Is my business too small to run a marketing campaign online?

Is my business too small to run a marketing campaign online?

If you have an online presence for your business such as a website or a landing page, you need to let people know it is there. Google alone has more than 550,000,000,000 sites listed according to Reuters, and 80% of consumers use search engines to purchase or research products and services online. These statistics alone provide a very compelling argument that all businesses big or small need to do some level of online marketing.

Before you begin seeking out advertising avenues, it is important to develop an advertising budget. The great thing about online advertising is you can start with a small budget, because there are many options that are inexpensive and effective.

Next, you need to start thinking hard about where you want to place your online adverts. Begin by doing plenty of research. Where are your competitors advertising? What kind of adverts are they using? Keep an eye on what they are doing; if the advert is up on that site regularly, chances are it is working for them.

Look for sites that your target audience would be using such as niche online magazines, blogs or networking sites. Give serious thought to where you want to place your ads, you want them placed above the fold, or on pages in the site where your target audience is researching or looking at. If you sell a particular type of product, buy adverts on sites that offer complementary products or services to what you sell, this is where your target audience is.

Take careful consideration when designing your ad. Keep it simple and clearly state in the advert exactly what you are selling. It is great to be creative with words, but you want your target audience to know what you are selling in a causerie glance, if they are interested they will take a better look.

Constantly measure the response you are getting if it is not working change the ad. If you can, try two different adverts and test them against each other to see which ones work best for your audience. Look at the page where your advert will be, use colours that stand out on the page, and keep the font clear, this is no time for hard -to-read font.

Here are three popular online advertising strategies:

Link exchanges can be great, especially if your advertising budget is limited (or nonexistent). Look for sites that compliment your product, or have your target audience engaged. It is important to maintain the links so periodically check them to make sure they still all work.

Link building is not a once off thing you need to continue to build them, it may even be worth using a professional link service there are some that are quite cheap under $50 for 12 months.

Newsletter advertising is a great way to reach select groups of consumers that have requested to receive information from that site and will already be engaged. Make sure the newsletter is not too cluttered with advertising and that the information in the newsletters compliments your product or service i.e. advertises beauty products in a fashion and beauty newsletter.

You can also run your own email campaign, it will take some time and effort to build up your own database but running offers and competitions through other sites is a great way to build your database.

Budgeted advertising, such as GoogleAdWords, this allows you to purchase a set of keywords and set a limit on how much you want to spend. It is a great way to track if the campaign is working for you.

* Competition Lead Generation, you can always generate interest for your product by running a competition giveaway. But if you want to capitalise on those interested in your product, buy the leads generated from the competition. This needs to be organised prior to running a competition.

For more information or advice contact femail@femail.com.au