In the previous chapter of the Small Business Marketing Guide, we went over how to market your business by creating a strong online presence. This chapter will cover a few methods for promoting your products or services through the most popular search engines and social media platforms.
To survive and grow, your business needs customers. In today’s digital world, the possibilities are endless! You can advertise on social media or make a video that goes viral for promotional purposes.
Here are the main topics of this chapter in case you want to jump ahead.
There are many types of advertising campaigns that a business can run, including tv and radio. But in this chapter, we will be discussing three types of digital marketing ads:
- Paid Search Campaigns
- Pay Per Click Marketing
- Display Ads
The difference between Paid Search and PPC is often unclear, with the terms being used interchangeably in conversation.
The term “Paid search” refers to all ads that you can place on SERPs like results pages of Google or Bing. But a prevalent model for paid search advertising is a PPC system, where advertisers only pay when people click their ad (typically through an Adwords campaign).
There are some misleading articles about advertising titled ‘PPC’ because they are referring strictly and exclusively to paid search campaigns which rely heavily upon keywords – rather than taking into account other forms such as Display Ads, Content Marketing Campaigns, etc.,
This confusion arises because a strict definition of what constitutes PPC is limited to the paid search campaign.
Display ads are a form of advertising in which an image, banner, video, or graphic is used as an ad unit on other websites. You can buy display ads through various platforms such as Facebook, Google Adwords, Tiktok, and LinkedIn Ads Manager. And we can’t forget about Instagram, since 80% of their users follow businesses.
Paid Search, PPC, Display Ads: What’s the Difference?
Paid Search (or SEM), Pay Per Click Marketing (PPC), and Display Ads are all different types of advertisements used by marketers to increase exposure for their product or service online. Although there are slight differences between them, they each provide massive opportunities for marketers with various budgets ranging from small local companies all the way up to multinational corporations.
Paid Search Advertising: Paid search advertising is the most popular form of online marketing since it’s a straightforward way for companies and brands to market their products or services, typically with text-based ads that appear on SERPs when people are searching.
PPC Marketing: PPC stands for Pay Per Click and usually means that you are paying in advance for a certain number of clicks on your advertisement.
Display Ads: Display ads, also known as banner ads, are another form of online marketing. An advertiser can use images or videos to capture people’s attention, hoping they will click through to visit the website associated with it. According to Hubspot, 50% of consumers prefer to see a video about a product or service.
Using Paid Search for Promotion
Paid Search is a powerful yet underutilized form of marketing. It’s highly considered as outbound due to the way it’s done: placing your messages on top of the search engine result pages (i.e., ads are shown during searches for your message to be positioned front-and-center), which is like paying to cut in front of the line in the SEO process.
Utilizing this type of strategy can give you an advantage over those who don’t utilize paid strategies, like SEO processes that rely on algorithms rather than reachability via advertisements between potential customers and consumers.
At 2Damax Marketing, we believe that paid search can also be used as an inbound strategy since you are placing your ads in front of people actively looking for what you have to offer.
Using paid search as inbound marketing can help you:
- Test landing pages and sales funnels
- Try different keywords
- Targeting specific markets
- Boost organic rankings
In reality, paid search can be used as an inbound or outbound strategy to promote your products or services.
There are typically two types of paid search ads:
Text ads
Shopping ads aka Product Listing Ads
These paid search ads are also referred to as Pay Per Click ads because you pay the search engine (Googe, Bing, or Yahoo) every time users click on them.
Why Paid Search Is the Future of Advertising
Paid search is the future of advertising because it can offer various benefits that other forms of marketing cannot. It’s also still an excellent tool for businesses trying to avoid spending money on organic tactics like SEO or social media since paid search allows you to quickly and easily see results and minimize what you’re spending.
How To Get More Clicks With Paid Search
To get more clicks with paid search, there are a few ways to increase your chances of getting a click.
You should:
1. Choose your keywords wisely and make sure that they are relevant to what you’re selling. Selecting keywords is arguably one of the most important parts of your paid search campaign since people must find and click on them when they are searching online. The keyword should be relevant to what you’re selling and must be included in your ad copy – this is key to getting more clicks.
2. Make sure that your ad copy is compelling and includes the keyword you’re targeting (i.e., if you are targeting “houses,” use words like “house” or “real estate”).
3. Select an appropriate bid amount for your budget – Another important aspect of creating a successful campaign is bidding the appropriate amount for what you’re willing to spend on each click. This ensures that not too many people click on your ads while still getting some exposure through higher search rankings or lower costs. Bidding too high can cause you not to receive any clicks while bidding too low will result in limited impressions (i.e., fewer people see your ad).
4. Evaluate the search engine results pages (SERPs) to see what kind of competition you’re up against.
It’s also important to keep in mind that the SERPs are a competitive place for paid search, so you need to research what kind of competition there is for your keywords and adjust accordingly. For example, if you’re trying to get more clicks from people who are searching for “cars,” then you should be bidding on keywords like “car” or “auto” while also considering the SERPs to see what kind of competition you’re up against to increase the return on your ad spend.
If you would like to learn more, check out this article How to Optimize Return On Ad Spend.
Using Pay Per Click for Promotion
So by now, you understand that Pay Per Click advertising is known as such because as an advertiser, you are charged every time that a user clicks on your ad, regardless if they purchase from you or not.
But pay-per-click advertising covers different types of ads, not just paid search.
Social media advertising is also a type of PPC campaign. Pay Per Click Marketing is a great way for small businesses to advertise their products on social media sites. You can narrow down your potential audience by targeting options and pay the site you are advertising on when someone clicks through from that ad.
It’s very similar to search engine ads, but the difference with PPC marketing is that you are paying the social media platform to display your ad to its users. This is also known as disruptive marketing since these users are not always looking for your services or products.
Again, you only pay the site (Facebook, LinkedIn, Tiktok, Pinterest, etc.) when someone clicks onto your company page while logged into one of these platforms!
What Are the Main Benefits of PPC?
Pay per click campaigns bring a lot of benefits to the table, but here are five you should know about firsthand:
1. Reach a larger audience elsewhere on the internet – It’s easy to forget when you’re too busy focusing on your own business that people might not be looking for what you have in stock at this very moment. But thanks to pay-per-click advertising strategies and platforms like social media, your ad will reach more web surfers who could be interested in what you offer.
2. Tailor content with ease – PPC allows users to add or change their advertisements as needed to strike a chord with potential buyers, leading them back to your site and increasing conversions dramatically.
3. Smart bids – By understanding the competition in your SERPs and bidding accordingly, you’ll be able to get more clicks without paying too high a price. You can also adjust bids if they’re not bringing in as many clicks as desired (i.e., “houses” use words like “house” or “real estate”).
4. Get noticed in the crowd – Most people are using search engines to find products and services, so by advertising on those platforms, you’ll be able to get your website seen alongside all of these other listings.
5. A dynamic advertising method – It’s expensive to advertise on TV, radio, or print media, and PPC is a much cheaper way of reaching out to your target audience.
But the best thing about using a pay-per-click strategy is the ability for businesses to see an immediate return on investment.
Many businesses have found that their PPC campaigns can increase sales and help them rank higher for specific keywords.
How To Get More Clicks With Pay Per Click
There are many different ways that a small business can increase the number of clicks that they get from pay-per-click campaigns. Some of these methods include:
1. Creating ads that are personalized to meet the needs of potential customers.
2. Optimizing their ad copy to be more relevant, catchy, and informative than competitors’ ads.
3. Setting up keyword bids and targeting options by assigning higher bids to keywords with high search volume and more competitive SERPs.
4. Updating their website content to make sure it’s optimized for both search engines and PPC advertising platforms (for example, adding featured products or outstanding product reviews). According to BrightLocal, up to 87% of consumers believe that reviews are an important buying decision.
5. You should also try using transition words like “Now,” “Choose,” or “Order” if you want to convert visitors into buyers.
6. Adding social media advertising and tracking options to your PPC campaign so that you can promote new products or services, as well as increase brand awareness by promoting their company on popular sites like Facebook.
PPC marketing is a handy tool for small businesses that want to get more people in the door and increase their bottom line. Take a look at all of these benefits!
Using Display Ads for Promotion
Those of you who have been in the marketing world for a while know just how powerful display ads are.
Display ads allow marketers to target specific audiences, which is often difficult with other types of online advertising.
What Are the Benefits of Display Ads?
There are many benefits for utilizing Display Ads in your marketing campaigns:
1. You only pay when someone clicks onto your company page from the advertisement on one of these platforms, meaning it can be an effective outbound strategy to promote products or services at a minimal cost.
2. It allows marketers to pinpoint certain demographics they want their advertisements seen by, picking such things as age range, gender, location, active audience views (those who view their message more than once), and much more.
3. You can use these ads as an inbound strategy, offering something of value to your potential customers on the page (a coupon code or a new product) that draws them into reading about what you offer.
The best part is that when someone clicks through from display advertisements, they’re targeted specifically by your company, so they’re the most likely to convert into a customer.
What Promotion Method is the Best Option?
When deciding between paid search, social media PPC, and display ads, it’s important to think about which one is best for your business.
Choosing Paid Search
If you’re a small company that doesn’t have much of an existing online presence, then paid search campaigns are the wisest choice because they’ll be able to get more clicks and start attracting new customers quickly.
Also, as mentioned above, paid search can help boost your SEO rankings because traffic is an important ranking factor to search engines like Googe.
Choosing PPC Ads
If you already have an established website with a strong online presence, then social media PPC might be a better option. This type of advertising will allow you to reach out to your audience and promote any new products or services you have easily.
If you are a new business on a tight budget, then retargeting users with social media ads is a great way to reach users that visit your site but don’t take action. Targeting 100 people is a lot cheaper than showing your ads to thousands of people.
Choosing Display Ads
Display ads are great for small businesses with an active website and online presence because they offer the opportunity to attract more customers through their own website. Display ads are a great way to promote a brand, product, or service. But if your business is new, it won’t be easy to attract clicks because most users won’t click on a banner that they don’t recognize the brand.
Final Thoughts on How To Promote Your Small Business
The best advertising strategy is the one that fits your business and its needs! You’ll need to think about what you’re trying to accomplish, who your target audience is, as well as how much money, time, and energy you can invest into these types of advertising campaigns.
In this chapter, we’ve talked about the importance of promoting your small business through social media platforms and search engines. Whether you’re a local pizza shop or an entrepreneur with national ambitions, there are always new avenues to explore to get your brand out into the world. Every small business should be using online marketing as one way to stay ahead of their competition for customers who may not have heard of them yet. The next chapter will talk about why every small business needs a blog! Stay tuned!
