Marketing Online - Five Benefits You Don't Want to Miss
Wednesday May 6, 2009
We know that a critical piece of running a business is marketing, but it seems to be the component that most business owners struggle with. Marketing is everything from the advertisement that a consumer sees regarding your product or service that you offer through the entire sales process including the follow-up after the purchase. It's important for businesses to understand the benefits that marketing online provides that other more traditional marketing options don't provide. This can help in making a decision when it comes to planning where to put your marketing dollars; especially if you are needing them to stretch a bit further in this economy.
Marketing online has proven to bring many cost effective benefits that help businesses do their own market research as well as still market effectively even on a shoe string budget. I always suggest a mixture in marketing; both marketing online and off. However, I think once you see the benefits in marketing online it can help you in creating even more successful marketing strategies offline. Take a few moments to learn just five key benefits that will help you understand why marketing online is not only important, but how the information you gain from online marketing can increase your chances of success in traditional marketing.
I think the reason that most small business owners struggle with marketing is simply time and prioritisation. Marketing always seems like an afterthought yet if I had the benefit of my knowledge now back in the day, I would make it my absolute, number 1 priority. Marketing is key and everything else should come second to it.
I agree. Small businesses often do not have the money put aside to use for Marketing. They only think of it as a cost, not an investment, which is really what it is.
With the new IAB advertising guidelines that require all online ads to be supplied with a 10 business day lead time, we are finding that online, which SHOULD be an instantaneous medium, is now becoming LESS flexible than our traditional media. In other words I can put in a change to a full page print ad at 5pm and have it print correctly the next morning, whereas if I put in a change to a voken running on Hotmail, it won’t come into play for two weeks!
Kristen, can you tell me which IAB advertising guidelines you are referring to which requires a 10 business day lead time?
What I can tell you is most the time online ads can be tweaked in a matter of seconds, including banner ads, email campaigns, text ads, pay-per-click ads, etc – so if you could give some clarification as to what you are referring to that would be fantastic, thanks.
In my experience helping small businesses develop their marketing strategies, when it comes to choosing advertising media, typically online is unaffordable. An investment of a minimum $1000 per month was necessary to see results for the customer.This bought about 50,000 impressions, considered a bare bones minimum.Lower pricetags for online advertising would help small businesses try it. Also, many times customers go online to view their ads but can’t find them, because they are rotating on a schedule.They want to see what they paid for! So the nature of internet advertising makes it challenging to sell to small guys on a tight budget. And to show effectiveness at prices they can afford.
Deena Ray, I think the important thing is that you can market online without “advertising” take into consideration free opportunities such as Google Profiles and even Google Local opportunities, let’s not forget about those options. There are many low-cost and no-cost ways to market online.
I agree with laura, there are options such as signing up to free directories etc to make sure you get exposure without huge cost
Hi Laura,
The IAB guidelines were released on February 21, 2008, with full enforcement commencing March 1, 2008.
Here is the excerpt from which I was referencing (for Rich Media hosted through a third-party vendor like eyeReturn, which is required for many sites such as MSN):
• Late Creative Deadlines: Standard Banner ads are required to be submitted to Online Publishers at least 3 business days prior to campaign launch; Rich Media and Video ads are required to be submitted to Online Publishers at least 5 business days prior to campaign launch. NOTE: If the Advertiser or Agency is using a third-party vendor external to the Agency to create or co-serve Rich Media or Video ads, these ads should be submitted to the external third-party vendor at least 10 business days prior to campaign launch, in order to allow for testing and tracking setup at the external vendor.
Hi Kristen,
Thank you for clarifying. Yes if you are using a third-party service there are creative guidelines, however by marketing online without a 3rd party you have a great flexibility to revise marketing and advertising efforts. However, with that in mind if you are running your own pay-per-click ads or organic search engine optimization you can change wording and marketing efforts on the fly.