For successful business development, it is necessary to invest resources in the promotional advertising of your product or service. It is a well-known fact. But what type of advertising should one choose? Let us find out in this article.
1. Social Media Advertising
Advertising in social networks is a common choice among businesses. Primarily because of the huge audience. Ads managers’ settings here allow you to pick your target audience out of a large number of people and show ad campaigns only to them, to maximize the chance of converting a viewer into a client. The audience can be selected by location, age, interests, and many other parameters. Keep in mind though, that getting so much information about users is far from cheap. Also be ready to meet a long list of requirements for your offer. Facebook has the biggest user base, Instagram is suitable for brands with thought-out visualizations, and LinkedIn is the best place for the B2B sector.
Even if you are not going to launch paid ads yet, just having an active business profile in social networks will significantly expand your web presence, and therefore increase brand awareness.
2. Influencer marketing
These days, Internet influencers have a huge authority in the eyes of many users. It is especially true for the younger generation: they may be skeptical of TV ads or not watch them at all, but they are influenced by new sources of information and opinion-makers online.
A person can relate to an influencer or listen to one as an expert in a particular field. If he or she shares a recommendation for a product or service, a loyal subscriber is likely to follow it.
The number of subscribers of large bloggers can reach several million, so do not underestimate this promotion channel. However, the number of followers is not always a key parameter. For a product with a narrow target audience, for example, it is much more effective to advertise on the blog of a narrow specialist with a relatively small, but engaged and interested audience.
It is also worth keeping in mind that influencers are not only in social networks like Instagram. They can have their own websites, blogs, youtube or telegram channels, etc.
3. Pay-Per-Click Advertising
It’s no secret that many people find the right products or services through search engines, most often on the first page of search results. And what if at this moment you offer them a perfect option that meets the search query, at the very top of the page? That is where PPC advertising comes in. Use Google Ads to bring your website or product profile to the top of the search results. It will be linked to certain keywords. If your bid at the auction is high enough, the result will not be long in coming. In this case, the budget will be spent only when the user clicks on the advertising link. The rest of the time, it’s a chance for you to increase brand awareness at no additional cost.
4. SEO optimization
SEO optimization is also directly related to the promotion of sites in search engines, but unlike PPC advertising, it is more of a long-term investment. You won’t be able to pay once and immediately get a place at the top of Google search results. In this case, you will have a long (on average, from several months to a year) and, most likely, expensive process of working on the site content and its technical parameters. All of it must meet the requirements of Google’s special algorithms to be on the first page. You may have noticed that there are usually sites of industry leaders who can afford to invest huge budgets in SEO optimization. However, if everything works out, it will ensure an uninterrupted flow of organic search traffic for a long time.
5. Mobile Advertising
Worldwide, mobile devices account for more than half of all Internet traffic. In many countries, this figure even reaches 80%. When launching digital advertising, this trend cannot be ignored.
If you have a website, it must be optimized for mobile devices, otherwise, you simply risk losing every second client due to the inconvenience of viewing the web page on a phone or tablet. There are also separate advertising formats designed specifically for mobile gadgets: mobile display ads, mobile videos, mobile push-ups, and many more. To enhance your mobile user experience and captivate your audience, make sure to edit videos with mobile-friendly content, ensuring seamless playback and engagement on phones or tablets. Try using them and evaluate the results. Perhaps your audience will come from mobile sources. It’s also a good idea to create different campaigns for mobile and desktop platforms.
6. Print Advertising
This method may seem old-fashioned, but it can still be quite effective for a local offline business, whose target audience is older people, not too digitally engaged. However, it is almost impossible to measure the effectiveness of such advertising: it is difficult to know how many people decided to visit your store after seeing a paper ad, a note in a local newspaper, or receiving a flyer on the street.
This category also includes direct mail. These are all cases when advertising materials are delivered to the client personally via mail. This method makes advertising personalized. A letter or postcard will help increase loyalty to the company and warm up old clients who have not used your services for a long time. It can also be a local publication if your target audience is among the readers.
7. Out-of-Home Advertising
Another name for it is outdoor advertising. This is any advertising that a person can meet while not at home. It includes billboards, ads at public transport stops, on buses and trains themselves, on street furniture, buildings, etc. Depending on the location and scale, such an advertising campaign can cost a big sum, but in places with a large crowd of people, it will reach a very wide audience. However, out-of-home advertising can also be more local: for example, if a new coffee shop opens in a bedroom community, residents of nearby homes often find out about it through outdoor ads.
Advertising tips for your business
1. Don’t judge your target audience by your standard
All people see the same product differently. When making a purchase decision, a person relies on certain criteria that are important for him or her. Therefore, if you already have at least a small customer base, try to analyze it and create your target customer portrait. Launching an ad with this information in mind will bring a much more tangible result.
If you don’t have enough data yet, test different advertising options and compare the results to see what works best for your product.
2. Don’t try to cover all traffic sources at once
As it became clear from the text above, there is a huge number of advertising types. However, it doesn’t make sense to use them all at the same time. Most likely, this will only be a waste of effort, time, and money. When choosing an advertising format, start from your offer and the target audience of this product or service. Where do these people spend their time? What are they interested in? Where is their attention directed to? That’s where they should meet your ads. After testing a few options, choose the ones that produce visible results and continue to optimize them.
3. Do not hesitate to contact the professionals
Marketing is not easy. A business owner may know their product perfectly well and love it, but not be able to promote and simply sell it, as well as attract customers. And it is normal for everyone to do their own thing. One of the main ways to promote today is by placing ads on the Internet. You can safely entrust this to the marketing professionals from Galaksion. Working with this advertising network, you will be able to get the maximum result with a minimum of effort.
We hope that this information was useful for you, and you will soon begin to apply some tips in practice to promote your product on the market!
The article was written in partnership with Galaksion.
