You’ve heard the saying “you get what you pay for.” In marketing, that’s especially true. While there are many places to market and advertise your business, not all of them are worth your time or money. Let’s take a look at some of the options so you can make an informed decision on what is best for you, your business and your customers.
To get the most bang for your buck, consider some of your goals.
- Are you targeting a specific audience? If so, that’s where you should focus your ad budget.
- What is your budget? The more money you spend on ads and marketing, the better results you will get from them–but don’t go overboard! It’s always important to be aware of how much money is coming into and going out of your business. Focus on your Return on Investment.
- What kind of content can you create? Have you considered what your potential customers are looking for? Don’t forget at every moment in time you have customers at different stages of their buying journey. Ensure you have a message for each stage. They may be looking for businesses that offer what they are looking for, this is the awareness stage. They may be looking for more information on your business’ services or products, this is the Interest stage. They may be looking for the best business to meet their needs, this is the Decision stage. Finally, they may be in the Action stage, where they are ready to buy and it is going to happen now.
So with all these answers in hand, you are now ready to decide which platform(s) you should use to get your message out. If you aren’t sure where you audience is hanging out, check out this infographic that outlines the typical user of each social platform.
Now lets dive into the platforms and their options for reaching your perfect customer
Facebook boosted posts
Boosted posts are a great way to get your content in front of more people. They’re also a great way to promote events, products, and services.
When you boost a post on Facebook, it will appear higher in the newsfeeds of people who already follow your page. This means that if someone likes one of your posts but has not yet engaged with it by commenting or liking it; boosting that particular post will allow more people who already follow your page to see this specific post at the top of their feed instead of buried deep down within all of the other content from other people and pages they follow in their News Feeds.
Boosting posts can be helpful if there’s something new happening with your business–like launching an app or announcing an event–but should generally be used sparingly because they are limited in effect. For example, the ability to reach new people are quite limited.
Boosted posts are a great way to promote events, products, and services to your current audience.
Facebook ads
Facebook ads are an excellent way to reach a large audience. You can target your audience based on demographics, interests, employment, location and more. You can set a budget and control how much you spend on each ad. You can track the effectiveness of your ads by looking at data such as clicks and impressions. Facebook offers advanced targeting options that allow you to show your ads only to people who match certain criteria for example parental status, gender, and ages.
You can also use Facebook’s powerful retargeting feature to re-engage people who have already visited one of your web pages or social media pages displaying relevant content in their newsfeeds or e-mails..
Facebook ads are very budget friendly and you can reach a large audience for dollars a day. It is also important to remember with all online advertising, they should run consistently, this allows the performance to improve over time.
Instagram ads
Instagram ads are a great way to reach a specific audience and drive traffic to your website or Instagram page.
Instagram has more than one billion monthly active users, which means that if you’re not advertising on Instagram, you’re missing out on an enormous opportunity to promote your business.
Instagram advertising can be used by businesses of all sizes–including small businesses and startups–to reach their target audience with high-quality images and text-based ads that look like organic content in their feed.
Instagram is a mobile first, image and video based platform, so the most important part of your ad on Instagram will be the imagery you use.
Twitter promoted tweets
Twitter is an excellent platform for businesses to use to get their message out there. It’s a platform that allows you to interact with customers, build relationships, and engage in conversations related to your brand.
Twitter ads are also a great way of reaching your audience if you want to promote something specific like an event or product launch. With promoted tweets you can reach new audiences who may not have heard about your business before which means more potential customers!
Twitter advertising is a powerful way to reach your audience and drive engagement. It’s easy to set up, and it doesn’t cost much at all. You can create an ad in just a few minutes—and then start seeing results right away.
Google and Microsoft Ads
This is the platform of intent. What I mean by that is if you are looking for customers in the action stage this is your platform. Now that doesn’t mean that consumers in every stage of their journey aren’t here because they absolutely are. What I mean is that when consumers have their mind set on a purchase, they “google” it. They are ready to buy and are looking for the best place to spend their hard-earned dollars. Don’t miss that golden opportunity.
Google and Microsoft ads have several options – Search Ads, these appear in the search results page. Display ads, these appear on other websites and apps across the google display network, essentially your business follows the consumer on their journey across the world wide web. Video ads will appear on websites, apps and most importantly YouTube. The type of ad you are looking to run should match your goal and purpose.
So if you are looking for customers in the Awareness, Interest and Decision stage it may be all three options will work. If you are targeting Action then search and shopping ads are your best bet.
There are many options for where to advertise
There are many options to advertise and market your business. Today we only talked about paid online advertising. We haven’t touched on organic online marketing, traditional marketing, The most important thing to remember is don’t get overwhelmed. You don’t have to do it all and in fact you shouldn’t.
Start with a plan, a strategy, and lots of research on your consumer, their habits, their interests, and their needs. This will make the best places to advertise and marketing your business very obvious.
We hope we’ve shown you that there are many great options for your advertising dollars. In the end, it comes down to which platform makes the most sense for your business an The good news is that no matter what platform you and your customer.
If you find yourself a little overwhelmed or confused, Reach Out! We help small businesses just like yours advertise, reach new customers and grow their businesses everyday, you could be next! If you would rather go it on your own, check out our Content Hub, you will find tons of information of best practices and how to market your business yourself.
