If you’re hesitant to spend money on advertising because there’s no way to measure return on investment, online advertising provides a solution.
Online advertising is different from more traditional forms of advertising such as print and broadcast because it’s easier to measure an ad’s effectiveness online. Though traditional media vehicles have ways to target potential customers, it’s nowhere near as accurate as the Internet where you can target people based on their location, interests and behavior.
Another big plus for online advertising is the ability to make quick adjustments to your strategy. If your SEO isn’t increasing your web traffic, change it. Need to update an online ad? No problem, that can be done much quicker and cheaper than with traditional media.
Most importantly, though, online advertising gets results. For example, one of our SEO clients invested $3,000 per month last year and got $800,000 worth of new business as a direct result of that SEO campaign.
Online advertising becomes even more effective when part of a multi-media campaign. Your website, online videos, banner ads and more serve to further enhance your print, broadcast, collateral and other media efforts. For instance, Nielsen, the research company that provides ratings for TV and other media, found that online video ads “help to reinforce and strengthen the impact of a traditional TV campaign.”
In the same way, traditional media channels can help promote your website or social media pages. Another client saw a steady increase in web traffic due to a good SEO campaign along with traditional media vehicles that encouraged people to check out the website. In fact, the client got the most unique visits right after they ran newspaper ads, put up posters and sent out direct mail.
So, don’t throw out traditional media completely. Your goal should be to develop a campaign that promotes one message across all media channels, both on and offline. That’s the kind of campaign that will reach the most people and achieve the best results.
