The main feature of advertising for small businesses is that it pays minimal attention to the brand, that is, the company itself. Unlike large multinational corporations such as, say, Coca-Cola, you can hardly afford to work on brand recognition, so you need an approach that .
Focus on specific offers and avoid using “general” words such as “a lot”, “cheap”, “profitable” and others. A quarter of a century ago, this approach was effective, but today's society gives preference to numbers. No one will go to a store that offers “the cheapest sofas in the city,” while in a store that sells “sofas for 10 thousand rubles,” there will be no end to buyers.
If your offer is not only specific, but also limited, the effectiveness of your advertising will increase: the less time you leave for a potential buyer to think, the higher the chance of making a sale. In addition, this will reduce the likelihood of a potential client leaving for a competitor.
When a person sees an advertisement for teapots for 500 rubles, he thinks about buying hypothetically, that is, he simply takes note that such and such a company has such and such a price for teapots. If he doesn’t need a kettle yet, he won’t buy it.
But if he sees that the supply is limited, and it is possible to purchase the product at the proposed price, for example, only until the end of the month, he begins to think about the purchase from a practical point of view: if he does not need the kettle today, but may need it tomorrow, then it is better to buy it now at a low price than paying twice as much later.
This method has been used everywhere for decades, but does not lose its effectiveness: indicate the “old price” next to the price. At the same time, the “regular” price should be noticeably higher than the “special” price - this will enhance the effect of “limited supply”. The principle here is the same as in the case of “general” words and specific numbers: seeing how much more expensive the product will become at the end of the “promotion”, it will be much easier for the buyer to part with the money.
The advertising format must be chosen taking into account the specifics of the business and the target audience - something that demonstrates high performance among men under 35 years of age may cause only a minimal response among women over 45.
And even if all your childhood you dreamed that when you had your own business, you would advertise it on TV, it is better to refuse this option: high-quality advertising on TV is expensive and for small businesses it is ineffective.
Instead, it is better to pay attention to other formats:
It's not about how much you spend, but how much you end up earning from it, so the most important indicator for you should be ROI, that is, “return on investment.” If you spend 50 thousand rubles, and the profit as a result of the actions taken increases only by 20 thousand, refuse such advertising. Remember that it is not you who should work for her, but she who should work for you.
As you can see, the most is the one that demonstrates good results for a specific business and a specific target audience, and costs less than it brings. True, to find a suitable format you will have to experiment a little. But it's worth it, no doubt about it.
Hello, dear readers of the financial magazine “site”! In this issue we will tell about advertising on the Internet- one of the most dynamically developing branches of advertising and an integral part of a successful business.
If you want to start your own business, but don’t know which business to open, they will help you make your choice. Having chosen your business idea, feel free to proceed with its implementation.
One of the most important components of any business is advertising. No wonder they call her engine of trade . After all, even the most wonderful product or service will not be in demand if potential buyers do not know about it.
Necessary highlight the proposed product from many similar ones and convey to a possible client the idea of the need to prefer it.
When choosing a platform for an advertising campaign, in no way don't miss the Internet. Indeed, thanks to the development of technology, the World Wide Web is not only constantly growing in new users, but is also becoming more and more convenient for advertisers.
It is this way of promoting your goods or services that is most relevant today . However, like any tool, online advertising allows you to achieve results only if you use it correctly.
From this article you can find out:
So, let's begin!
Internet advertising represents all possible ways of placing advertising materials on the World Wide Web. The format of these materials is very diverse - texts, graphics, multimedia files, as well as their combinations. The result is a large set of tools, the choice of which depends on the capabilities and goals of the advertiser.
The large-scale development of the World Wide Web occurred in the last decade of the last century, when Internet pages began to appear one by one. However, advertising on these platforms has been in its infancy for a long time. And only during the last ten to fifteen years the use of the Internet to promote any goods and services has acquired global scale.
There are several reasons for this:
Although many components of online advertising are similar to traditional promotion channels, there are still a number of features, related primarily to the principle of operation of the World Wide Web. Indeed, unlike conventional media, here the user is not only a passive consumer of the information offered, but also takes a direct part in many processes.
When advertising is placed in the press, on billboards or on television, the interaction with the consumer is one-way. On the Internet, advertising seeks to involve a potential client in some process.
The user has the opportunity to react to posted advertising material. This could be following a suggested link, clicking on a banner, registering, or answering a question. That is, online advertising requires a response from the user.
World Wide Web audience constantly increasing, and so far there are no prerequisites for slowing down this process. At the same time, a significant part of those with access to the Internet is a tasty morsel for advertisers, since they belong to the category solvent citizens.
Of course, some social and age groups are not yet involved in this process. Therefore, companies for which they are of interest as potential clients are forced to actively use other advertising channels. However, the share of such advertisers in the total number is not very large.
Advertising system analysis tools allow you to identify among a huge number of users exactly those who may be interested in specific product. This process is called targeting .
At the same time, they can be identified as groups of users looking for a specific product or service ( direct targeting), as well as those who are interested in any materials that have an indirect connection with the promoted products.
The Internet allows you to identify your target audience based on many characteristics. It could be geography of residence, age of the user, range of his interests, purchases already made or existing property, for which related products are needed.
Targeting allows you to cut out those who are not within the advertiser’s sphere of interest, and thus make advertising more effective. After all, if funds are spent on promoting products to those who initially not a potential client, there will be such advertising a waste of money.
We wrote in more detail in a separate article.
Since almost every user action is recorded on the Internet, it is possible to track the effectiveness of both the entire advertising campaign as a whole and each of its elements separately.
It is important that this process is highly efficient. And this means opportunity fast and timely response. The advertiser can adjust the advertising campaign, abandon those methods that do not bring the desired result, and increase investments in more effective types of advertising.
Despite all its distinctive features, the very algorithm for conducting a campaign to promote something is common to any sales channel. It can be broken down into three stage.
This stage is one of the most important steps, because it is the creation of a clear image of your potential clients that determines the effectiveness of the funds spent on advertising.
Identifying the target audience can be done in various ways. Large companies order large-scale studies with numerous questionnaires and surveys. A individual entrepreneur, who does not have such financial and time resources, simply conducts a study of open sources, for example, user requests on individual resources or client statistics from a competitor.
In the simplest cases, it is enough to simply arrange a little brainstorming. Eg, a manufacturer of dog overalls can easily identify its target audience simply based on its experience with dog lovers.
Having identified the circle of potential buyers and compiled a list of their needs and preferences, you can begin to develop a strategy for promoting your product.
The next important step is to determine in what format the advertising will be carried out, as well as through which channels.
The budget allocated for advertising is also important. After all, if funds are extremely limited, you can hardly count on a large number of advertising platforms and large-scale actions to attract buyers.
Having chosen the general direction in which you need to move, you can select the sites where advertising will be placed, as well as the creation of specific materials, including texts, banners, videos, and so on.
The final stage is launch of the advertisement itself. This is where the created advertising materials are placed, as well as the subsequent monitoring of the effectiveness of their impact. If necessary, adjustments and changes are made.
Main types of attracting customers for goods and services on the Internet
There are a lot of ways to promote your goods or services on the Internet, and they are constantly evolving. Development and emergence new types of online advertising due not only to the high level of competition in this area, but also to the improvement of technology.
The latter not only allow inventing new ways of conveying information to users, but also enable the latter to get rid of annoying ads. As a result Advertising channels that until recently were effective and productive are becoming useless and obsolete.
Below we will consider those areas of product promotion on the Internet that are relevant and effective at the moment.
As the name itself suggests, this method of promotion is tied to specific context.
The operating principle of contextual advertising is as follows: the user receives advertising messages that are tied to his requests. For this purpose, a system of keywords and phrases is used to select advertising messages. There may be two options here:
Option 1. The user enters a specific request in the search engine, to which the system provides links to various sites with topics corresponding to this request. But in addition to links to sites, it also displays advertisements, also tied to the subject of the request.
Option 2. The user goes to a site that is a partner of the advertising network of one of the search engines, and sees an ad there that takes into account both the theme of the site itself and the history of this user’s requests. If a person has recently been looking for some service online, then on the websites he will also see advertisements offering exactly this service.
Others advantages (+) contextual advertising are:
But, of course, it can’t do without minuses (-). These include:
Concerning cost the same click on the basis of which the budget will be determined, it is formed as follows. If multiple advertisers tie their ads to a single keyword phrase, the best placement on a search engine's page will go to those who bid the highest CPC. That is, the auction principle applies - the one who pays more gets more.
At the same time, there are different niches, the cost of clicks in which varies greatly. For example, the cost per click for queries like "knitted toys" will average from 9 to 40 rubles, and here are the queries "PVC windows" will cost much more - 500-1500 rubles in one click.
Thus, the advertiser is faced with the task of finding the optimal strategy for placing contextual advertising. On the one side, the selected cost per click should not be too high - in this case, the advertisement will, of course, be seen by many users, but the profit from them may be less than the funds spent on promotion. On the other side By setting the cost per click too low, the seller may simply not wait for clicks on the posted ad, since no one will see it.
Of course, search engine advertising networks assure that any user can make such settings, but such gullibility can lead to serious losses. To get the maximum result at a minimum cost, you must either properly understand contextual advertising yourself, or seek help from a specialist in this field.
Currently there are two the most popular advertising networks are from the famous search engines Yandex and Google.
Without exaggeration, the most popular and successful search engine on the RuNet, Yandex, offers its services for posting ads in a section called Yandex.Direct.
There are many tools here that allow you to choose the right advertising strategy in accordance with your goals and available budget.
Moreover, even with automatic settings, the advertiser is offered a large number of possible strategies. So, you can set a limit on the cost of transition or limit the budget for a certain period.
We wrote in more detail about (phrases) in a separate article in our magazine.
If we compare these two systems, we can say that Yandex.Direct is better suited for beginners, but Google AdWords provides more opportunities for real contextual advertising professionals.
Promoting goods or services using a banner is in many ways similar to traditional advertising, when a colorful ad, large or small, is placed on the pages of newspapers or magazines. You can see examples and costs of placing banner advertising on our website at this link .
In addition to static images, multimedia tools are actively used when creating banners. It could be short animated video, For example, beloved by many “gifs”, short looped videos.
Another important property of banners is their interactivity. Very often, when clicking on a banner, the user is taken to the advertiser’s website. You can often find flash banners in the form of short games or small tasks that offer the user a little fun. After completing such a game, the potential client is unobtrusively informed about the service or product being promoted.
The peculiarity of banners is that they are not necessarily links to the advertiser’s website, although the function of attracting the target audience is also inherent in this type of advertising. Equally important here is the opportunity to formulate among Internet users recognition of a brand or product, fix a certain associative series.
Thus, banners can be divided into two categories:
To place a banner, a company or entrepreneur agrees with the owner of a website so that he will place the desired picture or animated video on his resource.
Most often, payment is made either for the number of banner impressions, or for the number of transitions on it to the advertiser's website. Occasionally payment is applied for constant placement of the banner on any page. As a rule, this method is used for a short time on sites with high traffic. After all, after some time, people simply stop paying attention to a familiar picture or animation.
As already mentioned, there are no clear price limits for banner placement - it can be 1000-2000 rubles per month, and tens of thousands of dollars.
Finally, it’s worth mentioning one of the most important points in banner advertising. It will only work if done high quality and attractive to users, and also if the information in the banner matches what the advertiser offers. Otherwise, the opposite effect may occur - a persistent negative attitude will arise towards the advertised brand or product.
This type of promotion comes from the English word meaning "tease". A teaser is in many ways similar to a banner.– this is also a statistical or animated ad that is placed on websites.
This type of advertising has enough dubious reputation. Very often it is associated with sites of a certain focus (for example, erotic or fraudulent, offering instant big money). For many users, it causes ardent rejection.
Often, a teaser uses a flashing image, which in theory should attract a possible client, but in practice it turns the site on which it is located into a very unsightly and unpleasant place.
But even such aggressive and usually vulgar advertising have their own audience. Many beginners, just mastering the World Wide Web, fall for these tempting advertising pictures. Also, unassuming users who are killing time on the Internet may fall for teasers.
Methods for placing and paying for teasers are similar to banner advertising. The only difference is that the number of sites ready to host a teaser is much smaller. And the owners of large and popular sites value their reputation too much to post such advertisements on their own. But the cost of such advertising, as a rule, is lower, and make the teaser much easier- quality is usually not particularly required here.
A separate group should include advertising campaigns that are carried out in in social networks. This is not surprising - after all, a huge number of people prefer to spend a significant amount of time on sites such as VKontakte or Facebook.
At the same time, when creating their own page, most users provide very useful information about yourself, including gender, age, geography of residence and interests. (or we already wrote about the group in the previous article)
Targeted, that is, aimed at the target audience, advertising on social networks has a number of advantages:
If we talk about the Russian segment of the Internet, then it is unlikely that any resource can compete with this brainchild of Pavel Durov. Moreover, there is also own advertising network, similar to those of Yandex and Google. The principle of its operation is simple– it is necessary to configure the display of advertising taking into account the available budget.
Another popular Russian social network, Odnoklassniki, also offers interesting options for inexpensive placement of your ads. Here the audience, as a rule, is older than on the previous service, and therefore more solvent. So it is possible to promote more expensive services here.
Among the disadvantages, it is worth noting that the existing breakdown into groups is not very convenient, which makes the entire advertising system less flexible and adaptive to a specific advertiser.
Unlike the two social networks already mentioned above, Instagram has its own specialization – pictures and short videos. Communication here comes down to posting photos taken here and now, and receiving likes and comments on them.
However, since last year it has also become available on Instagram targeted advertising . True, there is one thing here "But". The fact is that data about the target audience for placing an advertisement is taken from the Facebook profile to which the Instagram account is linked. But a significant number of users of this resource are registered directly on it, and they do not make any connection to their Facebook page. And that means that a huge part of the potential target audience simply turns out to be outside the targeting system.
Text information on Instagram plays a much smaller role. Therefore, the promoted product should look good and impressive in photographs. Do not forget that this resource is popular above all among women, and therefore the advertised product must correspond to this category of customers.
The founder of all social networks, Facebook, is not as popular in our country as VKontakte. But here is an audience that has much greater financial resources. So here it is On the one side, you can promote more expensive products . But on the other hand, users of this network have a rather negative attitude towards direct offers to buy something and usually ignore them.
Push notifications (messages) - what is it. Example of advertising display
Traditionally, such notifications inform the user about any changes or news for a mobile device or computer. Eg:
There are several services where you can pay for and configure the delivery of such notifications. They work as follows– users subscribe to certain mailings that interest them, and then receive short information in the form of Push notifications. Several requirements must be met here:
The development of mobile communications and technology has led to the fact that more and more Internet users access it from their smartphones or tablets. And almost each of these devices contains more than a dozen applications. It can be both social networks and various services for ordering and purchasing something.
If a mobile application is intended for ordering goods from any company, then its main function is sell this product, and through profits, the development and operation of this application pays off.
However, there are a huge number of programs for mobile devices that simply offer users all kinds of entertainment or information services. At the same time, the user downloads and uses these applications absolutely free.
It is not surprising that the developers of many programs for mobile devices willingly sell advertising space in their applications. And for users, viewing these advertisements is a kind of payment for using the program.
As a rule, you can get a potential client to watch an advertisement two ways:
The latter option is especially often used in online games, where the player can receive a resource for viewing an advertisement.
The types of advertising placed in mobile applications are quite diverse. It could be a text ad that pops up from the edge of the application, or an image that pops up on startup.
You can often find an expensive, beautiful video, but in this case the budget of the advertising company will be very high - in addition to the high cost of display, you need to invest decent money in the creation of the video itself.
The ability to target users directly depends on what data a specific application collects during download and registration.
Views of individual videos can go through the roof for millions! You can imagine what a huge number of potential clients can be attracted in this way. In a separate article, we also wrote about advertising on the Internet and in what ways they achieve high earnings results.
There are several types of advertising on YouTube:
Just like previous advertising methods, this type of promotion allows you to sample impressions only target audience. The main advantage of this method of promotion is the effectiveness of video advertising, as well as very wide audience. But do not forget about the disadvantages:
One of the most aggressive and least liked ways by users to promote a product is popup window, nevertheless continues to be quite popular.
The operating principle of such advertising is as follows: the user enters the site, begins to read some information, and at that moment a pop-up window pops up. To close it and return to normal viewing of the site, you need to click on the cross in the corner of the Pop-up window.
However, if used carefully and correctly, such advertising will also may be beneficial. It is only important that it can be easily disabled, and that the advertising message is in correlation with the theme of the page itself.
Pop-up windows that inform about discounts on goods or about any promotions can also bring certain results.
Most Internet users have various electronic mailboxes, through which they exchange work or personal information. And that’s why advertising through mailing letters to your subscribers still enjoys some popularity.
Typically, this type of promotion is used by two types of advertisers:
1) In the first case, sending emails has a greater impact image value. Many stores offer bonus and discount cards. And to receive them, you usually need to provide certain information, including your email address. Subsequently, this buyer receives letters with information about ongoing promotions, assortment updates, discounts and personal offers.
Since the mailing is carried out to a person who has already made a purchase, and therefore is quite loyal to this seller, such mailing usually does not cause irritation to the user. And there is a high probability that, having received such a letter, the buyer will return to the store again.
2) For an information business that has been developing recently, email distribution is one of the main ways to promote its services.
Initially, the user ends up on some resource where he is offered a free course or materials on an issue of interest to the person. But to receive these materials you must leave your email address. After this, the subscriber begins to receive letters. In them, usually, useful free information alternates with offers buy any information product.
Manually sending out a large number of emails is, of course, a task extremely irrational. There are specialized resources, for example, “Smartresponder”, on which you can configure automatic sending of letters to all your subscribers. At the same time, to create an atmosphere of personal appeal to each of the subscribers, you can configure the inclusion of their names in letters.
The last way to conduct an advertising campaign on the Internet, which is discussed in this article, is to place ads on various thematic resources. There are a large number of pages where people with similar interests gather, and they have the opportunity not only to read the information posted, but also to write messages themselves.
Since people with a clearly defined range of interests often communicate on such resources, placing advertisements here will as precise as possible.
However, this method of promotion has a number of disadvantages:
Thus, this method is suitable only for those sellers whose goods or services are single, and a certain amount of time can be spent on selling them.
In addition, this option is suitable for beginning entrepreneurs who do not have an advertising budget as such.
After considering all ten of the most interesting and popular types of advertising, it is worth mentioning which of them are the most effective, and how the costs of different methods of promotion compare.
The most expensive way to promote any services or goods on the Internet is banner advertising , which requires not only payment for placement, but also funds to create a high-quality and attractive advertisement. It will also be quite an expensive pleasure to post information about your product. on Youtube, mobile applications and social networks, as well as via Push notifications.
As for the effectiveness of influencing the user and the ability to attract the largest possible number of buyers, there are no equals here. contextual advertising . Taking into account the fact that its cost can be made extremely low, this type of promotion is the most optimal.
But the placement of teasers and banners, alas, will not bring much results. At the same time, if banner advertising at least provides an image component, then teasers, on the contrary, can scare away a significant part of users. Also, you shouldn’t really hope for free placement of ads on thematic pages.
Like any channel for promoting a product, the Internet has certain advantages (+) over other advertising methods.
These include:
The main thing disadvantage (-) organization of an advertising company on the World Wide Web is incredible competition . Due to the excessive number of existing pages, as well as advertisements placed, many users develop a so-called “blind spot”, when they simply do not notice the advertisement placed, having gotten used to ignoring it.
As mentioned earlier, one of the undoubted advantages of promoting products on the Internet is the ability to accurately measure the effectiveness of the use of each individual platform or advertisement.
The main indicator of how effectively a particular advertising method works is coefficient CTR . It is determined by the ratio of ad impressions to the number of active actions performed by the user. As a rule, such actions are considered to be a click on an advertisement and a subsequent transition to the advertiser’s website.
This ratio shows how many users who were shown the ad were interested in the ad and clicked on the link to find out more?. This value varies greatly for different types of advertising, which is primarily due to different possibilities for targeting users.
However, it is important to remember that this indicator is only a way to measure the effectiveness of attracting users to your site. It does not in any way determine the profit to be made or to be expected. After all, a person, having become interested in a product and clicking on a link, may find that its prices are too high, or that the product itself does not correspond to the image that was presented in the advertisement.
It is also important for anyone who plans to advertise their products on the Internet to know the parameters that determine how the advertising company's budget is determined. This CPM And CPC. Under the English abbreviation there are two options for generating payment for advertising placement.
In the first case, CPM, the advertiser pays for the number of impressions of their ad. Usually calculated on every thousand views.
This pricing method can be used in the following situations:
In other cases, such payment will be irrational, because with a large number of ad views, the number of transitions will most likely be extremely low, and the cost of promotion will be overpriced.
Another, more common way of pricing is the strategy CPC, that is, the cost per click. In this case, the advertiser pays only for actual promotion methods that lead to certain user actions.
In addition, not the most honest owners of sites where advertisements are placed often hire freelancers, which click on ads for pennies, creating the appearance of efficient operation of the advertising resource.
The main ways to attract customers to the site
To attract visitors to your website, you need to advertise it somehow, which will require using one of the listed types of promotion. In this case, you can use both your own strength and attract specialists who know all the subtleties and nuances of this difficult matter.
We have already talked about starting from scratch in one of our articles.
In business, without advertising it is impossible to announce yourself, your services and products. There are dozens of varieties of successful self-presentation, and a sufficient range of prices allows business representatives to select suitable options for successful companies. But the question arises: where and how to advertise your business?
With a small audience, small sacrifices are sufficient. But without taking into account the features and secrets, it is impossible to achieve success in running a company.
Choosing a medium is not a matter of one minute. First, study all the indicators. Each type of advertising has both disadvantages and advantages. And when selecting a variety, the cost, location, and time of placement, as well as the number of contacts with the clientele, are important.
You should start by choosing the appropriate placement method. These are outdoor advertising, the Internet, the press, radio and television. If you can contact an agency, you don’t have to worry about selection: managers will complete this task on their own, although the outcome of the company will depend on their professionalism and the size of the budget.
The outdoor one is located on the streets. This type of accommodation is considered the most budget-friendly. For example, a cafe is open in the south of the metropolis. Place a billboard with outdoor advertising in this area - and every resident will know where to go for a get-together with friends on the weekend.
The cost increases as you get closer to the center. So no one will demand colossal sums for placing outdoor signs on the outskirts. But in the urban center, significant funds will be required.
There are dynamic and static outdoor advertising. Dynamic people are moving past. There is little time to read it, and therefore the text needs to be clear, clear, concise, and written in large font.
The use of lighting, various combinations of font types and sizes, and bright colors increases the effectiveness of advertising. The more people pass by the ad, the more attention will be paid to it. Hence, the efficiency is increased.
The placement price is affected by location, size, material, and manufacturing complexity. For some options, the costs are minimal, and if you choose the right one, you won’t have to regret the money spent.
What is the most effective advertising for small businesses? Online advertising is constantly evolving. Although it is still inferior to traditional methods, it has many advantages. The first and very significant is the relatively low cost.
And the second is reaching the target audience of any size. Typically, sites specialize in certain topics. If your clientele uses the Internet, then why not turn to online advertising. All that remains is to select the appropriate sites that are interesting to consumers and you can act.
On the Internet, it is possible to combine all types of media advertising. So you can hear, see and read advertisements posted on the Internet.
To increase efficiency, it is worth finding out the direction of the site. Mandatory conditions are interesting text, suitable colors and location in the upper corner of the page. The banner should not irritate site visitors.
Just remember that a tenth of Russian users do not use graphics and turn them off. It is also true that small businesses cannot afford banners due to the high cost of advertising on the main pages of popular sites.
The first is texts and banners on pages similar in content to advertising. This method is less annoying for site visitors and is more useful for the advertiser.
The cost of online advertising is affected by the duration of placement and the number of impressions. If you pay for a week, then this is the first method, payment by the number of views is the second. That is, how many views the placement is designed for, that’s how many you’ll have to pay for.
Guerrilla marketing is gaining incredible popularity. This is a very good option for small businesses. The costs are only temporary, and you won’t have to spend money. Social networks, blogs and forums have become real advertising platforms.
Here they exchange opinions. On forums, such statements are perceived as recommendations from independent experts that are worth listening to. The promotion is hidden.
It is profitable to place such advertising in printed publications purchased by readers, since an educated audience is valued for its ability to pay. The traditional method remains in demand.
The videos are shown in blocks, and the best option is the first one, before the channel switching starts, or the last one, when everyone has already switched back. Purchasing is forward, since sales are distributed over the year.
The radio audience is young people. In an audio message, the listener will not remember either the address or telephone number. In a music screen, information remains in memory for a long time. It is important to consider the time when advertising on the radio: evening or morning are the best options. It is better to place on non-local waves and select several frequencies to increase the likelihood of getting on an ad when switching.
There are many advertising options, and the main thing is to choose the right one. High-quality and original in any case will not go unnoticed. It is recommended to use budget methods, combining several types to increase efficiency. Don’t forget about monitoring efficiency and measuring the number of visitors a few days after the company’s launch. Only such measures can determine the best carrier that brings maximum benefits.
Small companies need an effective advertising strategy no less than giant corporations. Properly structured promotion will help you achieve excellent results with minimal costs.
Advertising– this is not a luxury, but an urgent necessity for a budding entrepreneur. It allows you to increase recognition in the market, build a good reputation, and attract paying customers. Neglecting this component of the work leads to a sad outcome. For small business marketing campaigns to be successful, you need to build them taking into account the existing specifics and listen to the advice of experts.
At the first stages of development, a novice entrepreneur faces serious difficulties. While the target audience and suppliers know nothing about the goods and services, the company is perceived with caution and distrust.
An important impetus for the further development of small businesses is the creation of a good business reputation, which will help to declare the following qualities of the company:
An indispensable assistant in building a reputation is. It will help create a positive image of the company, emphasize its advantages, form a loyal attitude towards goods and services, and outline advantages over competitors’ products.
Advertising helps small businesses attract the attention of potential customers to the products they sell and announce the appearance of new products on the market. It performs two important functions: it informs about the advantages and features of the product, it allows, and along with them, revenue.
A small business should not refuse advertising due to a lack of available funds. Modern marketing offers tools and methods that produce a significant effect at minimal cost.
Effective promotion is not a spontaneous action aimed at nowhere. He has a clear goal, audience, . To make advertising work for you and not become a waste of money, use five key points:
This is what attracts attention to the message and allows you to “find” the target audience. Often the public is more likely to be attracted to negative-sounding issues. So, the inscription “Tired of constant stress?” will allow you to “select” people who are interested in the product.
When you have captured the attention of potential consumers, offer them a way out of the current situation. For example, spa treatments will help you cope with stress and completely relax.
Tell the target audience what the “zest” of the product or service is, why it is worth choosing the promoted product. At this point it is recommended to give free rein to your imagination.
People tend to put off making important decisions. To overcome procrastination, let the consumer know that there is no time to think. Indicate that the offer is valid for a limited time.
Clearly indicate to potential consumers how to take advantage of the offer: call the phone number indicated in the ad, book a spa treatment time on the website.
A key feature of promotion for small businesses is a shift in emphasis from the company itself to the uniqueness of the product offered. An entrepreneur who owns a small grocery store is unable to compete with international giants - Coca-Cola, Adidas and others. Its task is not to increase brand awareness, but to increase sales.
Juicy slogans and memorable logos are bad helpers in increasing the profitability of a small company. The purpose of advertising is to tell consumers about specific offers of goods and services, attract new customers, and retain old ones.
The answer to the question of how to make effective advertising for a small company lies in the rejection of general words and lengthy formulations: “cheap”, “a lot”, “the most”, etc. The "abstract" approach worked 15-20 years ago, but today it is useless. No one will go to a store offering “the cheapest sofas in the city,” but a retail outlet selling a sofa for 10,000 rubles will certainly attract visitors.
Marina Arishchenko, Head of Transaction Business Development Department, Moscow Credit Bank
Under the influence of the development of digital technologies, the advertising market has undergone fundamental changes. Today, most companies receive a tangible effect not from traditional channels in the classical model, such as television, advertising, radio, outdoor advertising, but from the use of incentives and cross-promotions based on issuing coupons for payment. This direction is the most progressive.
The direction of creating ecosystems and marketplaces that revolutionize the understanding of the banking services market has also become widespread. Development towards affiliate programs built on the placement of affiliate offers on the bank’s terminal network is the most effective and not only ensures incoming traffic to the partner’s website, increased sales, increased presence in the media field, but also dynamic development in various areas.”
There are three effective tools that can increase sales for a small company:
These are special offers that last for a limited time. This way, the company does not leave the potential buyer time to think and minimizes the risk of him leaving for competitors.
If you indicate in the ad that the promotion is valid for one day (week, month), the target audience will look at the offer differently. She will think: trousers are not needed today, but then they will tear and wear out. There is no point in overpaying tomorrow if the price tag is so attractive today.
This method has been used for a long time, but remains effective and relevant. Indicate on the label the new “favorable” price and the “old” price, which is 30-50% higher. The greater the difference between the two values, the stronger the “limited supply” effect. Seeing the benefits that the purchase promises, the client will part with his money faster.
If you are opening a small business (dry cleaning, laundry, bakery, pharmacy, etc.), announce the opening before starting work. Hang up a sign, a sign, and distribute leaflets to nearby residents. This way you will arouse interest in the new product in potential buyers, allowing them to get used to the idea that company “N” will be located here.
The undoubted advantage of free advertising methods is that it saves money. Such cost savings are always useful, especially in terms of business promotion. Some methods of promotion without investment are increasingly characterized by quick returns and significant profits; at the beginning of development they are quite suitable. It is difficult to predict the effectiveness, since it will be individual for each case.
Today, only private advertisements do not require placement fees in print publications. If you try and disguise a commercial offer as a personal sale, this will promote your product well, and for nothing. But newspaper editors are also rarely newbies, and in the vast majority of cases they know about this trick and do not miss the ad. In any case, it's worth a try.
We see outdoor advertising around every corner. However, only a few people read the information on the stands, since during the day hundreds of advertisements “fall” on a person from all sides. People are becoming more and more indifferent to advertising posters. Flyers are also popular. You should make them, hire a promoter and instruct him to distribute them in crowded places (parking lots, shopping centers, etc.). The main thing is to decide on the target audience and find out where and at what time the traffic of target clients will be the highest. To calculate an effective scheme for distributing leaflets, there are recommendations depending on the target audience.
Interesting facts from the world of marketing!
The worldwide network provides enormous potential for development. If you have certain knowledge and computer skills, it is better to start offering a product on the Internet. There are several common free methods of online advertising or internet marketing:
A good option is to create a second page to use only for commercial purposes, adding potential clients as friends every day. However, these actions carry the risk of being blocked, because some regard an application from such an account as spam.
Another way - hashtags. They are not at all intrusive and are a type of tagging that is designed to make it easier to find photos or messages on the desired topic. A hashtag can be one word or an entire phrase, but it is always preceded by a symbol «#» . A message will be found faster if it is signed with a competent hashtag.
Evgenia Lavronenko
Head of marketing department
Cassida™ Eurasia & Central Asia
www.cassida.ru
In my 10 years of work in marketing, I have seen many methods of guerrilla marketing. Some of them work. Some don't. The first rule that you need to remember even before you do anything is that you must know your target audience (target audience)! There are no universal places where all people go, no universal platforms where entrepreneurs and housewives read news (we don’t take Yandex into account).
So, only after you have decided who your target audience is, can you sit down and brainstorm. It is not difficult. You need to answer 2 questions: where does my target audience go, how to convey information to them in this place. In the process, you will come up with a lot of ideas for both paid and free advertising options. There is no need to remove all paid options. Leave them for future use, this will forgive you for the further development of the company.
Let's look at an example
My target audience is mothers with children.
Question 1: Mothers are:
— On websites and forums for mothers;
— In groups on social networks for mothers;
— In clinics;
— In parks, etc.
If the stigma of a spammer doesn’t scare you, you can create many accounts on different services and constantly send messages offering your services to everyone. This will take a lot of time and will hardly resonate with the right audience. Still, regardless of the type and cost, issues of product promotion need to be approached prudently, having thought in advance which of the free advertising methods will be suitable for your area.