Small business owners have countless decisions to make day in and day out. For new businesses in particular and organizations looking to expand their reach and earn new market share, navigating through the marketing world can be overwhelming. As such, many business owners make the decision to ignore the creature comforts of modern day digital advertising. Many turn to more of a grassroots approach and pursue outreach tactics that allow them to connect with prospects one-on-one. Or, they avoid outreach altogether and rely solely on market share gained by word of mouth promotion.

Does this sound like you? Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered with some simple, effective solutions to scale your outreach efforts, target your ideal customers and expand your company’s reach just in time for the holiday season!

Ready, Set, Advertise

For any business, the idea of increasing sales and earning more customers as a result of advertising efforts is intriguing and exciting. What organization doesn’t want more business?! However, appropriately planning your marketing strategy is essential to ensure that your hard-earned dollars and your precious time do not go to waste.

Diving into the paid advertising realm requires a few must-do’s and must-have’s in order for success to be achieved.

• You know who your ideal customer is.

Determining a defined customer profile is essential when it comes to crafting a strategic marketing campaign. The “spray and pray” method of advertising is neither cost-efficient nor effective at generating new business. How do you know who your ideal client is? We suggest using your current clientele as a template for expansion. Avoid reinventing the wheel on who your target audience is. You’ve worked hard to establish a business that is best suited towards a certain demographic. Now, use this hard-earned knowledge to expand.

• What is your organization’s unique value proposition?

What makes your brand unique? Why should consumers choose your business over your competition? Being able to concisely define the aforementioned questions is critical when it comes to crafting messaging for your marketing campaign. In addition, determining where and how your competitors are advertising can assist in the development of a strategy – are you looking to expand into a new market or are you looking to take market share away from your competition (or both!)?

• You can afford to invest in paid marketing efforts.

We’re not saying you need to have an unlimited advertising budget, but you do need to have some funds set aside for your paid marketing campaigns. Defining your budget allows you to make decisions on what channels you can advertise on and how frequently – two key components of a paid digital marketing strategy.

Defined and Targeted Advertising Mediums

You’ve defined your ideal audience, your company’s unique value proposition and your budget. Now it’s time to choose a medium (or two, or three!) on which to advertise. We’ve highlighted three popular digital advertising mediums below that have exceptional targeting capabilities, are cost efficient and have a great track record bringing new business to an organization’s doorstep.

Display Advertising  

Research has shown that consumers generally do not contact a business the first time they see their ad. In fact, it takes roughly 6-8 touches to generate a sales lead. That’s a significant amount of activity to say the least. Through display advertising, we can ensure that your campaign is on display (no pun intended!) to millions of consumers in your local area. How? We serve your ads on the top local news site in the Capital Region – timesunion.com. What’s more? We also serve your organization’s ads on locally targeted national brands within Hearst’s portfolio like Esquire.com, GoodHousekeeping.com and CarandDriver.com.

Through our industry-leading targeting technology, we are able to view an individual’s location and their interests (based on sites they have previously visited) in order to determine whether they are in fact your company’s ideal target. Using this data, we are able to serve your ads to precisely the right audience – reducing costs and improving campaign results.

Furthermore, we optimize your campaign based on clicks and other ad activity (such as calls). That way, the performance of the ads running becomes even more effective over time. While generating leads is crucial, better understanding your audience is also enormously helpful – especially when beginning marketing campaigns on additional mediums.

Sponsored Content

Sponsored content – aka branded content, aka advertorials, aka native advertising. Whatever you choose to refer to sponsored content as, this tool is a powerful and efficient one.

Sponsored content is the use of paid ads that match the look, feel and function of the media format in which they appear. The appeal of sponsored content and the key to its success is that it looks like part of the editorial flow of the page and are non-disruptive. The ads also run on desktops, mobile devices, tablets and are largely found within social media feeds – specifically Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram.

In 2018, advertisers spent $35.4B on sponsored content. Why? Because the ads lead the viewer to interact with the product or brand being advertised. When utilizing sponsored content as part of your company’s marketing strategy, it is crucial that you create engaging content that resonates with your ideal customer. Content is still king in the world of marketing and working to produce and distribute content that is high-quality that in-turn builds trust and establishes value in a brand is a long-term marketing play that will pay dividends.

Advertising such content in the form of sponsored content is a highly effective method of marketing in order for companies to build overall brand awareness, increase engagement with a specific audience based on targeted demographics and interests and allow consumers to learn more about your company.

Email Marketing

Email marketing has withstood the test of time in the world of marketing and doesn’t appear to be going away any time soon. This is largely due to the fact that email marketing can be utilized within any vertical and benefits any company that needs to boost brand awareness and traffic (in-person and digitally).

According to a study conducted by MarketingSherpa, roughly 72% of US adults prefer companies to communicate with them via email. This number is a direct reflection of the sheer volume of current email users worldwide – 3.9 BILLION! In addition, email’s predicted user growth rate for the next four years is 3% (about 100M new users each year).

Reaching people via email is critical as today’s consumers are always on the go and constantly connected with their digital devices (mobile, tablet, laptop, etc.). Email marketing is a cost effective, highly targeted, measurable advertising medium to reach ideal audiences locally, nationally or globally. Such a marketing strategy increases brand visibility, adds another touch point in the consumer buying journey (remember, 6-8 touches before a sale is made), drives quality prospects to your company’s website and perhaps above all, is an invaluable communication tool to announce new deals, new services or new locations.

We proudly offer one of the largest and most comprehensive databases in the marketplace today, containing hundreds of available selects and approximately 120+ million(!!!) emails with matching postal records. We go through a rigorous hygiene process to ensure our data is compliant, deliverable, and bot-free. We use two third party bot detection companies, in addition to our own proprietary methods to identify and filter bots in real time. We will identify and block most bots so they are blocked before they reach your website.

We work with our clients to create email marketing campaigns that adhere to industry best-practices. Crafted emails are not only engaging and visually appealing, but are consistently delivered at optimal times and compliment other active marketing channels. Plus, our in-depth, real-time reporting allows for total transparency when it comes to campaign success.

In Summary

Repetition is instrumental to any successful marketing campaign. Engaging users over time builds brand awareness and loyalty. A marketing strategy that remains consistent, is relevant to your ideal consumer and can be delivered on regular intervals is imperative to a company’s advertising success.

If you are not overly confident in your marketing abilities, attempting to gain market share and gain new clients is challenging to say the least. Searching for new leads on your own is a great start but does not maximize the use of your time and can lead to slow overall growth. Partnering with a local media company provides you with advice, ideas and channels for promotion in a timely fashion.

By strategically positioning your brand in front of new viewers, you can reach a larger audience, gain new customers and increase market share. Get in touch with us today to learn more and deploy a comprehensive, effective marketing strategy.

####