If the last time you thought about online was a few months ago, then the start of 2008 is the right time to take a fresh look. The internet is probably the fastest way you can boost your companies sales, and as a media channel that does anything but than stand still. The reason the web remains the fastest growing marketing channel in history is the power of its results on businesses, yet most firms fail to do anything more than scratch the surface. Whether their campaigns are to build brands or generate leads, more and more marketers are using the internet to reach new customers in ever-smarter ways.

The latest explosive growth of the iconic social media brands Facebook, YouTube and MySpace is just another step in a journey towards a new landscape for marketers. What’s interesting about social media is that it also chimes with the greater need brands have to achieve cut-through in an ever more crowded media world. As consumers switching their trust to friends and their social networks, the web has provided the perfect tool-kits for delivering that promise.

But these are the next generation digital tools, and many brands still need to get the basics right. Here in the UK the internet took 15% of total ad spend in the first half of last year, topped 17% at Christmas, and at Digital Strategy Consulting we’ve argued it would trump television by Spring 2010. That will make it the largest single media channel in advertising spend. But that’s only the advertising: nobody really knows how much is spent on building websites, but it’s easily more than spent in online media.

Brands have switched their budgets to digital because when they get it right, it gives a much better return. For sure there’s a point where the growth in the payback levels off, but few firms are close to that because the web and email are so under-used. Instead, what we've found in training marketers around the world is that even if the company has a good website, online marketing will still be one massive missed opportunity.

We've been running The Search Academy in Western Europe for many years, and consistently we find that even the experienced digital marketers who go through the programme discover that investing more in search campaigns generates more sales leads, and typically at a much cheaper cost per lead than their classic channels.

When it comes to the website itself there's normally much greater scope to get better value. We've seen how investing more time and energy in websites creates a powerful conversion process for sales, but remember that only a tiny part of most websites is about the actual sale itself because most will be there to help with purchase research. Giving the customer the information they need in a simple and accessible way: that's the key.

And then there's my favourite media channel of all, email. It's revolutionized customer retention and relationship marketing, and yet most firms totally fail to do anything more than spam their clients with a couple of sales promotions a year. When researching the new generation Digital Email Marketing Academy we found so many cases of where email had transformed a business that we see this as a core strategy for companies large and small. Investing in email relationships keeps an open dialogue with prospects. Classic marketing channels still play a role, it’s just that it’s a bit smaller than it was before.

At the Digital Training Academy we coached senior marketers in 20 countries around the world last year and one of the surprises for us was to discover how similar their needs are. From Dubai to New York, Mexico to Singapore, South Africa to Sweden, firms need to get the basics right; building their website content, making themselves discoverable in search engines and then locking in customer relationships with email. After that comes the excitement of social media and Web 2.0, the power of online advertising and the thousands of tools that can help get more value from the spend a firm makes.

Most marketers still wrestle with how to navigate this changing media landscape, how upweighting the role of online can boost results, and which tools will track the effects in a way that's meaningful for the company. After all, if the internet is the most accountable channel in marketing history, then you’ll be wanting to constantly test, measure, and refine to optimise your spend

The real bombshell normally lands when measuring the return on investment (ROI) for the online activity alongside the ROI measured in traditional marketing. Juggle the budgets around and almost every brand discovers that they can not only reach many more customers without spending more, but they also get better cut-through and more intimate communications. With the internet often ahead of television in many countries (in terms of the time people spend with media), and with most big purchases researched online before going near the store, it’s enough to even get finance directors pushing for a bigger switch to digital marketing.