When times are tough, we all know marketing is a must. Glancing through local lifestyle glossies, it is clear that many businesses have rightfully concluded that to survive, they need to advertise. We agree. We advertise in magazines and newspapers too.
However, we also advertise online, and we find it hard to understand why some of the companies we see advertising in magazines and newspapers all the time – and we’re talking smaller restaurants, bars, independent shops and so on – are so reluctant to repeat the exercise with online advertising.
We know what they spend on those magazine and newspaper ads because we spent it too, and online advertising needn’t cost any more. Either to complement or replace offline ads, advertising online has a lot going for it.
Google leads the way
You won’t be surprised to hear that Google has the lion’s share here. Google AdWords pay-per-click adverts are the right-hand side ads that appear when you look at a Google search results page. Targeted, measured and effective, they are a great way of getting your message in front of potential clients at exactly the time they are looking for your products.
How does it work?
Say you own a restaurant in Marbella. You could have an advert appear every time somebody types “restaurant Marbella”. Is it a French restaurant? Then go for “French restaurant Marbella”. Do you see? Your ad appears at the precise moment someone is looking for a French restaurant in Marbella!
It gets better. You don’t pay unless that person then clicks on your advert. Displaying it is free. Can you say the same about newspapers and magazines?
Remember I mentioned measurability? The system will tell you how often your ad showed, what people typed in, how many clicked – it can even tell you how many enquiries to your business came directly from your online ads. Can the local rag tell you that?
So what’s the issue?
We think it’s a case that people need to be shown how this works, and given advice on how to make sure when someone does click on their advert and land on their website, they are properly encouraged to do something positive – ring to book a table, buy a product, enquire etc. Then, they need help setting up and monitoring the campaign. It’s not just a case of “set and forget” with real-time online advertising.
The online help offered by Google is good, and books like “AdWords for Dummies” – while Americanised – are easy to work through. Or alternatively some web agencies can set campaigns up for you at reasonable rates – including our own Pay Per Click Taster offering.
But however you decide to try it out, we think almost all businesses can benefit from adding this form of advertising to they “marketing mix”.
by Phil Morse
Absolutely !
There are a bunch of ways to use the internet to promote
your local enterprise and a lot of them are free or very low cost.
It does mean getting involved (or paying someone to do it).