Marketing By Value, Which Strategy Wins?
Marketing by value is always going to be a key part of your business model. Without the right marketing and promotion your business could be dead in the water long before you ever set sights on your target customer.
There are lots of different options when it comes to marketing. For instance, you can market offline or online. You can use real, or digital marketing materials. You can work with people or focus entirely on how you use software to your advantage.
There are even different types of offline marketing because you could advertise online or on the radio. Or, perhaps you need to think about which SEO you need and whether you want it to be organic. There are so many choices that it’s difficult for business owners to know that they are making the right one.
That’s where this article is going to help you a lot. We’re going to look at the value of each form of marketing and find out which one offers the best value for money, specifically for your business. Let’s start by thinking about SEO and PPC.
Market By Value: SEO
SEO is all about how you change your website and your entire profile online. Essentially, you optimise it to ensure that when customers complete a search related to your company they find your business. You probably already know how SEO works so we’re not going to break it down for you. But how valuable is it?
Well, it depends how much effort and money you’re willing to put into your campaign. If you look at businesses that have established brands like Coke, Disney and Virgin, they all use some form of SEO. But their SEO isn’t going to be the same as the SEO service a corner shop is using catering exclusively to customers in Bidston.
The SEO service used by the big elite businesses could cost thousands per month. While the small shop may be paying as little as hundred for services they are using. Which one is going to be more successful?
Technically, Disney is going to get a lot more attention online. But that little shop could still be getting a fair amount of demand from their own pool of consumers. So, when it comes to SEO bigger isn’t always better. It depends what size of pond you’re playing in. If you’re in someone’s back yard with a few goldfish you can afford to go easy with SEO. However, if you’re in the international ocean, you better have the tools to fight back against the sharks and the whales.
You need to think about quality as well. SEO is quite complex and as such services can easily vary in the level of quality that they provide.
Market By Value: PPC (pay-per-click)
PPC and similar forms of paid SEO are quite different. With this tactic, you need to remember that not everyone is going to respond. In fact, only thirty percent of users bother with the sponsored ad links provided by PPC. However, they do guarantee you a spot on page one and this could be seen as the ultimate value for money when marketing online. You decide how much you want to pay for marketing based on what you’re willing to pay for keywords. It’s particularly useful for local businesses because they can bid for region specific keywords at a lower cost.
The problem with PPC is that you’re paying based on site clicks and not customer retention. So, if you are using this service, you must make sure you have a winning website design. If there is any chance that customers click and don’t like what they see, you could lose a lot of money in a short period.
As such, if you’re using PPC, it’s best to also invest in a CRO service. CRO stands for conversion rate optimization. Using a service like this you’ll be able to analyse the data and discover whether there’s a reason why customers might not be enthralled with your site.
Market By Value: Television & Video
Television advertisements just won’t be an option for new, small business owners. Television ads can cost thousands for no more than thirty seconds of air time, and it does depend when you want it to air. So, more popular spots will increase the cost. For instance, film companies and big businesses spend millions to get a few seconds of ads on during the Super Bowl every year.
It’s also debatable whether television advertisements are even worth the cost anymore. Indeed, it seems in the age of technology where you can fast forward every ad, television advertising has become rather pointless. Particularly for small business owners who may only have the budget for one marketing campaign.
The more valuable alternative would be online video advertisement. With a business such as Personal Money Store, you can borrow as much as one thousand dollars. That’s more than enough to buy a substantial amount of ad time on a place like Youtube. It’s certainly a lot cheaper than what you’d be charged for TV airtime and you might even attract a larger audience.
The only issue here is where your ad is placed. Many larger businesses have been outraged to find that their ads have been placed before insensitive, offensive and politically scandalous videos.
Market By Value: Flyers And Billboards
For small business, flyers and billboards are still a useful and valuable form of marketing. You might think that flyers are pointless, because many customers might just throw them away as soon as you give them to them. However, you can design and print thousands of flyers, handing them out for just a few hundred. If you hand out all the flyers and only ten percent of people respond, you could still see a healthy ROI.
As for billboards, these can be used to create a local marketing presence. Ad space on a billboard in a key position is sure to have an impact on your level of demand. For instance, you might purchase billboard space at an airport. If your company is linked to the tourist industry it should be easy to understand how beneficial this could be.
Hopefully you can see now the value of various marketing tactics and how they could benefit a business such as yours. Remember though, a campaign that worked well for one company might not be quite as successful for another.
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