Greek businesses face a significant challenge as they currently possess the lowest online presence among European countries. Despite the global shift towards digitalisation, a substantial number of Greek businesses lag behind in establishing a robust online footprint. This deficiency hampers their ability to tap into the vast potential of the internet, limiting their reach, hindering global expansion, and missing out on the cost-effective benefits of online advertising. To thrive in the contemporary business landscape, Greek enterprises must urgently prioritise enhancing their online presence, leveraging the latest digital marketing strategies to connect with a broader audience and stay competitive on both local and international fronts.
Greece has an excellent and varied cultural inheritance and tradition, a long and eventful history, and an active and lively economy, society, and market. However, in the past ten years, Greece has experienced difficult and transformative times, with the economic crisis, the influx of people migrating to Europe, the COVID-19 pandemic, rising costs of living, and the 21st-century so-called digital divide. Viewers on the international stage too often see all these.
Online advertising is one of the most essential things in doing business in Greece today. Online advertising means that sellers of products and services promote and sell their offerings through the internet and digital media (such as websites, social media, search engines, email, or mobile applications) on behalf of commercial enterprises, sometimes even non-profit organisations. In this model, an advertiser pays a publisher (such as a website owner) a commission or fee for displaying or distributing their advertising message to an audience it’s trying to reach. Businesses can access this large global audience, promoting and advertising their products through various platforms, tools and mediums. This method represents a fast, flexible, efficient and cost-effective way to reach a target audience, regardless of location, to advertise products and services, even internationally.
There are many different reasons why Greek businesses are forced to advertise online. In this article, we will focus on some of the reasons why online advertising is essential and some tips and insights about the best way to advertise for a Greek business based on the latest data.
Online Advertising Helps You Reach a Large and Diverse Audience
One of the main advantages of online advertising is that it can reach many different people at both a local and a global level. In Greece, the latest data on internet users and social media users from GWI reveals that 8.9 million internet users, which is 78% of the Greek population, and 8 million social media users, who are 72% of the Greek population, use the internet. These numbers provide evidence that most Greek consumers are online and active, particularly on social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok.
Another way online advertising can help you reach more customers and grow your business is by reaching customers outside of Greece who are interested in your products and services or could identify, support and appreciate your family’s traditional Greek values and ideals. Statistics by the World Bank estimate that Greece has 5.4 million emigrants, consisting 49.5% of the country’s total population in 2024. The largest population of Greek emigrants are located in Germany (3,415,268), the United States (1,627,217), Australia (260,024) and the United Kingdom (288,290). Greece’s tourists in 2024 will be more than 33.1 million, with 300% of the population-based in Germany (2,499,327), the United Kingdom (2,593,159), Bulgaria (1,828,918), Italy (1,152,534), and France.
These same numbers indicate why there are thousands of potential customers for Greek businesses (in the diaspora, but also tourists in Greece) that might search for something authentic, that feels quality, or that can relate to Greece, its culture and history. What online advertising gives you is the ability to reach out to these people, use geo-targeting, learn keywords in multiple languages, think multicultural and adaptive, and use that knowledge to create content and campaigns that resonate with who they are and what they expect.
Online Advertising Helps You Increase Your Visibility and Credibility
Another advantage of online advertisement is enhancing your visibility or presence in Greece and internationally. Visibility means how easily and recurrently your business can be seen and identified on the internet, using tools like search engine optimisation (SEO), Google My Business, and social media profiles. Credibility means how trustworthy a business is seen as online, using tools like online testimonials, reviews, ratings, and certifications.
As for any business, it is essential to be seen and trusted, but to Greek firms mainly, there are some challenges and negative stereotypes that need to be overcome when targeting the global marketplace due to the financial crisis and subsequent political instability in Greece, not to mention some of the sensationalised media coverage on these subjects. Online advertising can help you overcome these challenges and stereotypes by presenting your business’ successes, values and characteristics with evidence and proof of quality and reliability.
Also, online advertising can help you grow your positioning and credibility in your local market, help you stand out from your competitors, and build a committed and active community of customers. Online advertising can be a method to differentiate your business from other similar or substitute products or services by highlighting your USP (Unique Selling Proposition), your CAP (Competitive Advantage Positioning) and your VP (Value Proposition).
Online advertising can also help you create and maintain strong and personal relationships with your customers, inform your visitors, interact with them by providing them with interactive content tailored to their specific needs and performance, and reward them with incentive and loyalty programs.
Online Advertising Helps You Boost Your Sales and Growth
Third, online advertising enables you to generate more sales and business growth in your country and foreign countries. Sales refer to the volume and value of the goods and services you sell online through e-commerce systems, payment gateways, and web delivery solutions. Growth refers to the scale and growth of your business’s market share, customer base, turnover, and profit through tools such as web analytics, online feedback, and some other innovations.
Whether you are a beginner or have previous experience, growing and increasing your business is highly required. In other words, this is especially important when you are a Greek willing to sell. As you already know, you have several restrictions and limitations when participating in the physical market. Although the economic crisis is almost over for now, carried along with the COVID-19 pandemic, social limits won’t allow you to move freely in every place. However, thanks to online advertising, you will have the chance to overcome all those difficulties and the restrictions and half of the limitations that you might have because, by advertising your business, the possibilities and the chances to grow and sell it both in the short and long term will be much more than any other day.
Online advertising can help you increase your sales online by helping you acquire and convert more customers. Online advertising can also help you increase your offline sales by driving more customers and footfall to your physical store. Online advertising can also increase your growth by helping you improve and optimise your business performance. Online advertising can also help you increase your growth offline by helping you discover and explore new markets. Online advertising can help you increase your sales online by helping you acquire and convert more customers. Online advertising can also help you increase your offline sales by driving more customers and footfall to your physical store.
Online Advertising Helps You Save Time and Money
Benefit four of online advertising is saving your time and money. We must remember that the key to any business in Greece and abroad is time and money. Both give you an advantage and more power for your company, but for the Greek companies to save time and money, they are now in a crisis. Companies need more services, technologies, and money. Online advertising saves you time and money because you can advertise and market your business using free, cheaper and easier ways than traditional methods.
Online advertising can save time by creating and running your online campaigns faster and more simply, using multiple templates, online editors, and online platforms as a reference. It can also save time by managing and updating your online campaigns more conveniently, flexibly, and efficiently, using multiple online tools, different online dashboards, calendars, and notifications.
The third approach to explaining how online advertising can help save money is that it allows users to reduce and control their online advertising costs by using online bidding (when and how much you bid on ads), online budgeting (what you decide to spend on online advertising each day), and online billing (how much your company is charged for online advertising each day). The fourth approach to explaining how online advertising can help save money is that it allows users to increase and measure their online advertising returns by using online conversions (how many people clicked on your online ads, how much they spent, how much you spent), online revenue (how much money your online customers spent), and online ROI (return on your online investment; what your online advertising spending earned you).
Online Advertising Helps You Stay Competitive and Innovative
An extra reason why online advertising is helpful for business is that it makes you more competitive than others in Greece and abroad. Competitive and innovative means how you – or your organisation/company – will be able to respond and adapt to the changing and hard-pressed conditions of the market, customer needs, and technologies with tools such as online research, training, and development. Competitive and innovative are two adjectives that any business would love to associate their name with. Still, they should be highlighted in institutions (companies), especially in Greece, as they are the most affected in the world market due to the trilemma (digital transformation + social change + environmental.
If you are a Greek business owner or interested in doing business in Greece, consider advertising online, as it can help you achieve your business goals and objectives and overcome your business challenges and problems. Online advertising is fast, flexible, and trackable,
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