Do you sometimes feel like you’re on the road to nowhere trying to decipher online advertising opportunities? Well, you’re not alone. With all of the social media marketing, banner ads, rich media ads, article sites, ad words, blogs, podcasts, gaming, etc. etc. etc., it can be a daunting task to sort through the maze of available online advertising opportunities.
- What exactly is online advertising? According to Wikipedia, “online advertising is a form of promotion that uses the Internet and World Wide Web for the express purpose of delivering marketing messages to attract customers”. Examples of online advertising include contextual ads on search engine results pages, banner ads, rich media ads, social network ads, online classified advertising, advertising networks, and e-mail marketing such as e-newsletters, just to name a few. And who knows what the future holds.
- What are the advantages of online advertising vs. print advertising? Your prospects have to wait until the journal is printed and “hits the street” for a print ad to be viewed. You usually have to provide the publisher your artwork files at least 30 days in advance. Whereas an online ad may take only a few days or hours to produce and it is up and running immediately and available for prospects to click on and view your offering.
- What about social media marketing? Does it work? Well the jury is still out on that regarding how it can be used to make money for a company. According to an article in the Wall Street Journal (Monday, August 3, 2009, Theory & Practice by Sarah E. Needleman, For Companies, a Tweet in Time Can Avert PR Mess) recently, many of the larger companies are using it for crisis management from a public relations standpoint. They can more easily detect if there are any negative comments floating around about their companies. Twitter, for example, has been used by Coke and PepsiCo to handle public relations issues, according to the article. This media helps them to become aware of an issue quickly and to address it immediately, thereby preventing an actual crisis.
My advice to my clients is to take the plunge and dive into online advertising. You can start slowly by initiating an e-newsletter. Also open a Twitter account. You can easily hire a marketing and advertising firm to help you with your online advertising if you’re not yet comfortable with this technology. The more you use it the more comfortable you’ll get.
