Banner advertising can be a useful way for small companies to attract visitors to their website. A high-quality banner ad that clearly explains what services you offer and what makes you special is a cost-effective way to interest potential customers.
Cost control
The main advantage of internet banner advertising for small companies is that you can control how much you spend. Unlike traditional advertising, where you’ll pay a large up-front fee to place an advert, with banner advertising you don’t pay until a potential customer clicks on your advert and visits your website.
This means that if an advert isn’t attracting enough clicks, you haven’t wasted money – you can change it quickly and at low cost.
Creating your own banner adverts
A basic, static banner ad is easy to make. If you have a small amount of computer knowledge, it’s possible to create your own simple banner ads – making it a very cheap marketing option.
However, you might find it’s a good investment to use a professional design company to create an ad for you. A professional custom banner ad designer can create an eye-catching, innovative design, and also include rich content such as animation, sound or video for a professional effect.
Targeting a niche audience
Another advantage is that you can target who sees your advert, by placing them on relevant websites. For example, if you offer a window-cleaning service in your local town, there’s no point advertising to readers who live halfway across the country – they aren’t potential customers. Similarly, you wouldn’t want to advertise home-care products for the elderly on a website selling SCUBA diving equipment – it simply isn’t relevant.
By carefully choosing which sites your adverts appear on, you can make sure that you reach the right audience and drive targeted traffic to your site.
You could also arrange to have your adverts on the website of another relevant business (not a direct competitor, of course!), in return for hosting one of their adverts on your own website. This is called ‘banner exchange’, and benefits both of you.
