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Effective Solutions For Successful Online Advertising
Online advertising is a crucial component of every company’s marketing strategy. If not the sole channel of communication, it acts as a catalyst to complement the other channels for effective communication.
Whether your business is B2B or B2C, by implementing digital advertisements correctly, you’ll be able to successfully grow your online presence, and ultimately foster more conversions and sales.
In this blog, you’ll understand which digital channel of communication to use under different circumstances, and the ways of enhancing your online marketing strategy to bring value to your customers.
Where can you advertise online
It can be overwhelming to understand the types of channels of communication available online and choosing the right mix of them. We have taken the liberty to break down each channel which will enable you to take better decisions for your company.
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Advertising on search engines
Advertising on Search engines is the most popular form of digital advertising. Google leads the Search Engine Marketing (SEM) market.
You can sponsor text based ads on Google, that’ll be shown to people only when they search for a particular keyword.
This form of advertising is effective because unlike traditional advertising, where consumers are forced to watch an ad irrespective of their interests, Search ads show up exactly when the person is searching for a specific thing or a term. This increases the possibility converting the consumer.
Various pricing models like PPC (pay-per-click), CPA (Cost per acquisition), CPM (Cost per thousand impressions) etc. are used depending on your business goals. In PPC, you only pay if someone clicks on your ad. In CTA, you only pay if someone fulfills a CTA. In CPM, you pay specific amount after the ad is ‘seen’ by a thousand people.
This is an example of Search ad, they appear on the top of the SERP when searched for the keyword ‘online shopping’
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Social Media Advertising
Social Media is the single most powerful network to target a large audience demographic. So powerful that it is believed to have swung the 2016 US election in Trump’s favour.
It has enjoyed an exponential growth trajectory lately and is not looking to stop anytime soon. Organizations of the world have realised the potential of Social media and are looking to exploit any and opportunity that comes their way.
You can use social networks like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Youtube and LinkedIn to create highly targeted ads for your target market. You target by interest, affinity, demographic, education, job profile, etc. This helps you to show the right content, to the right person, at the right time.
Use this medium right, and it can open up a plethora of opportunities for your company.
This an example of a social media ad. Here, Google has advertised their product ‘Google Ads’ on the popular social media platform Facebook.
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Display/Banner ads
Display or banner ads are targeted to users with particular traits to increase the ads’ effect. They are some of the most widely known form of online advertising. Eg. If you are a tech company, you can choose to put up your ad on a famous tech blog, with the main aim of converting the audience of the blog.
Display ads are also effectively used to create brand awareness, that can potentially help trigger brand recall and increase brand recognition.
The ads on the extreme left and right are an example of display ads. Here, the smartphone company Oppo has advertised on the page that shows the specification of another smartphone brand One Plus.
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Pop-ups
Pop-ups can be positioned at one side of the website, or could cover the entire screen. The main motive of Pop-ups is displaying the calls-to-action to the website visitor with an aim to drive conversions.
This method used to be useful, but in this current age and era it’s a big no-no. Consumers find pop-ups annoying. So it is our responsibility to use them in a way that doesn’t ruin the customers browsing experience.
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Advertising on blogs
Blogs cater to a narrow group of audience that have interest in a specific topic. If this interest coincides with your product offering, their target audience could become your potential customers.
Good blogs have considerable influence on their readers, marketing products on such blogs increases the possibility of achieving your marketing targets. Eg. Hubspot is a popular blog amongst the people who share a common interest in marketing.
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Mobile advertising
According to Statista, 52.2% of all internet traffic was generated through mobile phones, compared to the 10% in 2010. This trend is expected to continue in the future. With the increased availability of data at lower prices, consumers have adopted a more mobile approach for surfing the net.
Most of your customers are already online through their smartphones. It is imperative that companies start using mobile advertisements, or they’ll lose out on a lot of potential customers.
Mobile ads can be display ads that show up inside an app, or could also constitute search ads and banner ads on other social networks.
This is an example of a mobile ad where tickets to an upcoming movie are directly targeted and displayed to the audience.
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Email marketing
Email marketing helps you interact with your audience while promoting your brand and increasing sales. You can send Emails to a group of recipients regarding your company’s marketing practices.
Nowadays, marketing automation is a term that’s thrown around a lot. To know more about this new phenomenon, read our blog about marketing automation. Email marketing can truly reach its potential through automating the process of sending Emails based on the behaviour of the customers.
Mailchimp is an excellent Email marketing tool that will make your life easy.
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Video advertising
As per Forrester Research, a minute of video is worth 1.8 million words of text. Considering the high recall power and varying strong pull of audio and video mix in video marketing, there is a greater chance that people will remember it even after 30 days, unlike, say, print advertising.
Video ads can be made on platforms like YouTube, Instagram etc. These ads are included with a CTA that aids in conversions.
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Remarketing
You can connect with visitors to your website who may not have made an immediate purchase or enquiry through remarketing. It allows you to position targeted ads in front of a defined audience that had previously visited your website – as they browse elsewhere around the internet.
Display ads can be used to remarket a product to a visitor on your website. This will increase exposure to the brand and nudge him towards buying the product.
9 Tips for your Online Marketing Strategy
We talked about the different types of channels that you can use to advertise your products or services online. While it is necessary to use a right mix of them, it is also essential to implement an appropriate online marketing strategy.
Following are 9 tips that you can use for your Online Marketing Strategy
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Use of creative Elements
Every business has visual elements that differentiate them from their competitors. This could be the brand logo, company mood board, etc.
Make sure to use these identifiers in your website so that people recognise your site just by looking at the design. This helps to increase brand recognition and triggers brand recall.
These creative elements must be used in your ads that you target to the people. This will create a feeling of authenticity that will help you drive sales.
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Spend Wisely
Different platforms reward you with different values. Researching about your customers and yourself could prove of great value. Because some platforms are great for B2C while the others provide good returns for B2B.
For eg. If you are a B2B company, LinkedIn ads will be your go to option. LinkedIn provides targeting by area, job profile, experience, company size, vertical, etc.
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Do your Research
It is important to know your buyer persona before beginning with the media planning. Once you identify who your target audience is, what are their wants and needs, you can serve them better. Only then can you begin the planning phase of the campaign.
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The Buyer Process
The buyer goes through a process before making the final decision. First he is exposed to the product, he then expressed interest in the same. He evaluates the alternatives before making the buying decision. It is important to know where your buyer is in this process. You target different ads to the target audience depending on which stage they are in the buyer process.
A buyer in the first stage could be shown a brand awareness ad, while the buyer in the evaluation of alternatives stage could be shown ads that different your offering from that of the competitors.
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Know your Buyer Persona
Fully grasping who your audience is, and how to best market to them is critical. You need to know who you want your buyers to be before you try to market to them. This is an important step in any marketing strategy whether it be on or offline, and it is a clearly defined aspect of your brand that you can keep referring back to.
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Connect Social Media Metrics with ROI
One prominent advantage of online marketing over traditional marketing is that everything online is trackable. When you are marketing online, you are reaching a diverse group of people, and that needs to be taken into consideration when measuring your results.
You need to look at what is promoting engagement with your company, versus what is actually driving conversions. Going with what is working and scraping what is not working will be crucial to maximise the return on your investment.
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Leverage Facebook
Facebook has allowed you to take word of mouth to a whole new level. Now, more than ever, recommendations from friends have a huge impact and can sway even the most cautious consumer.
To do this, you have to get in front of your clients-past, present and future. Facebook has a great advertising model in place that enables small businesses to advertise to very specific target markets very easily and without breaking the bank.
Even with a modest investment, you can reach your clients and get them on board.
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Integrate All Marketing Channels
Single-channel marketing is a thing of the past. Nowadays it is impossible for companies to survive by only using one channel of communication.
Different marketing channels provide different value to the customers as well as the company. They should be used in a proper mix such that it maximises the probability of achieving the marketing objectives.
Platforms life LinkedIn can be used to showcase the offering or the company culture. While Twitter could be used for Online Reputation Management.
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Geo-fencing
The relatively new venture in digital advertising holds a lot of promise for marketers-especially those in the B2C space.
It allows you to target customers in a whole new way based on their physical location, in the hopes of naturally guiding them to your business.
What makes geo-fencing so powerful for marketers is the ability to target consumers based on their interests and engage them by delivering offers that will push them down the path to purchase.
Digital has grown so powerful that even small organizations can use this technology, without a sizeable investment, to achieve their marketing objectives. Leverage digital and market your products to the right customers, at the right time and at the right place.
These are some powerful solutions that can help you to carry out a successful online advertising campaign.
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