23/05/2020
Online Advertising for Your Business
Does your target market spend a lot of time online?
If you’re able to give a confident YES to this question, then it’s safe to say your business could absolutely benefit from online advertising.
If you’re not sure who your target market is or how much time they spend surfing the web, you may need to take a step back a do a bit of market research. Consider doing some Generational marketing research may be a good spot to start to get an idea.
I realize simply knowing your prospects are online isn’t enough to know for sure if online marketing is ideal for your business. You may have to dig deeper for that, but overall, online advertising definitely has it’s perks.
What can online advertising do for me?
1. Online advertising is fast, flexible, and trackable.
With online advertising, you can take advantage of the wonderful perks that come with digital media, like instant access, freely updating and editing your ads, and results tracking .
Planning an event to promote your new service? Rather than placing an ad with the local paper 6 weeks in advance and wondering who’ll see it, then waiting weeks or months to ACTUALLY know how well it was received, you can create and launch an online campaign promoting your service or event in as little as an hour (I’d say 5 minutes, but you want it to be a good campaign, don’t you?).
What’s more is you can instantly track which ads are working, how many people are seeing them, where they’re seeing them, who’s clicking on them and when. With that kind of information at your fingertips, you can optimize your ads instantly if they’re not performing as well as you’d like instead of waiting until end of month sales reports tell you if your newspaper ad was working or not.
2. Drive traffic to your website & increase conversions.
Given your website is the hub of your online presence, it makes sense to generate traffic to it, right?
When all’s said and done, it comes down to the numbers: online ads can draw more traffic to your website. When you have more traffic coming to your website, you’re increasing the probability of leads from your site. (Side note: you have to make sure your website is setup correctly to convert visitors into leads. Here are some tips to make sure your website is setting you up for success, and what to avoid on your site.)
3. Increase brand awareness, credibility & trust.
Running online ads gets your brand name in front of your online prospects wherever they are on the web. Just like branding through radio or TV, your online ads will keep your business in front of potential buyers. Once your prospects become familiar with who you are, they begin to recognize your brand and will be more likely to come to you when they have a need you can fill for them.
Not only that, online ads reinforce the idea that you’re a legit business, so running ads can actually increase credibility for your business as well.
4. Promote to your specific target markets.
When you advertise online, you can tailor your message to speak specifically to your target markets, or multiple messages tailored to segmented target audiences.
Think about it like this: Maybe you sell security systems. While your product may appeal to both families and businesses, your product benefits would be different for each. The business owner doesn’t need a system that allows him to shut his home garage door remotely, and the homeowner isn’t interested in tracking clock-in and -out times for employees. Advertising is most effective when you’re speaking directly to each person’s needs rather than using a blanket message to catch everyone’s interest.
That’s where segmentation comes in. As a security company owner, you would write two ads with separate messages: one tailored to business owners, the other to homeowners. Advertising this way is far more cost-effective online than in TV, radio, or print advertising.
According to a study outlined in an AdAge.com article, a retargeted display ad encourages 1000% more people to search for a product over a standard ad. Online marketing lets you segment and specify your target markets to get the absolute most out of your marketing efforts and dollars rather than getting your message out to people you’re not interested in working with.
5. Reach the Hard-to-Reach Millennials
It can’t be denied, since the birth of this generation (which includes people born between 1981 and 2000), practically every field of technology has made significant advancements. Millennials have had extreme exposure to all the modern gadgets and platforms. They don’t see immediate results, excellent service and competitive pricing as a benefit of working with a company, it’s their expectation. According to Statista.com, American users from 25 to 34 years old had the highest monthly average of internet usage in 2016 over all other age groups.
This generation holds extreme potential for buying power, and if you want them to notice you, you’ll have to connect with them. An ideal way to do that is to interact with and advertise to them where they are: online.
