How Internet Advertising Affects the Customer Essay

The World Wide Web has emerged to be one of the greatest revolutions to business advertising and other forms of advertisements. Internet advertising is the use of the Internet on the global basis to promote and market products, brands, services, business groups or even announcements through the communication with customers online. Businessmen focused on making higher profits have put a little more emphasis on the Internet advertising and this is due to the fact that many people are accessing the Internet for their business needs (Wasiak, 2010). Electronic commerce enabled by the Internet allows business transaction to be done online. Many products are sold online through the Internet and this is because of the massive advertisement that is done on the Internet. Advertisement is one of the most crucial processes in the marketing of a product or service. It serves as a tool for making decisions on what good or service is of good quality to the consumer and the households. Some times back, advertisement was done through mass media, bill boards and use of other communication media like the television and the radio (Sheumaker & Wajda, 2009, p. 14). Most people used the magazines to get information as it was what they could afford and most customers could read the new brand products in the market through the advertisements that were being done at the magazines (Clemons, 2009). This paper explores the merits and demerits in Internet advertising as it applies to the customers and seeks to provide recommendations and suggestions for further research. How Internet Advertising Affects the Customer Introduction The modern world of information age has seen the Internet as one of the widely used forms of communication. The Internet has also modeled trusteeship among large numbers of people even those from different continents. Today, businesses can now be transacted through the Internet with much ease and fast speed. In the present world, almost three quarters of the entire world population can access the Internet. This has made Internet advertisement to become common and has benefited sellers to sell their goods and services online. Internet advertising has brought significant impacts to the consumers. It has affected the customers both positively and negatively in several ways. Of specific importance, it should be understood that Internet advertisement has really pushed the financial markets of specific nations to a higher notch and thus leading to the growth of the economy (Clemons, 2009). One of the advantages of Internet advertising to the customers is the fact that it reaches a larger audience than any other form of advertisement. Majority of individuals, particularly the customers are at the peak of Internet use to find the best goods of the best quality to purchase. As advertisements reach a large number of customers, these same customers can share the information on a certain product discovering more about the benefits or the dangers of a given product. As Wasiak puts it, â€Å"Social media has changed the way people interact amongst themselves and with their media† (Wasiak, 2010). This is common among pharmaceutical products where Internet advertisements have provided a slot for patients’ forums. This is also beneficial to product makers as they realize privileges when a large number of customers from all parts of the world are able to have a look at their product type and makes purchases. Internet advertising is perhaps the most cost effective for producers and sellers. Since Internet tools used for advertisements are increasingly getting cheaper, customers can get access to information on a variety of products from different companies and make comparisons. Internet advertisements are usually done through many ways. A website can be created about a specific company and the goods and services that it offers can be listed on that website. The producers can also program pop-up windows that are programmed to pop up whenever specific websites are opened. At the same time, Internet advertising can be done by sending customers messages to their mail boxes telling them about the benefits or the quality of a new brand of good in the market (Wasiak, 2010). While messages and the pop-ups may irritate the users of the Internet, they mean so much to willing and interested customers to have a keen look at the product or service being advertised. A good businessman is one who uses the least cost possible in the production of his goods and services. Advertisement falls under the channel of production and Internet advertising is one of the least cost effective methods of advertising. The use of other forms of advertisement like the televisions and other media has become too expensive for a rational producer and more so, it reaches only local customers. The cheapness of Internet advertising has made it to be very popular among many people in the whole world (Clemons, 2009). With the Internet advertising, many companies and producers are able to establish various statistics that can be of help to the improvement of their services and quality of the goods. This implies that all the features of the Internet advertising can be traced by the people placing those advertisements on the Internet. These features can be tested and measured and consumers or consumers can find enough data for analysis in order to establish critical information about the companies they are trading with. Some websites allow consumers of a certain product fill a form of client satisfaction and this greatly improves on product quality improvement. The improvement of the quality of products is of direct benefits to the consumers or customers (Wasiak, 2010). Customers are able to access information on the number of people purchasing a particular product, the negative responses about particular goods and services, the recommendations posted on the websites by customers and many more. This data or statistics is very necessary not only to the producers or the advertisers but also the customers. Internet advertising helps to improve the standards of advertisement as information about a particular product is available and the customer can find more about the product with just a few mouse clicks. Unlike in bill board advertisement where customers can see a new brand of a product being advertised and plan to check the details later, Internet advertising is all about a click of a mouse and everything will be at the eyes of the customer(Clemons, 2009). While Internet advertising offers significant benefits to the customers, it has the capacities to ruin the tastes and preferences of customers. Although the advantages of Internet advertising overweigh the disadvantages, specific limitations of advertising through the Internet have to be appreciated as well. For instance, the customers suffer a lot of mind torture trying to create the real picture of the goods being advertised on the Internet. An eligible customer would want to touch, feel and even taste the good before deciding to go for it in the market. This is one capacity the Internet advertising is lacking which is very vital in the convincing the mind of the customer to buy the good. This however does not really affect the sales and purchases of goods and services that are advertised on the Internet. A customer builds trust of a website and trusts whatever he or she is being told about the good or service. The choice is still for the customer to decide whether he will buy the product or not (Wasiak, 2010). During the age of the radio and television advertisements, the marketing function gained a lot of popularity (Sheumaker & Wajda, 2009, p. 114). There have been many questions as whether the Internet advertising will have a big impact on the marketing of goods and services as the radio and television advertisement did. Many people still have doubts whether Internet advertising would ever be as popular as radio and television. Perhaps it may never bring a greater impact on the customers as radio and television advertisements have done. This observation can be justified while thinking on the basis of a developing world where Internet access is still a challenge. It should be well understood that Internet access among customers is key for successful marketing. Without Internet connection, the customers will not get critical information about a particular product the customers on the choice of good to buy (Sheumaker & Wajda, 2009, p. 114). Another effect the Internet advertisements have had on the customer is that they have been so successful in the persuasion of a customer to make a first instance purchase of a good or a service. It is so clear that a consumer can opt to buy a good or even a service at the first instance he or she sees the advert on the website. This is so unlike for the bill board advertisements and other forms of advertisements. The customer can see an advert of a commodity on a bill board advert, and decide to come back for the details later. But for the Internet advertising, the customer can choose to buy the product on the first instance he or she sees the advert on the Internet (Sheumaker & Wajda, 2009, p. 116). The problem is whether the customer will come back to another time for the second time to purchase more products. Retention of a customer is one of the motives of a producer or anyone advertising a specific product. It can be difficult for one to retain a customer online, but if, the customer decides to come back or not to (Clemons, 2009). Spending time online is another effect of Internet advertising to a customer. For a loyal customer, he or she must spend most of her entire life on the Internet trying to see and compare the brand types and prices of different goods and services in order to pick the good or service with the best quality at the least cost possible. This is one effect of the Internet advertising that most customers have grown to live with. Spending most time on the Internet has its own disadvantage to the lives of the customers. It really deprives them of time to do other things or activities of their lives. This means that even some very important schedules have to be ignored and one to concentrate on other important matters. A customer is to pick the best alternative, whether to be at the Internet and try to see whatever is being advertised or attend to other social matters. Statistics show that a customer spends 5. 3 percent of his entire life on the Internet (Sheumaker & Wajda, 2009, p. 118). This is not healthy for a normal individual. Internet advertising has made work very easy for many customers and clients in getting very essential services like the booking of flights and even the booking of hotels and lodges. With the Internet advertising, a tourist in America can now book his flight in the house, book his hotel lodge in Africa in his house. This is so unlike what used to happen long time ago when Internet advertising did not exist. Had the Internet advertising not been there, tourists would be forced to reach their destination first before heading to the hotel to book for their accommodation (Wasiak, 2010). Internet advertising has made it very easy for other clients to get services done at the most convenient time possible. This has often saved a lot of time and expenses for the customer he or she could have incurred if the Internet advertising had not been there. The occurrence of Internet advertising is possible due to the fact that there are many goods that are being sold on the Internet and so many services being offered. To create an awareness of the presence of such goods and services, the producers of the sellers of such goods and services must advertise them to their online customers. Conclusion and Recommendations In conclusion, Internet advertisements have taken the storm of all business advertising in the modern world. The contributions of Internet advertising to the customers have widely been appreciated. However, while customers online have gained extensively from the Internet advertisements, there are other negative effects that the Internet advertising has brought to them. Many companies have invested intensively in Internet business advertisements so as to reap the maximum benefits brought by the technology of Internet advertising. However, security threats emanating from malicious attackers and hackers have compromised the smooth development in Internet advertisements and purchases. In some cases, there are different personalities who personify themselves as sellers online and cheat people to rob them of their money. It is not so common but when it happens it is disastrous. Despite all these, many customers have been motivated to buy online. Women most especially who used to be very afraid of using their credit cards online today they are the most leading in number to use the Internet to buy products of their choice. Companies have therefore the responsibility of improving their sites by enhancing them with antivirus software such as McAfee to keep off attackers and make customers to buy and sell online without any fear of being robbed of their money. Generally, Internet advertising has brought a lot of impacts to the customers and the consumers in general. Despite a few cases of the disadvantages of the online advertisement, it has really helped in pushing the marketing sector into higher notches. It has really facilitated trade between continents on a greater perspective as it was never expected before and this has been due to the wider audience that receives the adverts that are being posted on the Internet. Therefore, Internet advertising can be said to have helped many customers in terms of purchases and in many other positive ways.