Let’s face it; no business is exactly thrilled to spend their hard earned money on marketing. However, we all know that it is necessary to fuel our sales growth and name recognition. There are many different ways you can go about marketing and all have advantages and disadvantages. The key is to get the largest return on your investment and ensure strong and stable growth via your marketing campaigns.
Print Marketing: Print marketing such as newspapers and direct mailing campaigns is an excellent way to reach potential customers in your general area. These campaigns are typically very inexpensive, but provide only mixed results. No matter what product or service you are offering, there are people out there that simply are not interested. Therefore a portion of every dollar you spend on print marketing is completely wasted. In addition, another portion is wasted as there is a large portion of people that are not swayed by print media. They do not read direct mail and skip over ads in newspapers. While a well written, attention grabbing ad can produce excellent results, most direct mail or newspaper campaigns fail to offer a positive return on investment.
Radio and Television Ads: Another great way to market a business is with radio and television ads. These campaigns can reach a massive audience and are often great ways to increase your market share. The downside, of course, is these forms of marketing are extremely expensive. Most markets in the US are dominated by the same massive companies that buy up all the airtime. These massive corporations make it virtually impossible for a smaller company to compete with them in any market. Due to the competition amongst themselves, the cost for radio and television time is cost prohibitive for any business that isn’t listed in the Fortune 1000.
Internet Marketing: Internet marketing has become one of the best ways to promote a small business locally. The main reasons are it is very inexpensive, offers a solid return on investment, and is laser targeted to potential customers that are searching the Internet for YOU! There is no strong form of advertising than when your customers are looking for your product and service, and you have the opportunity to sell them right there on the spot.
Most people that are searching the Internet right now are not passively looking for something that they may or may not purchase or use down the road. An Internet search is an active process used by someone searching for something to buy, somewhere to go, or something interesting to read.
A great example of this is a fictitious pizzeria in a suburb of Chicago, let’s say Oak Park. When someone who orders pizza sees an ad in the newspaper, they may say “I’m going to try this place next time I order”. Of course, this may or may not ever happen. When they hear a radio spot for this pizzeria, they may want to try it and simply forget the name of the place before they place their next order.
However, when they search the Internet for a pizzeria in Oak Park, they are not doing so because they want to order a pizza next week. They are hungry! When a pizzeria comes up high in the search engine this is usually the company that will get the order. They may bounce around through the first few results, but if your pizzeria is not listed in the top 5, it will not get the order. If it is, you have narrowed the field down to the first 3-5 results.
For more information about our service offerings and what Electron can do for you, contact us at (888) 598-2080.