Advertising and Marketing, they are things that can make a poor product a market leader. Although a lack of marketing can ensure a great product is never found. It is without any doubt that marketing is an important part of any business. Where should you focus your marketing efforts? Is it better to advertise offline and face to face or online?
Does it matter?
You might think “why does it matter?” but something as simple as your target audience’s social media habits matter. It can extend beyond that, different social media platforms have different demographics. Pinterest for example has over twice as many female users as male users. We recommend checking out this blog post to look at social media demographics in more detail.
Think of the latest and greatest phone available that all the teenagers are talking about. Do you think an advertisement in The Yorkshire Post would be successful at targeting a younger audience, or perhaps a targeted Facebook Advertisement? The younger generation are very up to date with technology so online advertising may be more effective. On the other hand, if you’re selling wheelchairs or walking aid’s you might be better off with the Newspaper.
So why should I advertise online?
There are a wide range of benefits to advertising and marketing your brand or product online. There’s far more than just paying for a banner advertisement. There are a many things you can do, even those that cannot be seen.
Advantages of Online Marketing
Cost management
Compared with a traditional print advertisement, marketing your brand or product online can be cheaper than offline marketing alternatives. At the end of the day it requires far less management to add a link to your website. With the right knowledge, some things done right can even be free such as Search Engine Optimisation and Well Written Content. It’s easy to manage and set a budget on your online marketing and if you made a spelling mistake, well you can just log on and change the wording! You can choose to pay for advertisements in a variety of ways such as paying for the number of views an advertisement gets, or the click through rate (Pay-Per Click) based on how many users follow through to visit your website.
Analytics and Measurability
Another great advantage when compared to offline advertising is the analytics tools available. Google Analytics, for example, can show the direct impact that your advertisement is having. Want to know how many people have seen your advert and how many have visited your website to found out more? Well you can do that! You don’t know how many people have been on the bus to work in the morning, but using tools you can measure how many clicks, visits and sales you’ve made and from that you can calculate an accurate ROI for your marketing spend. In the long term this can clearly show the benefit of online marketing, and you’ll probably find you spend relatively little in comparison!
Demographic Targeting
One of the greatest things about an online marketing campaign is that you can choose who see’s your advertisement. You can do this with traditional marketing to an extent, but do you really know who reads “Mens Health”? Lets say you’ve developed a new makeup product. Online it’s fairly simple to create an advert that specifically targets “Females Aged 18-24 in Pontefract or Wakefield, West Yorkshire” with just a few clicks. This means your advertisement won’t be seen by “Males Aged 65+ in the UK” who are less likely to be interested in your product. As you’re paying for less views, targeting can keep the costs down significantly.
Conclusion
Online Marketing is far more affordable to new entrants when compared to traditional marketing, which seems to be on the decline. There are some great benefits to online marketing such as cost management, analytics and demographics targeting. This makes marketing targeted products far more easy and allows you to ensure that it’s not seen by those who won’t be interested. Using these techniques, you can easily run a cost-effective campaign (and measure just how effective it is).
Here at Appleton Finance Solutions we can help with a wide range of online marketing campaigns.
We can help you get found locally with Local Search Marketing, optimise your website to be found higher in Google Search Rankings, and create targeted campaigns on social media to target the people that you want to buy your product. If you’d like to hear more, get in touch!