Marketing or advertisement is an essential part of any business. You may have a great product or service to offer but it will not sell if your target customer base is not familiar with it. Obviously you cannot go door to door or contact people personally to let them know about your business/ company. You will have to make them aware in masses through different forms of ad/ marketing. There was a time when print media was the major medium of advertising. Then with the advent of television, it became the most effective medium through TV commercials. Scenario again began to change with the internet boom. World Wide Web has permanently changed the world of advertising through the development of digital/ online ads. While traditional forms of advertising are still very much in practice, digital or online ads are also becoming essential. A good online ad campaign can give you the edge that you need to do better than your competitors.
Traditional ads/ online ads- a comparison
There are some clear differences between online and traditional methods of advertising. These differences have helped to establish the fact that in this day and age of cutthroat competition; a business needs a good online presence even if it is into traditional advertisements. The biggest difference between the two forms is the speed and reach. A busy professional may not always find the time to watch TV or read newspaper/ magazines but for work he must use the internet. Thus it is possible to reach him through online ads. With the number of internet users growing regularly, the number of people you can reach through the internet is astronomical. Another big difference is the cost factor. TV commercials can be expensive to make. It is like shooting a film at a smaller scale. You need to have a big advertisement budget for that. In case of printed ads too, you will have to buy space from the newspaper and magazine. But in case of online ads, you can do them at very low costs if you do not have too much resource. There are websites who even let you post your ads for free. So no matter what is the size of your business/ company, you can still do online ads.
Various methods of online ads
There are several ways through which you can promote/ advertise something on the web. Here are the various methods –
- First and foremost is add business online. There are options for both free and paid ads. Large number of people uses these sites to search for items they require.
- Marketing through Social Media Marketing: Using social media like Facebook, YouTube and Twitter can be very effective in attracting the attention of people towards your product or service. This medium is very beneficial for small/ medium businesses.
- Google AdWords: The pay per click Google AdWords is a program in which you can place ads with specific keywords related to your business. The ad will come up in Google search engine results and anytime a user clicks on your ad, you will be paying a fixed fee to Google.
There are also few other methods like Search engine optimization and article marketing that you can also use.