By David Ronald
The goal of advertising is to
attract new customers—after all, no matter how awesome your company’s
product or service is, if you don’t advertise, nobody will know about
it.
It’s not surprise that ever more businesses are
choosing to advertise online - digital advertising spend was $49.5
billion in the United States, in 2014, according to Internet Ad Bureau,
digital now commands nearly one in five ad dollars.
The
first thing to know when you are considering using the internet to
advertise your product is what types of online advertising are at your
disposal. And that will depend on what your business needs are. In this
blog post, I describe the three key online advertising methods.
1. Search Engine Advertising
Of all the types of online advertising, search engine marketing has to
be one of the most dynamic and challenging to harness. Basically,
popular search engines like Google use complex algorithms to deliver
searched-for content in their results pages. It obviously pays to be one
of the first few results on a popular search engine. However, because
these algorithms are constantly changing, staying on top of the search
engine optimization (SEO) methods can be a little challenging.
The key benefits of this type of advertising are:
Origination—many
prospects will hit search engines first when they are looking for a new
product or service, or attempting to locate one that they haven’t had
luck finding. By making yourself visible from the point of origination,
you are more likely to get those customers.
2. Display Advertising
This
category of advertising includes all of the visual ways to get your
message across: videos, graphics, banners, sidebars, logos, photos…you
get the idea. The display delivery system has come a long way from the
early days of internet advertising, and it isn’t uncommon to see ads
that are more experiential than passive, like interactive video ads.
The key benefits of this type of advertising are:
Visibility—of
all the types of online advertising, display has the best chance of
making a visual impression; a buyer can see your logo, your service,
your contact information, or really whatever information you choose to
include, which can make a lasting impression.
Targeting—huge
steps have been made in targeting prospects, mainly through the use of
behavioral targeting, which uses cookies and search data to deliver ads
to people who are more inclined to want what you’re offering.
Geographical targeting, on the other hand, will target buyers who are
close to your location, which is especially useful for small brick and
mortar shops.
3. Social Media Advertising
Social
media is currently the sweetheart of all of the different types of
online advertising choices that you have available to you. Instagram,
Pinterest, Facebook, Vine and other social media properties are having a
profound effect on the way information is shared online. And virality,
or the exponential rate at which information is shared is what makes
social media marketing so desirable—though it can be a little tougher to
determine which things actually will spread like wildfire.
The key benefits of social media advertising are:
Cost—with
a few caveats, most social media accounts are free to open and operate,
making this one of the cheaper types of online advertising.
Visibility—many
people enable push notifications, which update their mobile devices and
computers immediately with alerts from social media sites. The
popularity of these sites, and potential consumers’ constant interaction
with them means that you’ll have a larger chance of being seen by more
people.
So what are the next steps? Well, that’s
entirely up to you! The first thing you should do is take a thorough
stock of your advertising needs and see how these and other types of
online advertising can meet those needs. Educating yourself and your
employees in social media marketing will give you a definite leg up and
understanding how to build the type of websites that people want to
purchase things from will keep you on top.
Thanks for reading.
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