Description
Why Use Online Advertising?
There is an old adage that states, “It pays to advertise”. In those long ago days, BC (Before Computers), businesses could open out in the real brick and mortar world in small towns and never pay for one word of advertising.
But those days never existed on the internet and they never will. If you are to have any kind of business on the internet, advertising is just a given.
You might have the world’s greatest product but if you don’t advertise on the internet, nobody will be able to find you at all. It really is just that simple. Internet advertising really serves two purposes. First is tells the world that you HAVE a product and what it is and then it tells the world how to FIND you, your website and your product.
The chances of a single person who would be interested in buying whatever it is that you are selling just accidentally stumbling across your website are probably about a bazillion to none. Yes, you have got to advertise if you have a business on the internet.
There are, of course, many, many methods by which one can advertise. There is paid-for advertising and there is also methods of free advertising that actually work. Most business people on the internet find that a combination of both paid- for and free advertising is the best answer.
The competition for business is stiff (that’s a real understatement) on the internet. There are probably hundreds of millions of websites and a lot of them are selling products and services that are similar to the products and services that you are selling. Unless you advertise effectively, your competitors will get all of the sales.
Advertising does pay and you will need to find the right mixture of paid for and free advertising that will best serve your needs.
Online Advertising – The Advantages
Every online business must do some advertising or nobody will know the business even exists on the internet. Effective advertising is the very lifeline of any internet business.
There are a great many advantages of advertising online over advertising in traditional print, radio or television. Just a few of the advantages gained by online advertising are:
Cost: The cost of comparable advertising in print form or on radio or television as compared to the cost of advertising on the internet falls greatly in favor of online advertising. More people can be reached for a far smaller cost by advertising on line as opposed to any of the traditional advertising methods.
Availability: The availability of advertising to potential customers by advertising online far exceeds the availability by traditional advertising techniques. There is a possibility for every person on the planet that has access to a computer to see an online advertisement. On the other hand, only those who subscribe to print publications, or who are listening to a particular radio station or watching a particular television program are going to see advertisements that are placed in those venues.
Lower Advertising Cost per Sale: The fact is that it simply far less expensive to advertise on the internet than it is to advertise in print, on the radio or on television and the advertising is also more effective in producing sales because it is better targeted.
In relativity cost studies of advertising techniques, it has been proven that online advertising is just more effective than tradition advertising techniques. It is more cost effective and it is simply a more efficient advertising method that has been used up to this point in time.
Yes, advertising does pay and online advertising pays better than other, more traditional methods.
Online Advertising – The Disadvantages
Several years ago there was a movie that starred the late George Burns by the name of ‘Oh God II”. In the movie a little girl asks God (played by George Burns) why there were ‘bad’ things. George answered that He (God) had never figured out how to make up without a down or a good without a bad or words to that effect.
I guess that is as good an answer as any because for every advantage to everything there is always a corresponding disadvantage and online advertising isn’t the exception to that rule.
One of the disadvantages to online advertising is the somewhat lack of control of cost that is almost built into it. For example: If you choose to place a banner advertisement on a website, you will very likely be charged a PPI (Pay Per Impression).
That is, every time that anybody clicks on that website and your banner ad is displayed, you are charged a fee….maybe not a large fee, but a fee nevertheless. And these small charges can add up to very big bucks.
The effectiveness of these kinds of banner advertisements is somewhat questionable, as well.
You can be charged as much as a thousand dollars and never have your banner clicked on at all but you are still charged for each time it is shown. Only you can determine whether this kind of advertising is really effective for you and your product or service.
Another method of paid advertising on the internet that may or may not be effective is what is called PPC (Pay Per Click). This is the way that most all search engine advertisement is charged. You are charged when your advertisement is clicked on.
Of course, when somebody clicks on your ad that means that they are visiting your website so you sure have a better chance of making a sale than you do with PPI advertising.
