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1. Choose your advertising medium carefully.
Advertising on the Web takes on many forms. There are many ways to advertise
on the Web that choosing the best format and medium has become a challenging
task for every online marketer.
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The first key consideration is that the advertising format (e.g. banner,
contextual advertising, ezine advertising, etc.) you choose should fit your
objectives. Research and read on the different types of advertising formats,
and know the factors for success of each format. Visit discussion forums
(e.g. Webmaster World) to determine how other advertisers are using the
various formats, and what their experiences and level of success.
Once you have decided on the advertising format, carefully choose the
best vendor for your ad dollars. If you will be doing banner advertising,
what sites should you advertise and show your banners? Or are you better off
to use an advertising network that uses a pool of publishers? If you are
thinking of pay-per-click advertising, for example, determine which of the
players (e.g. Overture, Google) can provide the best results. Sometimes you
need to experiment to see what medium works best for you.
2. Understand and continuously monitor your
advertising purchases.
Advertising is a game of trial and error. Some advertising vehicle may work
for you, and some may not. Be sure that you know where your results are
coming from, and be ready to react on them immediately. You can choose to
increase your spending in the medium that works and decrease your ad dollars
in venues that bring disappointing results.
For example, you are an advertiser using the Google Adwords program to
drive traffic to your site. A recently launched feature of this program
called the broad content matching is for your ad to be placed not only in
the search engine result pages (SERPs) of Google.com but in third party
sites that matches your keyword (Adsense publishers). If you use this new
feature, track which site gives you the better conversion: the SERPs
vis-à-vis Adsense publishers. Examine what vehicle gives you better branding
and better conversion for your ad dollars. Some smart advertisers are even
going straight to the Adsense publishers that gave them the best
conversions.
3. Know your conversion.
It is important to keep track of the return on investment (ROI) of every
advertising purchase made. If your goal in advertising your web site is to
increase sales, which advertising vehicle is giving you the best conversion
for every buck spent?
Keep in mind, though, that conversion is not simply a factor of your
advertising vehicle. Do not always put the blame in your medium if you fail
to convert. The most salient elements of the offer, such as price and
premium offered, can spell the difference in getting the best conversion.
The ezine newsletter where you advertised for a month may give you a stream
of targeted customers; but if your web site looks poorly done and your copy
fails to entice them to purchase your product, then you will see poor
results from your advertising.
4. Work and rework your advertising copy or
creatives.
Continuously experiment on what copy or banner creatives and formats work
well for your purposes. Do not be afraid to change your advertising
materials when you think that you are not getting the results that you
expected. Before the start of a campaign, work
5. Maximize your customer and media time.
When a potential customer clicks on your ad or banner, you can increase your
revenues if you can maximize your sales from the customer. The customer
should have an opportunity to check out (and hopefully) purchase your other
products and services. Don’t underestimate the power of “by the way” sales:
while the customer is browsing or shopping in your site, your system should
be capable of showing other recommended and similar products.
If you are running an e-commerce site, choose a shopping cart with
upselling and cross-selling capabilities. Upselling means soliciting the
purchase of goods or services following an initial transaction. It is the
strategy of pushing new products to current customers based on their past
purchases. Cross selling, on the other hand, involves placing similar
products in a retail setting; while it involves using such functionality as
“Other Products You May Be Interested In” in an online medium. These
strategies are designed to widen the customer's reliance on your business
and decrease the likelihood of the customer switching to a competitor.
6. Use integrated marketing plans.
Don’t focus solely on one approach; remember that there are various ways
to market your business. And you may find that some of them are cheaper or
more effective compared to the others. Depending on your budget, you can
diversify your advertising by employing other marketing techniques, such as
publicity and public relations, and offline advertising. Online advertising
works well if you complement it with other techniques, such as aggressive
link swapping and search engine optimization.
November 18, 2003
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