Alan DraperAdvertising online is very different from traditional advertising and that could be a good thing. It has almost become a catch phrase when people say that marketing is shifting online. It is really quite simple – where the eye balls go, that is where the marketing dollar is going.
Regardless whether you are thinking of using search engine optimisation (SEO), search engine marketing (SEM) like Google’s AdWords and/or social media marketing (SMM), the advantages of doing this type of marketing yourself or investing in an internet marketing company is a no-brainer.
If you are the owner of either the traditional or an online business, you must have a web marketing plan that consists of the combination of SEO, SEM and SMM. Where SEO and SMM takes more time and generally more expertise, search engine marketing can give you instant results if done right. It is also easier to calculate return on investment (ROI) with SMM compared to the other 2 methods however when combined, they create a perfect synergy.
Here are 3 things that make online marketing techniques outperform and easier to justify when compared to traditional marketing channels like television, radio, magazines and newspapers.
- Targeted – audiences can be targeted by online advertisers like never before. You can choose to pay for ads to focus on audiences based on the devices they are using, the words they search for and even the city block they are standing in. Perfect example here is Google’s so called AdWords advertising platform.
- Measurable – every dollar and effort put toward these sort of campaigns can be measured in near real time to a granularity level that has never seen before and certainly more accurate compared to traditional marketing.
- Flexible and Active. What I mean by this is that the public is actually actively seeking for the products and services that are being advertised. Audiences are using their computers, laptops, tablet and mobile devices to search for pretty much everything. Therefore presenting a searcher with a relevant and highly targeted ads is the best chance for searcher to find what they are looking for and for the advertiser to make money.
Let me finish off with an example where I’m looking to buy a new TV. I hop in my car and drive down the highway and on the way to the shop I see a billboard for a car dealership. At this point I’m looking to buy a TV so that billboard is not going to make me buy a new car. Once I’m in the electronics store I’m standing in front of the TV so it is pretty obvious that I’m in the market to buy a new TV set. Online advertising does exactly this where it lets you target people who are actively searching for your products and services.
If you are a Panasonic, you can chose only to run your advertising where TV hunters go or on searches who signify that someone is actively looking to buy a television set.
This article was written for Business 2 Community by Alan Draper.
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Online advertising is good (we help clients with it) – but a couple of caveats would be in order.
In some countries the infrastructure and or search engine doesn’t allow precise geographic targeting. In the UK (for instance) people seem to be shifted perhaps 50 miles from their true location – presumably as a result of load balancing and resilience activities undertaken by ISPs – so the notion of advertising using SEM to particular city blocks is completely unattainable. Google also states it hides precise IP based locations for “privacy reasons”.
Using Google Analytics for a web based response channel for offline marketing makes the effort far more measurable than most would believe.
The primary goal of Manage WP is to save people’s time. They want to enable their users to spend more time creating content and focusing on the things that matter most: your content, your customers, and your business.Great article Ian!
Oops. My first comment was a mistake. Sorry.
Aside from being cheaper than advertising in TV, online marketing is also the fastest way to make your product more visible in public because of the gadgets that our customers are using. Another thing is that advertisers can target people who are actively searching for your product and services.This is the major advantage of online advertising.