Advertising: n. the action of calling something to the attention of the public especially by paid announcements
The science of advertising to gain attention for our product or service is well over 300 years old. Back in 1704, an individual approached a newspaper editor about placing an announcement of his need to purchase a piece of real estate in Long Island. Twenty-five years later, Ben Franklin pioneered the widespread use of this practice in his Pennsylvania Gazette by offering an entire section of public advertisements in each new edition. It was so successful, he continued the practice and released the first American magazine ads in 1942 within the pages of the “General Magazine.”
Ever since, we have looking for ways to be position ourselves in front of our audience by purchasing “real estate” across a variety of mediums. And with the World Wide Web, the possibilities are nearly endless. It’s all about knowing where your audience is and how to build a solid campaign.
The digital age often distracts business owners with the promise of “free” and “organic” traffic generation that doesn’t require an advertising budget to attract potential buyers. But the whole point of marketing is to attract the right type of traffic to the pages on your website that will convert a visitor into a customer. We can drive free and “organic” traffic all day long to a website, but that doesn’t mean they are converting or that we can even get them to consider us. I’m not trying to discount organic, because it does have its place; but it is not the whole strategy.
Only with advertising is attraction highly intentional. It’s all about the strategic structure that make up a seamless strategy of traffic movement from the various corners of the internet to a page where your visitor makes the decision to become your customer instead of giving the opportunity to your competition. So, what makes this attractional method so successful?
Glad you asked…
PPC and Social Advertising are demographic driven.
With PPC, we can narrow exposure down to location, time of day, day or week, and of course the keyword used to display the advertisement. With Social advertising, we can take it a step further. We can narrow down the search based on age, likes, websites visited and a few other demographic tags that make narrowing the field so easy.
Because we can efficiently advertise to only those people who fit our customer personas, we are much more likely to convert a higher percentage of prospects through a simple funnel campaign. We know where these individuals come from and how to market to them best since they have already been vetted. All we have to do is build the right infrastructure for each persona.
Since you buy the position, there is a fraction of the maintenance.
Digital advertising offers efficiency and effectiveness like no other platform on the internet can. With the limitation of Facebook’s organic exposure, the short shelf life of Twitter and the highly competitive nature of organic search results, the landscape is continuously changing and you may go some days with little to no exposure through these mediums. But, advertising gives you the position you are paying for regardless of how many times you post or if your SEO strategy is perfect. If your campaign is built with best practices at launch, it will perform well with only minimal oversight moving forward. (However, optimization of the ad is recommended and not just a “set it and forget it” mentality.)
Everything is data driven in an advertising campaign.
Data is so critical to any marketing strategy. But, with advertising we have a superior amount of valuable insight into what is going on with every dollar we decide to spend. It’s the core reason it delivers such high ROI potential.
Being able to trace visitor behavior from the search engine result page (or social media account) to their final interaction on your website is such a valuable asset to have. When we take advantage of this information, we can perfect a campaign and strategy in just a number of weeks instead of waiting months to see how things turn out. Real time data is what makes digital advertising king in the contemporary marketplace.
Where do you start?
If you’re interested in getting started with digital advertising, fill out the form on our “Contact Us” age and let us know that you want to take advantage of our 30 minute free consultation for new clients. We can discuss your unique situation and help you build a program that will fit your business’ specific needs.
