Adwords and your Marketing Campaign

As you may already know, Google Adwords is a great way to reach a large targeted audience at a manageable cost. Although it is cost effective, Adwords cannot and should not constitute the entirety or even majority of your marketing campaign. At most Google Adwords should be about 30% of your marketing effort depending on your type of business. Why?

1. Adwords is very competitive and unlike traditional media your advertising spot is never guaranteed.
2. Internet browsers have learned to become distrustful of unfamiliar ads and have built a certain tolerance of ads which makes them easy to ignore. 
3. If you have a localized business or a new invention, Adwords cannot substitute for the benefits of traditional marketing methods such as Trade Shows, PR, television, print or radio ads. 
4. In my experience, people are more likely to trust your online ads after they have heard about your company from some other trusted source. 
5. Your online marketing needs budget or effort should also have a significant allocation to social media marketing whether paid or unpaid. 

Internet Marketing: Google Adwords

Marketing your small business on a meager budget is indeed challenging to say the least. A good way to build brand awareness for your product is through targeted internet marketing. Internet marketing is big business. The fact is people spend as much and some some cases even more time online as they do watching TV or reading the paper. Google Adwords is one of the most widely used platforms for internet marketing. Google Adwords accrues the following benefits and disadvantages for its users:

Benefits 

1. Google has a wide network of ad publishers so you ads are more likely to be viewed by your target market.  
2. Online advertising tends to be more cost effective than traditional advertising due in part to lower overhead costs for publishers.
3. Adwords is suitable for every budget. You can run campaigns for as little as a $1 per day and still get your ads in front of thousands of people depending on how your campaign is structured. 
4. Adwords offers performance based marketing unlike traditional media where is rather difficult to track the success and Return on Investment of your ad campaigns. With google adwords you can track your campaigns in real time to see how many persons saw and interacted with your ads 
5. Unlike traditional media, Adwords offers the ability to define and advertise directly to your target market. In other words, instead of mass marketing where you are shooting at a target in the dark, Adwords allows you to define the profile of your target customer and places your ads where that customer is most likely to see it. The result: more productive ads and more value for your money.
6.  Google Adwords offers a lot of flexibility in terms of budget, data analytics

Disadvantages

1. If you have a very new or unique product Adwords may not be the best place to start advertising since the success of your ads is highly dependent keywords. If your product is a new invention or new idea completely the you may not have too many keywords to work with. 
2. Adwords ad prices are flexible because they are based on a bidding system. On any given day, the probability that your ad will show is dependent on your daily budget, bid price and ad quality. If you have a fixed and limited budget it will work against you when your competition increases. 
3. Adwords is successful when it is part of a larger campaign which includes PR, social media, and some traditional advertising methods 
4.    

Marketing Your Small Business on a Budget

If you are like me, you have a very limited budget, even more limited for marketing and advertising. I have learned the hard way that marketing is as important to your business as any other aspect and in some cases even more important than the other aspects. A good product can fail miserably due to inadequate marketing and sometimes word of mouth doesn't move you along as quickly as you would like. Online marketing is a good option for reaching a large audience on a small budget. Not withstanding that it is still important to promote your business through local and traditional channels. Here are some effective online marketing options which won't break the bank:

1. Google Adwords is a flexible allows you to place ads on the internet at a price you can afford. Your ads are performance based i.e. you only pay when some one interacts with your ads, which can result in a higher ROI compared to traditional marketing. 
2. Facebook allows you to set up a social media page for your business free of cost. You may also use their flexible, performance based, advertising options to promote your business on their network. Much like Google Adwords, Facebook allows your to set your own budget. 
3. Local Media Advertising. If your business is tied to a specific location, it would benefit you to keep your ads local and use local channels. Unfortunately, Traditional media can be very expensive and success is difficult to track. You can save by advertising in local papers and magazine through their online channels. Many newspapers, use Google Adsense to generate income on their websites. Google Adsense is fed with ads from Google Adwords. You can use your Adwords account to place ads on local websites and benefit from the same and even better exposure compared to print media at a fraction of the cost. 
4. LinkedIn can be a great place to promote certain products and services much like Facebook. You can do this free of cost by having LinkedIn pages for you, your company and your employees and then promote your products to your "connections" who may then share your content with others. You may also join up to 40 LinkedIn Groups free of cost and promote your products to thousands of people who may not be among your existing contacts. With this strategy, you must be careful not to spam as this will end up being counterproductive. Promote your company in a way that offers valuable information that people will be willing to share. 
5. Social Media marketing is an easy cost effective way of promoting your business online. Sites such as StumbleUpon, Digg and Reddit are popular sites for sharing content and new discoveries. Register with these sites and ensure that your website has social media sharing tools to allow your customers to share your content and promote your products on your behalf. 
6. Public Relations is a great option for getting your message out there free of cost. This will require you to forge valuable relationships in the media to try and get them to do a report about your business or products at no cost. Public Relations is challenging as the media tend to be only interested in things that controversial, cutting edge or will otherwise spark viewer interest. You need to be aware of the market and constantly work on positioning yourself to take advantage of any opportunities which may arise.
7. Trade Shows are always a good way to get exposure for your business whether you attend as an official participant or as a part of the general public, it is important to attend as many as you can and promote your products to other attendees 
8. Networking meetings  are also another great way to meet new customers. 
9. Clubs and Associations are a great way to showcase your products in an intimate setting. 

Starting Your Own Business

Depending on the type of business, I believe that starting your own business is relatively easy:

1. Writing a business plan 
2. Getting your business legally registered
3. Getting the required licenses for operation
4. Finding a location 
5. Opening a bank account 
6. Securing the required advisors: Legal, Accounting, Tax etc 

Essentially, getting started is all paperwork. The challenge is to successfully run your own business profitably and efficiently. Growing and expanding your business day to day and month to month can be really challenging especially if you have limited resources. As a recent, entrepreneur myself, I am starting this Blog to document my experiences and sharing them with all who would benefit. Started a blog, I hope will also serve as consistent reminder of why I need to persevere and and push each day harder than the next to ensure my business is successful. I will endeavour to share every tip and trick I share with my readers to ensure that we are successful together. I invite you to also share your experiences so we can all learn from them.

Look forward to my next blog!