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By Howard Bomstein
The second option for companies is to break into content-driven sites. This type of advertising offers opportunities such as banner display ads, streaming video and even interactive content such as video games. While this type of advertising allows you to convey more of your brand message, it also requires that you or a firm you hire have capabilities in interactive design. The key here is to do relevant market research prior to jumping onto any old site. You want to be familiar with the site’s target audience and determine how well that meshes with your target customer.
A huge advantage of advertising online is the relatively low cost you can incur while reaching customers who fall within a very specific category. Unlike print publications, many online advertising outlets offer the capability to target users both geographically and demographically, leading to a narrowed pool of targeted users and a more effective use of your budget. Internet advertising also allows you to measure and track through web analytics, which puts the number of page views and click-thru rates at your fingertips. This makes it easier to determine what type of advertising is working for you and makes the task of identifying the ROI of online efforts much easier than it is with traditional media like print, radio and television.
A third option includes some of the newer, less tested media such as text message advertising, blogging sites or social networking sites. These newer forms of marketing are more viral in nature and, while they may be beneficial, they should only be undertaken as part of an overall integrated marketing campaign, at least until their worth as a stand-alone medium is proven.
The question now becomes how much of my marketing budget do I need to dedicate to Internet marketing versus more traditional methods. There is no ideal formula since the perfect combination depends on the product or service you are selling, the demographics of your target market and the budget you have to work with. However, it is becoming apparent that the Internet is growing more and more dominant as part of the marketing mix, largely because it caters to consumers’ increasingly shorter attention spans and their demand for immediate rewards.
A business of any size can get started with Internet advertising by taking advantage of the low cost, increased measureability and excitement that new media can provide to a marketing campaign. The key is to constantly monitor and tweak your overall marketing plan based on results to ensure your approach is ever-evolving and improving.
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