Online advertising is one of the most effective ways for businesses of all sizes to expand their reach, find new customers, and diversify their revenue streams. It includes email marketing, search engine marketing (SEM), social media marketing, many types of display advertising (including web banner advertising), and mobile advertising. Like other advertising media, online advertising frequently involves both a publisher, who integrates advertisements into its online content, and an advertiser, who provides the advertisements to be displayed on the publisher’s content. Online advertising is important because your business isn’t going anywhere unless you can generate consistently high volumes of traffic to your websites over time.
Before choosing the best type of online advertising that would fit the criteria of your business it is best to know and be aware of the different types of online advertising available.
Google AdWords (Pay-per-click Advertising)
Pay per click advertising is an excellent alternative for companies who have the financial resources and can make an investment in order to bring targeted traffic to their websites. Like SEO traffic, AdWords is considered targeted because people are actually typing in keyword phrases that are relevant to your products and services before clicking on your advertisement. This can bring a flood of traffic to your online business very quickly, and this is an excellent choice as long as you’re able to turn a profit.
Banner Advertising
The concept of banner advertising is pretty simple, you basically just put up a banner which usually contains a catchy image and headline on a relevant website. When users click your banner they will be redirected to your website and hopefully make a purchase. However there is a tiny glitch in this form of advertising these day because web users have developed “banner blindness” so only a small percentage will actually click on your banner. Hence, you need to make sure that you are very careful with your investments here especially if you are paying a certain amount per impressions (impressions means that your ad would show up a certain number of times and you will get charged regardless of whether anyone actually clicks on your advertisement).
Newsletter Advertising
Newsletter advertising is basically trying to get your ad placed by contacting webmasters and email programs to ask them if they are willing to sell ad space in their newsletter or e-zine. This way you will have access to their subscribers and be able to reach them with a simple low cost advertisement. The ad can be something as simple as a text link that states your website is a sponsor of that publication. This makes it much simpler to reach an audience that wants to read the email with your website content information included.
Affiliate Marketing
Whether you specialize in physical products or in digital information products like e-books and other courses, affiliate marketing is a great form of online advertising. The major advantage is that you don’t actually have to pay your affiliates a commission until the sale is made. If you do a good job of promoting your affiliate program in the appropriate marketplaces, then these affiliates can do most of the legwork for you like writing articles, using pay per click advertising themselves, and ultimately driving traffic to your product in any number of ways.
Social Media
Have you heard of Facebook, Instagram? Of course you have. Social media can be used as a form of online advertising, and Facebook ads are excellent examples. At the same time, you must realize that these platform are merely a source of entertainment and many have realised that the ROI (return of investments) on social media is not that great after all. This tells you that you got to be very vigilant when choosing the type of online advertising. However, Facebook does have its advantages as it uses an advertising system that is very simple to implement and offers a wide scope of coverage in the Facebook website. Only Facebook users that are within the specific demographic you choose will be able to see the advertising. This helps to narrow down who sees advertising so you are not wasting your money on people who are not going to be interested in what your website has to offer.
Mobile Apps
Mobile devices have become an integral part of our lives. Walk around any major city and you would find more than a few folks with their faces glued on their smartphones. It is known that more and more users are spending larger amounts of time engaged with mobile devices and if you are not implementing some kind of mobile marketing you are surely trailing behind. Mobile marketing consists of ads that appear on mobile smartphones, tablets, or other mobile devices. Mobile marketing ad formats, customization, and styles can vary, as many social media platforms, websites, and mobile apps offer their own unique and tailored mobile ad options. This form is marketing is rather effective because, people are always on their gadgets meaning to say that they will somehow or rather come across your ad or posts.
Marketing for designers can get a bit complex because most designers rather run their own business but they tend to forget that in order for them to attract clients they will need to up their marketing game. There are a couple of things that need to be done in marketing for designers. Firstly, they need to talk! Talk to anyone and everyone that could be their potential client. Secondly, they need to write in order to build an online presence. Write a blog and focus on you being the solution to their business needs, talk about the struggles clients are experiencing and how you as a designer would be able to help them. Create short film or videos that are super budget friendly as you can be the cameraman and the crew, no outsourcing needed. This way you are looking at higher conversion rates. Next is, you would need to set yourself apart. Be creative so that you are different from any other designer out there. This is a fun one: pull a stunt. Everyone is talking about Facebook and online advertising and if you do not have the budget for these, ‘ol’ skool’ marketing it is. For example, sitting in a busy park with a ‘Free Design Advice’ board is sure to get you all the attention you require.
Branding is crucial for products and services sold in huge consumer markets. Your brand strategy brings your competitive positioning to life, and works to position you in the mind of your prospects and customers. This is why brand marketing strategy is crucial because it plays a huge role in bringing in your prospects. Before you begin make sure you’ve identified your competitive positioning strategy – your brand strategy will bring it to life. Once you have a brand strategy make sure it is as effective as possible by surveying your customers, employees and vendors. Are their impressions consistent with your strategy? If not, work on the elements you can improve. Develop your brand around emotional benefits. Determine benefits that are most important to each of your customer segments. Identify which benefits are emotional as it is the most powerful brand strategies to tap into emotions, even among business buyers. Lastly, Define your brand personality, story and positioning statements. Think of your brand as a person with a distinct personality. Describe him or her, then convey these traits in everything you do and create and use them throughout your company materials. By following these steps of brand marketing strategy, you would definitely be reaping the results in time.
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