The types of advertising keeps evolving. It is a complex form of communication where you have to figure out how to reach your customers the best.
There are different types of advertising available for your online business. However, you have to figure out which strategy works best for you to avoid getting overwhelmed.
Before we look at the ways you can grow each of your online businesses, you need to remember that there are two primary forms of advertising. These are:
Traditional advertising
This involves using television, radio, and newspapers, direct mail, magazines, and billboard designs. Traditional advertising reaches a large audience.
Classified ads
This is because a massive number of people see advertisements. However, it is hard to determine if the people seeing the ad are the right people for it.
Digital advertising
Digital advertising, on the other hand, uses different ways to reach the target audience. The advertisements are curated to reach a specific audience. You can customize it to reach your audience based on their demographic.
Here is a list of digital advertisements to use if you are wondering how to advertise your business.
#1. Google ads
Ever wondered how to advertise on Google? Google ads will help you place your company's advertisement on Google's search engine results. When you use keywords or commonly searched terms, searches related to your business and their services and products appear as results.
This makes your business visible to the target audience. For example, if your company has insurance products, it will appear on search results for people looking for insurance information.
Google AdSense also allows businesses to host ads on their website from Google to generate income for their site.
If you are looking to advertise on Google, you can enroll your business in Google or AdSense, and through its algorithms, Google will match the ads to different websites with related content. This will ensure that your company has a broader reach through Google placement advertisements.
Let customers share their thoughts with ease. Use the QR Code for Reviews to generate direct links for leaving reviews.
#2. Social Media Advertising
Social media advertising involves promoting your business through social media platforms, which will give you a quick ROI because everything done on social media is in real-time.
When you tag your social media advertisements, you can use UTM codes to know where your sales are coming from.
This form of advertising gives you more freedom and helps you release your brand's personality better than other forms of advertising, such as television. Social media promotions are more relaxed compared to television commercials.
Before you start advertising on social media, you need to choose the best platform that will work for your business. Recognize your target audience because not everyone uses every platform.
For example, an audience that uses TikTok or Facebook often might not be using LinkedIn. So it would be best if you needed to be aware of which platform your audiences use.
If you have a large audience, you can successfully advertise your products on social media without paying for promotions. But if you are starting, you will need to pay for advertisements to reach new customers.
Social media ads are pretty effective since you can easily measure their reach. As an advertiser, you can easily collect insight on how much traffic an ad has and how many conversions it has made. This way, you get to see which ads work best for your business.
#3. Native Advertising
Native advertising is different from banners and pop-up advertising. This type of advertising comes in the form of videos and articles that host similar products or content. It is not apparent what they are selling to you, but they will make a compelling argument on what to buy.
The native advertisement offers the customers valuable information and makes advertising the secondary aspect of the communicated message.
These ads match the natural flow of the page and are non-disruptive, whereby the users will not feel bombarded with sales content.
Native ads should be placed strategically and follow an interesting pattern that fits a business' target audience interest. Native ads are always labeled to alert the reader the content is sponsored, but the labels are very discreet.
#4. Display Advertising
With the display format, it is pretty apparent what you are selling. This obvious nature makes display advertising stand out because, in most cases, you will find the ads implemented subtly.
These ads can be designed to be animated or stagnant and are found on top of web pages in most cases. Display ads' primary objective is to make quick ads.
Their potential reach is quite massive because search engines match the ads with millions of related websites based on the keywords you use on your targeting preference.
Display ads are very many online, and this factor can damage their effectiveness. This is mainly because they do not value the customers other than a call to action. This makes them easy to ignore by the users.
Display ads are not as popular as before, but as a business owner looking to grow your business, you should not completely ignore them in your ad campaign strategy. Display ads are visually stimulating and quickly grab the attention of your audience.
Here are the different types of traditional advertising.
#5. Print Advertising
Print advertising was a huge driver of sales. However, print has taken a considerable setback since the inception of digital forms of advertisements. This does not mean that print advertisements do not work. It is excellent for a specific demographic who are tired of pop-up ads on the internet.
Types of printing advertisement include:
· Periodical Advertising;
This involves any advertising that comes out at a regular interval. This includes magazines and newspapers. For many decades print ads were the gold standard in advertising.
Before, grabbing the center page of a newspaper or magazine could cost you a lot of money since it meant that millions of people would get to see the massage.
· Point-of-sale advertising, brochures, handouts, leaflets, and handouts;
Some of these media can be placed on pages of newspapers and magazines but are treated as different entities because they are less likely to be seen.
Magazine ads
Some like brochures sit on the counters of customer service desks, but they offer an intimate and long-form way of engaging with potential customers.
This is a great way to put out information if you cannot cram it into a print ad.
· Direct Mail Advertising;
Direct mail means that the printed pieces are mailed directly to the consumers. This technique can be used with any form of printed advertising mentioned above.
However, some marketing agencies have turned direct mailing to junk mails which irritate most of the customers. However, if this method is carefully crafted and well-executed, direct mail is a great way to interact with your customers.
#6. Television
Television has a broad reach and is ideal if you are looking to reach a wide area. Ads on TV have the advantage of sound, sight, movement, and color to persuade the customer to buy from them.
They are especially great if you need to show how a specific service or product works.
Producing a TV ad to buy an advertising slot is quite expensive. TV ad slots ate sold in units of either 20, 30, or 60 seconds. The cost varies based on:
- The time of the slot;
- Whether the ads are on regional or metro;
- The television program on;
- Whether you are buying the slot on multiple networks.
#7. Radio
Radio is a great way to reach your target audience. If you know that your target audience listens to a specific radio station, you can place your ad on the particular station.
Radio advertising has its limitations because ads can only be heard via sound. Most listeners can find it hard to remember information they heard on the radio. The only way to overcome this is to keep repeating the message regularly, which significantly increases the cost of advertising.
If you cannot afford to keep your ad playing on the radio, you will find that radio ads do not generate the desired results.
#8. Outdoor and Transit
There are different ways to advertise outdoor and on the go. These include:
- Outdoor bills boards;
- Posters on buses, bicycles, and taxis.
Taxi signage is a way of advertising through LCD screens that are placed on the headrests of front-row seats in taxis. Through these screens, advertising agencies help their clients promote their products. Several businesses are investing each year to develop a taxi app like uber to boost their revenue. Adverting through Taxi signage is affordable and still in trend in some places.
Large billboards are a great way to get your message across to a vast audience. When people pass by your billboard often when they see your billboard, you are likely to be the first business they think about when they want a product.
It is important to note that outdoor advertising supports brand awareness more than direct selling. Most advertisers now use outdoor advertising as a way to connect digital advertising to the real world.
Some businesses are using QR codes to engage passersby to drive them to a product online. Apps are pretty popular with this method of advertising.
Advertising Made Easy - Which Strategy To Use
Now that you know the different types of advertising, you can now know the best way to advertise your business.
There is a lot to choose from, so make sure that you choose wisely. Make sure you form an advertising campaign that you will efficiently execute across the different channels.
