Virtually every business needs to promote and advertise itself if it is to make any sales. One of the few exceptions is the small, local business such as the neighborhood convenience store. But even it could benefit from advertising and it does with it’s storefront and outdoor signs.
Today, the best way to advertise is using online marketing. We all have easy access to the Internet at our fingertips and the first thing we do when we need to find something is do a search. Gone are the days of the Yellow Pages.
So why is your business not advertising online?
Many of you probably think of online marketing as SEO but there really is much more to it than that. Yes, SEO should be a part of your online marketing strategy. But don’t forget about pay-per-click which can be a big part of that strategy. There is also social media and other strategies such as SBO – Search Box Optimization.
This doesn’t of course mean that you should be exclusively use online marketing tactics. There still is a place for some businesses for radio, television, and print, as well as networking, both online and off. It all depends on what makes sense for your particular business.
The big advantage of online marketing is that put your ad in front of those who are looking for you at the very moment they are looking, at least those using a search engine. I find it the ultimate form of advertising, it’s like reading someone’s mind.
Radio, television, and print do not have that advantage. In those medium, you’re putting the thought of your business in their head in hopes they will remember it when they do have a need for your product. That may never come of course, you are advertising to the masses. To be effective, it needs to be done over and over. It is thus less inefficient.
Think of a landscape company advertising on radio. Not everyone has a yard and those who do, you are hoping they will contact you, if not now but in the future should they remember you. That is if they even have been exposed to your ad in the first place.
But if they search online, you can grab their attention right away, making it very efficient and affordable. Would you rather spend a dollar on someone who says they tell you they need landscaping or to a hundred who don’t?
The Yellow Pages, at least the print version, was better since it acted as a search engine, just on paper. If you were not advertising in the Yellow Pages, you were not found and you would not get business. So think of online marketing much like the Yellow Pages except it’s all electronic.
If you haven’t plunged into the world of online marketing, your competitors have. Lucid Web Marketing is there to help navigate it and make sure you maximize your results. If you have taken the plunge, we can still help and ensure you are spending your online marketing dollars wisely. It’s a vast world and you can’t do it all by yourself.