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“If you build it, they will come,” may work in the movies, but unfortunately not in business. Simply having a business or a website doesn’t guarantee that anyone will ever know about it.
The truth is there are over 1.8 billion websites online, with more created every second. If you want to make a splash with your business, gain customers, and grow, you need a strategy. One of the most important strategies is advertising.
Why is advertising important in society, for both business and consumers? Let’s take a look at eight reasons.
It wasn’t long ago that advertising meant blasting a large population of people with a generic message, hoping that someone might be interested at the time they heard the advertisement. That’s not the case anymore.
Today’s advertising is highly targeted. Platforms ranging from social media to Google allow you different ways to focus on only the audience who can benefit most from your products and services. In fact, the information available for targeting can be a little unsettling at times.
On Facebook, for example, you can target people based on the usual demographics. However, there are also options for targeting people who are likely to move in the near future. Metrics are created based on behaviour on Facebook and how consumers interact with other websites as well.
When you can laser-focus your advertising to connect with only the people who are most interested in your offer, you can get a far better return on investment than was ever possible in the past.
Publicity is amazing, and it’s great when you see people talking about your company. However, you don’t control what’s said in those conversations. That means people could share negative opinions, make false statements, and more.
Advertising allows you to say exactly what you want to get across. You can share information about specific features and benefits, or connect emotionally with your audience’s deepest needs.
Even better, with advertising you can time your message to coincide with a major business initiative. Maybe you’re launching a new product or service, or you want to address a recent event. You can position your advertising message to go out at the perfect time.
Being able to control your messaging allows you to connect with your target audience at a deeper level. You can also correct misconceptions, address myths, and time your outreach to perfectly coincide with another event.
Advertising is a way to cut through the noise online and offline and get noticed by your target market. For example, let’s say you have a lot of educational content that’s designed to engage your audience and position yourself as an expert in your field. How do you get your audience to discover and read it?
One of the best ways would be to use social media advertising and target your ideal audience. Create an ad that’s intriguing and draws people in. As they click on it, they’ll land on that content on your website. From there, they will read it, engage with it, and now they’re aware of your company.
Building awareness is the first step in the sales process. Advertising allows you to amplify your brand and marketing assets so that people discover you and share your information with others.
As a business owner, you can’t afford to rely on only one strategy to get the word out about your company. Instead, you need a “marketing mix.” This mix consists of both long-term and short-term strategies that help your business grow.
Advertising is a short-term strategy where you pay for attention drawn to your business. This includes social media ads, banner ads, pay-per-click, and more. This attention comes right away, which gives long-term strategies time to grow.
For instance, search engine optimization (SEO) is one of the most effective marketing strategies available, but it takes time to earn your way into the top spot with Google. As a result, you need advertising to bring in customers while your SEO develops.
As you rank more highly and gain organic traffic, you can cut back your spending on advertising without slowing your company’s growth. This is one of the key reasons why online advertising is important.
Many customers do research before they buy, but not all of them. And when customers do their own research, they may not discover the specific features and benefits that make you stand out.
With advertising, you can do a side-by-side comparison with competitors to showcase what makes you unique. It can be legally murky to name a competitor, so companies will often say “a leading brand of {product}” instead. However, for companies that are well known, like Coke vs. Pepsi, or Miller Lite vs. Bud Light, naming does occur.
Demonstrations of products or services, compared to a competitor’s version, can be a great way to capture attention and put yourself forward as the better option.
When your company is well-known for the right reasons, your staff will feel proud to work there. Clever advertising can create a strong cultural recognition of specific characters, jingles, or demonstration efforts.
When someone asks your employee where they work, they’ll say the name of your company. Having the other person respond with a positive comment helps build up your company’s reputation among your employees.
Strong morale is vital for business success. Your employees won’t treat customers better than they’re treated at work, and if they’re ashamed to be associated with your business they won’t do their best in any department. When you have excellent advertising, you can build brand recognition with the public and pride in your employees.
No matter who you are, consumers need frequent reminders that you are active in the marketplace and developing new products and services. This is especially true for small and medium-sized businesses, and the COVID-19 pandemic only made this more essential.
So many businesses closed their doors in 2020 or early 2021 that customers aren’t really sure what smaller companies are still in operation. Advertising can showcase your resilience along with sharing what new initiatives are coming soon. If there have been changes in your business, advertising is a great way to spread the message.
Even larger companies don’t rest on their success when it comes to brand awareness. Coca-Cola might be one of the most well-known brands in the world, but they still run commercials on a regular basis. Even Google has ads and uses mailings, even though they control more than 90% of the search market.
If you want to be successful, you have to consistently remind consumers that you’re active, growing, and ready to solve their problems. If you fall out of view for even a short time, competitors are more than happy to fill your ideal customer’s awareness with new ideas.
If you want to create traffic to your website and/or a physical store location, it takes a variety of strategies to make that happen. One of the best ways to jumpstart traffic, however, is to use advertising.
The best results come when you can meet a consumer exactly when they want what you have to offer. For example, pizza restaurants often advertise during sporting events because they know that people get hungry and want to order food. Coffee shops advertise during the morning news because commuters are about to leave for work.
Depending on your business, you may or may not have specific opportunities like that to take advantage of. However, you can always use pay-per-click advertising to capture consumers while they are searching for information about your industry, or if they enter a search that indicates a high likelihood of purchase.
For example, if your lawn care company had an advertisement for the search term, “mowing services near me” that showcased your mowing, you’d have a good chance of getting more customers.
When you place an advertisement in front of someone with a specific need, you’re highly likely to get traffic and new customers from that effort. If you’ve ever asked, “Why is digital advertising important?” this is your answer!
As you can see, there are a lot of reasons why advertising is important for consumers and for businesses. People have a lot of needs and want them met quickly and effectively. Advertising allows you to position your company as the resource they need.
If you’d like help with digital marketing such as SEO, we’re here to help. Advertising gets expensive, and it’s important to have organic traffic coming in so you can reduce your spending over time.
Contact us to learn more about what we can do to help you grow!
