It shouldn’t come as a big surprise to you, but consumers these days are more skeptical of ads than ever. Most people don’t realize that the results of their Google searches are indeed some for of advertisement too. Whether it through Google AdWords’ PPC platform or if you hire an SEO agency to help your website rank at the top of the search engines, it is absolutely necessary to be there! Why? Because people use and trust Google more than any other platform out there to get them the answers that they need. So if you are behind on the times and haven’t hired some sort of Search Engine Marketing firm, then get on it!

2. People are Online More Than Ever.

If you didn’t know already, people are spending more time consuming online media than ever before. In fact, in 2014, the average adult spends more than 20 hours a week online (and that number has probably gone up) and in a recent study, it found that teens spend on average 9 hours a day consuming online media! So what does that mean for your business? It means that if you are not utilizing some form of online digital marketing, you are just not reaching your audience. So whether you are running content promotion ads through Facebook or Instagram or performing SEO or PPC, you need to be online in order to get in front of the people who you want to see your brand.

3. There are So Many Ways to Generate Leads Online

Gone are the days of generating leads by placing an ad in the YellowPages or community newspaper. Nowadays if you want to grow your business, whether it is online or brick and mortar, you need to be focusing on online lead generation activities.

From organic traffic, to content marketing, to newsletters and Facebook marketing, there are so many different ways to generate traffic to your business. The most important thing is to know who your main target audience is and then find out where they spend most of their time. Once you figure this out, figuring out a strategy to get in front of them is the easy part.

4. Retargeting is Awesome

Yes, this is my inner marketing geek talking, but I happen to love the power of retargeting for increasing your online traffic and online brand awareness. What retargeting does is exactly that, retargets those people who have previously visited your site, searched Google for the service that you sell or have written about it before on social media. This allows your business to get in front of those potential customers who may have been interested in you before, but for one reason or another, didn’t end up converting. With advanced retargeting strategies, it is becoming easier to attract more people back to your business website and increase your overall conversions.

5. It Just Looks Better

Would you trust a business that is not active online these days? Google sure doesn’t. In fact, one of their ranking factors is having an active online presence. Why is that? Well, it just is more natural. The businesses who are active online, working on developing a strong social community look more natural to Google and users alike since they are taking time to build their online brand.

Regardless if you are a big business or a small business, national or local, computer literate or illiterate, being visible online is absolutely integral these days if you want more customers to find you. There is nothing to be scared of, the online world is one of abundance and opportunity. There are plenty of professional online marketing companies (including ours) who are more than capable of helping your business navigate its way online and take advantage of the treasures that await you there. So what are you waiting for? It’s almost 2017! Get online already!

This article was written by Daniel Moscovitch, SEO & Online Marketing expert and co-founder of More Hot Leads. If you’d like to get in touch with him and see how he can help your business become more visible online, get in touch with him by email. Daniel (at) morehotleads (dot) com.