When it comes to marketing, small businesses have to pursue high-value campaigns in order to make the most of their tight budgets. That can be tricky to do when a single, small newspaper ad can cost $40, radio ads are kind of hit-or-miss when trying to reach your target audience, and Yellow Pages are going out of style. Small businesses need fresh ideas to keep themselves at the forefront of their target customers' minds.
Fortunately, the digital age provides a new weapon in the fight for visibility: Google Adwords. These are the paid ads that appear at the top of Google's search results. Yes, this service costs money, but for small businesses, the advantages are often worth the relatively small expense. Here are a few advantages of using Google Adwords as a small business.
Google Adwords is budget-friendly.
Google Adwords is a paid service, so it will cost more than posting a blog, launching a social media campaign, or even pursuing a search engine optimization strategy (All three of which are also very good small business marketing ideas, by the way). However, this service is actually very budget-friendly, because it allows small businesses to maximize the use of their dollars. Here is how.
You only pay for click-throughs.
With Google Adwords, you only pay when someone clicks on your advertisement. That means that you only pay when a potential customer shows a definitive sign of interest in your company. Thanks to this setup, you can be sure that your marketing budget is going toward leads that have a high chance of converting. That is, perhaps, the most high-value spend possible of your small marketing budget.
You control costs per ad and per month.
In addition, Google Adwords gives you a high degree of control over how your money is spent. For example, you set limits on how much money you spend per ad, and on how much money you spend on your total Google Adwords campaign per month. That means you spend exactly as much as you have available, and you get to spend it on the ads that are performing the best for your business. It is hard to get that kind of precise financial control with any other type of marketing.
Google Adwords can be highly targeted.
One of the problems with other forms of advertising, especially for small businesses, is not being sure that the ad is reaching your target audience, usually local individuals who need your products and services. Google Adwords, however, offers small businesses the chance to reach their local audience with geo-targeting.
Geo-targeting is the ability to define which areas your ads target. For example, if you are a small business in Lafayette, Indiana, you may want to ask Google Adwords to only show your ads to individuals in that area. Alternatively, you can define which areas should not be included in your campaign. By doing so, you can ensure that your ads only appear to people within your target region or city.
In addition, Google Adwords allows you to create campaigns based on certain keywords. For example, your ads for your pizza shop may only appear to people who have been searching for the term “scratch pizza Lafayette, Indiana.”
Both of these targeting strategies allow you to place your ad in front of people who are likely to want your products and services and therefore provide you with high-quality leads who are more likely to convert (in other words, more likely to earn you profits).
Google Adwords provides fast, clear data.
Finally, Google Adwords is a boon for small businesses because it provides fast, clear data about how your ads are performing. For other types of marketing, you often have to wait, sometimes months, for results. Search engine optimization, for example, takes time to start delivering tangible results, like visibility on the first page of the search results or more website traffic.
Google Adwords, on the other hand, delivers results quickly. Your ad, when it appears, is always on the top of the first page of the search results. That is instant visibility. And within days, you can access data about how the ad is performing. That means that you can make quick decisions about whether an ad is working for you, replace low performing ads with high performing ones, adjust your budget to support strong ads, and even see more website traffic and conversions more quickly.
Implementing a Google Adwords campaign could be a good strategy for your small business. If you want help figuring out if such a campaign will work for you, and getting a campaign up off the ground, do not hesitate to reach out to Distinct Web Design. We can not only deliver a strong Google Adwords campaign but also help you explore other means of digital marketing to expand your visibility while meeting your unique marketing needs.
