Since there are 32.5 small businesses across the US, any budding operation is sure to have a lot of competition. Because of this, only 40% of startups are profitable. Luckily, there are actionable ways that you can reach your audience.
A top-notch marketing strategy is key to success in any industry. But why do people advertise, exactly?
Read on to answer this question and learn some benefits, tips, and tricks for the best possible marketing campaign.
Advertising Explained: The Basics
Picture a roadside billboard telling you to pull off at the next exit for an attraction.
Now, think about the flyer on the wall of your local coffee shop that tells you where to get college course tutoring.
Finally, imagine the little boxes on the sides of your Google sidebar that say, “click here to learn about our favorite jewelry styles!”
These things may initially seem unconnected, but they’re all examples of the same thing: advertising.
Advertising is, at its core, a mode of communication. It targets an audience that the company using the ad believes could use its services.
This can be a traveler looking for adventure, a student looking to pass their finals, or someone who loves shopping for new accessories. In fact, the target audience of an advertisement can be anyone!
Ads are paid messages that try to inform and influence those who see them. Their aim is to get people interested in a specific good or service. The final objective is to get people to patronize the business that paid for the ad.
Advertising is everywhere, even when you don’t think that it’s present. Product placement in your favorite show is a form of advertising, as are company names that you see in print media. Branded shirts that people wear while out and about are also a type of advertisement.
Why Do People Advertise?
When you’re having various promotional materials shoved into your face all day, it’s easy to wonder why companies must advertise. As it turns out, no two companies have exactly the same goals for their ad campaigns.
Companies can usually place their ad campaign into one of three categories.
The first category is an informative ad campaign. These strategies are intended to show the audience what the product is and give them some useful information about it. A company may give the viewer facts, statistics, visual data, and logical reasons that they should purchase a product.
Persuasive ad campaigns don’t just seek to inform – they seek to entice. They try to tell potential clients the benefits of working with their brand. Usually, these ads appeal to the emotions of their audience to influence them effectively.
Finally, reminder ad campaigns engage with an audience that has already previously worked with their business. They remind them about the services they’ve bought and how they positively impacted them. The goal is to generate brand loyalty and find repeat customers.
However, these categories are extremely broad. There are limitless reasons that a company may use marketing. As a business owner, it’s important that you know some basic objectives that you may want to know.
Increasing Brand Awareness
One core advertising objective is to build awareness for your brand and business. Ads show your logo and brand name to prospective clients. This alerts them to the fact that your business exists and can potentially solve their pain points.
You need to make 3 impressions on consumers before they receive you message. This means that your advertising campaign needs to target consumers repeatedly when they look for services like yours.
It’s important that your ad is memorable and visually appealing. A catchy slogan, a funny joke, or a cool photo is a great way to stick in people’s minds.
Generating and Nurturing Leads
Another more concrete advertising goal is to find and nurture leads. You want to gather information on people who are actively searching for your solutions. This means directing them to your website and getting them to fill out a contact form.
After people go from a social media forum or PPC ad to your website, you can begin gathering information about them. Cookies are a great way to do this.
Content is equally necessary. Make sure that this page is engaging and interesting with videos, graphics, and other multimedia content.
After you’ve engaged users, place a quality lead magnet at the bottom of your page. Request their email address and demographic information in exchange for a promotion, coupon, email subscription, free ebook, or a sample of your service. This will give you leads to follow up with.
Performing Market Research
When you use ads to direct inbound traffic to your page, you can more easily perform market research. You’ll have the chance to look at the demographics of those that click on your website. You also will have the ability to see which channels people used to get to your website.
Once you have this information, you can make more informed decisions about future marketing campaigns. You’ll know who to target and what avenues to focus on driving traffic from. This boosts both visibility and interest.
Making Sales and Generating Revenue
The ultimate goal of any ad campaign – or, really, any business venture – is to generate revenue. You want to take those that see your ads down the sales funnel until they make a purchase.
Make sure that every decision your make during your ad campaign remains goal-oriented. Ask how each choice will ultimately drive sales and make you money. This is the best way to make the most of your ad campaign and get a high ROI.
The Different Types of Advertising
Traditional advertising used to be the standard for businesses looking to market their services. Traditional advertising is also called print advertising because it includes marketing with billboards, flyers, pamphlets, business cards, and posters.
While many people think this is outdated marketing, this couldn’t be further from the truth. Print marketing actually generates a 15%-17% ROI because it elicits an emotional response from consumers. In fact, 82% of people trust print ads more than other types of advertisements when making purchasing decisions.
However, you don’t want to exclusively advertise with printed media. Digital marketing is a great way to reach audiences across the world. In addition to reaching more people, it’s also more diverse since you can include blog posts, moving images, video content, and more.
Plus, seamlessly integrating digital and print marketing strategies is a breeze! You can add your website and social media information to billboards and flyers. This will give people a place to begin learning more about your products.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Speaking of your website, it’s important that you boost its visibility in search engines. SEO is a series of manipulations that you perform on the web to make your website rank higher. Since 25% of people click on the first Google result while around 90% never go past page 1, it’s important that your website shows up early.
On-page SEO refers to manipulations that you make to your website to make it more appealing to search engine crawlers. These crawlers are bots that index the web and determine what pages are the most reputable, relevant, credible, and valuable to the audience.
Some on-page SEO strategies include:
- Inclusion of high-volume keywords
- Quality content (blog posts, videos, etc)
- Internal links for easy page indexing
- HTML coding in image descriptions
- Having a user-friendly navigation system
Off-page SEO refers to manipulations that you make to other areas of the web. These also hold the goal of making your site more appealing to crawlers. Some off-page SEO tactics include:
- Directing traffic from paid Google ads
- Directing traffic from social media
- Backlinking (linking to other reputable websites within your content)
- Having others link to you from their own websites
- Getting mentions and reviews on other sites
Make sure that you leverage multiple activities to make your page rank as highly as possible.
Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
SEM is a form of paid marketing within Google. When you engage in SEM, you showcase pay-per-click (PPC) ads at the top of Google or in the sidebar. These ads show up on keywords that you bid for so that you can reach a relevant audience.
To create an SEM campaign, you must:
- Go to the Google Ads website
- Select your target demographics (age, gender, occupation, income, etc)
- Choose the keywords that you want to bid on (so that your ad shows up when a user makes that specific query)
- Upload your well-designed ad
- Set a budget for your ad campaign (the ad will stop being displayed once the allotted budget is gone)
- Wait until you win the bid
- See your ad in Google’s paid ads areas and watch as you get more inbound traffic
This is a great way to direct users to your website, make your brand known, and find people who are already looking for services like yours on Google.
Social Media Marketing (SMM)
People spend about 2 hours and 27 minutes each day on social media. Because of this, social media is a critical place where your business can reach prospective customers.
Each social media platform has its own advertising strategy. Facebook and Instagram let you choose demographics and people who have consumed specific content before. You can then display a paid advertisement to them.
PPC ads are also possible on Twitter and TikTok, though you’re going to want to heavily rely on using hashtags. Make sure that you use relevant tags to find people who follow them. This is a great way to engage with an interested audience.
Tips for a Successful Campaign
Before you can run a successful campaign, it’s important that you learn from a professional. Online Advertising Academy has helped over 7,000 businesses launch successful ad campaigns. They also have over 12 years of experience working with businesses to promote their services.
When you get advertising training with an experienced professional, you’ll learn the best ways to boost your digital marketing campaign. This keeps you competitive with cutting-edge strategies that engage modern audiences.
Perform Competitor Analysis
One way that you can best reach your audience is to assess what your direct competitors are doing. Use a tool like Google Analytics to track your competitor websites. Look into:
- Which demographics are most likely to click on ads
- Which demographics are likely to make purchases
- What types of ads people tend to click on (multimedia, text, image)
- If there are any trends between the page people are directed to and which users make a purchase
- Which competitor pages are most effective at driving sales
- What keywords your competitors rank for
- Which of those keywords best drive traffic
By looking into what your competitors do, you can get a clear picture of what works vs what doesn’t in an ad campaign.
Know Your Audience
Knowing your target audience is another essential part of a good ad campaign. Look into their:
- Ages
- Genders
- Occupations
- Income levels
- Goals/objectives
- Previous purchases
- Pain points to resolve
This will give you an idea of what platforms to focus on for your campaign. Different demographics frequent different websites, so be aware of where your target audience is. Make sure to leverage multiple channels to reach as many people as possible.
You can also use knowledge of these demographics to create ads that will appeal to your target market. Find colors, styles, image types, multimedia formats, and fonts that are popular with your intended audience.
Learn More About Bolstering Your Business
So, why do people advertise? This is a question with tons of different answers, but it ultimately comes down to boosting visibility and finding customers and clients.
Now that you’ve read the best advertising guide on the web, it’s time to get more information on boosting your business success. Check out the “business” tab on our home page for more information. Both the “finance” and “event” sections will give you smart tips on connecting with your target audience the right way.
