You have just launched your brand new website, www.mygreatidea.com, but there is one problem. Nobody knows about it or really remembers it. A website or app is an invaluable tool that can potentially make millions of people aware of your product or service. Ironically, although a website is a marketing tool, it needs to be marketed. When persons/organisations embark on a website development project there is the misconception that once it is launched people with automatically come. Launching a new website and not marketing it, no matter how attractive or user-friendly it is, can be compared to opening a parlour in a back street in Timbuctoo. You will get some business but…
As part of your online strategy there must be a sizeable budget for online advertising. Consideration should be given to print, online, radio, word-of-mouth incentives and even televison advertising from the very start of your website project. However, online google or facebook advertising is by far the most effective of these. No other form of advertising comes close to the effectiveness of online advertising. Unless you have a large budget for print (by large I mean several full page ads in all the major newspapers) nothing generates as many website visits and awareness in a short space of time as a properly designed online campaign. There have been very few occassions where having seen a newspaper ad that I have remembered to check out the website the next time I was online. Let’s not talk about radio ads.
How much?
Unless you are the one who is in control of the budget or one who has great influence on the organisation’s finances then your first task is to convince the powers that be that monies should be allocated to online advertising in the first place. Very few local companies have realized the importance of a good online campaign. Apart from those at Bmobile, Digicel, Angostura and a few other companies I gather that few executives are convinced of its effectiveness. Even in the face of glaring statistics you will still be hardpressed to convince those who believe that once they part with money they must be able to touch the merchandise with their hand. If they only knew or could be convinced (subject of our next Blog).
For example, instead of spending TT$8000.00 on one newspaper week day full page ad, run an online google campaign for three days days on that same budget. Your website will receive at least 20 times more visits. GUARANTEED! In addition, because you can actually specify which demographic you wish to view your ad e.g. age range, sex, location, profession, your results are that more impressive. Talk about bang for your buck. Throw in an incentive such as the chance to win one of five tickets to Tobago (There is something about flights that attracts people. Don’t worry they will find accommodation. It is better to give away five flights than one iphone.) you will definitely be very pleased with the results of conversion.
It is amazing the huge budgets persons/organisations have for print, radio and TV when compared to online advertising. In many instances there isn’t an online advertising budget at all. The effectiveness though of an online advertising campaign can give you 20 or 30 times the ROI. While it is true you will corner a different aspect of your market using traditional forms of advertising, online marketing should never be ignored.