Advertising Online
June 2, 2009 by Smartt Team
Advertising online is nothing like advertising offline. In fact, the two forms of advertising are so different they don’t even resemble each other anymore. Traditionally advertising has taken the form of “interruption advertising.” Advertisers compete for people’s attention through television, radio and print ads. The goal of this form of advertising is to grab viewers’ attention away from whatever they were watching, reading or listening to and make them pay attention to your ad.
Interruption advertising worked for a long time, especially for large corporations. Now, however, the game has changed. And the internet had a major role in this change. People no longer respond to interruption in the same way they used to. In the olden days you could run a commercial on TV and viewers would race to the store to buy your product. Now, interruption advertising is so commonplace that viewers have found defenses against all the unwanted interruptions. The result is that this form of advertising just doesn’t work anymore.
Just like television commercials and print ads are losing their effectiveness, so are most forms of advertising online. Banners, skyscraper ads and flash videos don’t capture people’s attention these days and actually have the opposite effect of annoying people.
Nowadays, advertising needs to be much more subtle. It’s no longer about shocking people into paying attention. Rather, it’s about providing useful and relevant information that is going to solve some kind of problem. This is not direct advertising. In fact, it’s a very indirect form of adverting. Instead of telling people what they need, it’s about building relationships with people and gaining trust.
Effective online advertising includes the following components:
- Article writing campaigns- articles should provide information that is relevant to your business and useful to your customers. “How-to” articles work well along with articles that give expert advice. An important point to keep in mind about these articles: Do not sell. This isn’t the time or the place for selling. No one wants to read a 500-word sales pitch. Focus on adding value and helping people. It will build trust.
- Blogs- blogging has become one of the most effective and important tools for advertising online. A blog is like an online opinion column and has an informal tone. Basically, it’s one person sharing what they know with the world. They generally should not contain any sales pitches, except for once in a while when something special and exciting is coming to the market. One major advantage of blogs is that they tend to rank well on the search engines. This helps customers find your site and boosts your SEO.
- Google AdWords- these four line advertisements are becoming one of the most popular and effective ways to promote your product. They only appear when someone searches for one of your keyword terms so ads are targeted. When people are looking to buy something, they appreciate getting a targeted ad that helps them find what they’re looking for. When using AdWords, it’s important to test your ads to make sure they’re effective. Run two ads simultaneously to find out which one pulls in the best results. Then, improve upon it and run it again alongside your improved ad. Working this way will help you achieve optimum results.
