These days, it’s often not enough to rely on traditional print and broadcast advertising to get people to hear about your business.
Online advertising offers a targeted, low-cost way to let people know what you do – and to drive traffic to your website, generating sales and leads.
Read on for our overview of how to get the word out on the internet.
Banner advertising
Banner advertising is a popular way of advertising online, by creating eye-catching block adverts that appear above, below or to the side of the main content on websites.
When clicked on, the banner advert brings traffic back to your website to find out more about your offer. Banner adverts are particularly effective if they use a special offer to encourage readers to click.
Pay-per-click and search engine optimisation
PPC and SEO both work to help web users find your website through search engines.
SEO is a way of optimising your website so that search engines can find it and rank it in their results pages. PPC means paying for adverts on those same results pages, to boost the results you get through SEO.
Social networks
One of the golden rules of marketing is to ‘be where your customers are’. With the popularity of social media, advertising here lets you stay in contact customers and prospects in a way they find engaging.
By interacting with your target market through a social media profile, you can create a two-way discussion that lets you get your name known while finding out more about customer needs. Reward ‘fans’ with special offers and exclusive content to give them a reason to follow you.
You can also create ‘social adverts’ that appear in users’ news feeds.
Content marketing
Content marketing works by creating truly useful content that addresses customer needs – for example, giving insights into an industry ‘hot topic’, answering common questions or presenting facts in an entertaining way – and encouraging people to share it around.
Content produced for this purpose needs to be informative, entertaining and attention grabbing. Above all, it needs to be customer-focused and not simply a sales message.
Video marketing is one form of content marketing, using short, engaging video clips.
Online advertising and lead generation
Although online advertising helps raise awareness of your business, don’t lose sight of the fact that the aim of all your marketing efforts is to generate sales.
When you create your advertising, think carefully about what you specifically want to achieve with it – do you want viewers to sign up for a free trial, take advantage of a special offer or add their details to your mailing list?
Make sure you build in a clear call to action that will get the message across and encourage people to take that step – and always measure your results, so you can be sure you’re getting a return on investment.
This article is provided only for general informational and educational purposes. It is not offered as and does not constitute legal or other professional advice on the subject matter in question. You should not act or rely on information contained in this website without first seeking professional advice on the subject matter in question.
