The importance of marketing and advertising online can’t be emphasized enough. But you should not be asking whether you need to do your marketing online or not. The real question is how?
There’s actually no final definitive answer that will work for everyone. It all depends on your circumstances. The business you have, the industry you’re in, and the budget you have to use will all affect your choices. To make sure you make the right decision, here’s an overview of your best possible options so you can pick the ones that serve your needs and situation the best.
Before anything else, you need to understand that if you’re aiming for instant results you will have to resort to paid advertising. Free advertising online is of course possible, but it takes too much time and effort. You will need to invest money on a paid advertising platform online, but at least it’s going to be a worthy investment. Your ROI can be much greater if you do things right.
It makes sense for you to make your business more visible through search engines. Common sense says – and actual surveys confirm – that it’s the most popular way for people to find products and services locally. They’re trusted, and people find them easy to use.
Now of course you can have a website (that’s a must) and then you increase its visibility through SEO. But that will take months to take effect, and you may have lots of competition for a spot on the first page of results.
So what you need is to use the pay-per-click model that displays your ads at the top of the results when the right keywords are entered. This gives you instant visibility on a site, and your brand is visible to the people who are actively trying to find the kinds of products and services you offer.
You can go with Google, but the Bing search engine may also be an option.
Google Ads
This is perhaps the absolute foundation of any type of online marketing strategy. If you’re limited to just one paid online advertising option, this is it. This is especially true if you’re a business in the US, because about 2 out of 3 people use Google. All the other search engines combine for just a third of all online search queries.
The Google stats for the number of searches are staggering. The number of searches in Google each year exceeds 2 trillion. It’s as if each and every person on the planet (including infants, apparently) use Google to make 250 online searches each year.
Google offers a lot for advertisers, as they have various helpful tools that can really boost your marketing. On the other hand, Google is well aware of its popularity, which is why the keywords here will be more expensive to obtain compared to other search engines.
Who Is This For?
This is for every business no matter what, unless you really can’t afford it. You get maximum visibility instantly, and
Bing Paid Ads
In 2008, Bing accounted for less than 9% of all search engine queries. Now in 2018, they’ve jumped to almost a quarter of all search queries. So advertising on Bong may complement your Google paid ads.
In fact, if you have very little money for online advertising this may be your primary option. Each click, each lead, and every instance of customer acquisition just costs less on Bing compared to Google paid ads.
Who Is This For?
This is for businesses which need to diversify their strategy for paid search advertising, which means to say it’s for everyone who already advertises on Google ads. At the same time, it’s also for those with a more limited budget that doesn’t let them work with Google.
Paid Social Networking Platforms
In the old days, advertisers placed their ads on the TV and in newspapers because those where the media that people spent the most time with. But now, people are spending a lot of time online by interacting through social networking sites like Facebook. So that’s where you ought to go as well.
Again, you may want to try the free marketing techniques on this platform, but you may want to complement that with paid ads for faster results
Facebook Advertising
Just as Google dominates the search engine industry, so does Facebook strides over the social network industry like a Colossus. According to experts, Facebook and Google are the top 2 digital advertising options.
This isn’t hard to understand when more than 2 out of 3 adults in the US are on this site each month. For every 100 US Facebook users, 74 of them are on the site every day. That’s just a massive audience for you to reach.
What makes Facebook so effective (and therefor so popular is that it enables you to easily reach the targets you’ve defined. You can find people to engage with by their gender and age, their locations, their interests, and even by their online behavior.
Who Is It For?
This is for a business that needs to reach particular targets for enhanced visibility and social engagement.
This is a video and photo sharing platform used by 800 million people each month. It’s becoming a more recognized advertising model, which is why experts forecast that Instagram’s ad revenues will double for 2019.
It’s true that a little over a third of all US adults use Instagram. But you can’t ignore its overwhelming popularity among the young, as more than 7 out of 10 US adults within the 18 to 24 age bracket are Instagram users.
Who Is This For
This is for businesses that need to reach out to younger consumers.
Paid Video Platforms
A large percentage of online traffic is due to video. In fact, experts say that by 2021 video will account for 82% of all Internet traffic.
YouTube
If you’re going with paid video platforms, it makes sense to consider YouTube. Almost 1 out of 3 people in the world watch videos on this platform. Over a billion hours of vides are seen each day.
YouTube is so ubiquitous that it’s also regarded as a search engine. In that sense, it ranks next only to Google in popularity. However, to maximize your benefits you will need to sue professionally made videos.
Who Is This For
This is for businesses with the budget it make professional videos. However, your money does make your brand a lot more memorable.
So there you have it. Now that you have a better idea of your options, hopefully you can choose the most suitable online marketing platform/s for your business.
Learn more about Sunex’s PPC Management Services.