The ever-evolving media scene
The media scene is ever changing and becoming more fragmented than ever. Flooded with mass advertising everyday, consumers have also become smarter. As the web is fast gaining popularity as a communication medium, online marketing provides the perfect opportunity to capture your potential customers on a faster scale.

No signs of slowing down
Despite all the rumour and hype about the demise of the internet industry, there are certainly very little signs to support it. In fact, internet users are increasing at an alarming rate everyday.

Stay closer to your consumer throughout the marketing cycle
Not only are more consumers making use of the internet everyday, the period spent online has also increased dramatically. Marketing is all about communication, so exploit this golden opportunity to connect with your consumers throughout the marketing cycle, starting from brand awareness up to the point of purchase.

Be part of the consumers' lifestyles
More and more consumers are switching to the internet to enjoy its diversity as well as its level of intimacy it offers for their lifestyles.

Consumers carry out all sorts of daily tasks on the internet. They buy, e-mail, read the news, perform banking transactions, search, and game-playing, to name a few. An online strategy lets you converse with your potential customers at any of these moments, whichever appeals to your communication plans. This is truly an active and engaging, two-way communication between the consumer and the brand that no other media can provide

Role of online vs traditional media
Consumers have been exposed to the same old media throughout the years. Thus, a new media plays an important role in enhancing your marketing strategy as it engages the interests of your consumers on a different level.

Integration of online and offline
Online media helps to boost advertising awareness while helping to recall offline messages and improve the communication flow to consumers as well. Such co-existence of integrating offline with online often leads to more efficient sales than solely relying on the offline model. From consumer engagement to the transaction phase, online media can help support your offline media throughout the marketing cycle.

The Brand building phase offers:
	unique consumer interaction with your brand.
	vast opportunities to bring your brand to life via new, interactive and memorable ways.

The Consumer engagement phase:
	communicates with your consumer wherever they are online, whether they're at work, home or school.
	targets your message in the most interested or receptive areas.
	creates alliances or synergy with promotions, concerts and events that synchronize with your brand and consumers.

The Transaction phase:
	influences consumers at the right time and at the right place, when they are in their most active and need-to-be-satisfied behavior; for instance, wanting to find out more about a brand, make comparisons and/or buy a certain product or service.

Created with consumers' participation
The online experience is created with the participation of the consumers and therefore, puts your brand closer to your consumers than any other medium. As part of an integrated media strategy, online marketing will play a significant role in speeding the momentum in which your consumers travel through the marketing cycle.

Online consumer engagement:
	The online environment allows a brand to leverage emotional links not available from other media.
	The online experience places the brand in the hands of the consumer. There is a fundamental shift from a brand that talks at their customers and one that allows the customer to experience and interact with the brand.
	It breaks free from the norm as it takes the communications away from purely form and function; to a higher ground of branded 'experience'.

Consumers and the internet
As more consumers are getting hooked on the internet, many more are resorting to comparative shopping and end up purchasing online. It has been found that "31% of internet users in Hong Kong have bought goods or services offline as a result of information found online during the past month." Source: Taylor Nelson Sofres, 2001.

Nowadays, e-mail has also become more central and second nature to how consumers communicate with friends and family. The local libraries or making manual visits or telephone calls are fast becoming a thing of the past; this is no surprise as searching through the major search engines on the internet has become a popular way to look for information of any kind. Not forgetting that some consumers have advanced to down loading music, pictures, chatting live and banking. This opens more exciting avenues for online marketing as we speak.