Get the word out about your business through advertising. You have identified your target market so now it’s time to reach them. Here are a few ways to successfully advertise your business offline.

These advertising methods will work for a storefront and a website business. To make a sale, you draw in the people who are most likely to give you their money. That is the goal for all business.

1. Do a radio spot. This one will be fun. Who hasn’t dreamed of being on the air? A local radio program may want to highlight your business if you are doing something in the community. You can discuss who you are and what you want people to know about your business.

There is also advertising spots where you pay for time and an announcer reads your ad over the airwaves. With either choice, choose a time when your target market will be listening. The morning commute (between 7 and 9 a.m.) will reach most business types. They are in their cars fighting traffic. Also choose a radio station or radio show that is likely to be popular with your potential customers.

2. Advertise in appropriate magazines. By appropriate we mean magazines that cater to your target market. You wouldn’t spend money on an ad in Vanity Fair if you were trying to reach pet lovers. There are hundreds of magazines in existence that cater to all types of tastes. Evaluate the ones in your area. Don’t neglect local magazines that people can pick up for free. Your ads will be seen by all types of people including your target market.

3. Pass out business cards. A business card is like a mini billboard. It has your business name, logo, tagline, contact information, and website address. Within the confines of that card, the holder has all they need to know to find out more about you. Slip one into direct mailings, all business correspondence, and into your pocket in case you run into someone in need of your services.

4. Word of Mouth advertising. Nothing sells your products or services better than a glowing recommendation. Someone who has experienced your customer service, quick turnaround time, and useful product will pass the word on to their friends. You can sweeten that pot by offering credit or cash for referrals.

5. Local newspaper can bring more customers. Plenty of people read the newspaper. Your ads or press releases about your business will be seen by plenty of people. If your target audience reads the newspaper on a regular basis, advertising here can produce more business. A target audience of teenagers and young adults probably wouldn’t get much notice in the newspaper. Spring for bigger font and bigger ads so no one will have a hard time reading it.

Are you marketing your business offline? If not, now is the perfect time to begin. An entire city of potential customers is waiting to hear about your business.

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It is a common misconception that if you build a website, the traffic will come.  The process from building to profit making takes a little more elbow grease than that.  Website advertising is important.

Advertising gets the word out about who you are and what you are selling, whether it is goods or services.  On the Internet, your site is one of thousands.  To have a fighting chance, use every means available to you to advertise.

Website advertising can be done online.  The Internet is a virtual reality.  Think of each website as a different store.  Some stores you like to go in and some you haven’t had a need to visit.  But, if you saw some catchy ads for other stores while you were shopping, you might be inclined to visit them. 

Since you want to advertise what you are selling, you’ll need to find a place online where that is possible.  Choose sites that have something in common with your product but are not in direct competition with your market.  Most sites sell advertising space as a way of making extra revenue.

Consider affiliate programs.  You can advertise on sites where you will be noticed and do the same for others.  As you grow, consider Google AdWords for your own site to make some money and promote similar sites. 

Make use of your signature line in emails.  Include your business website address and a tagline in addition to your name.  Now, anyone who gets email from you will know where to find your website.  Your main purpose is to keep your website, and thus your products, in the forefront of everyone’s mind.  Chances are people will visit you if they see the address everywhere they look.

Along that same line, you can advertise offline for online businesses.  When you create your business cards, be sure to add your website address and in the same size font as the other pertinent information.  It is easy to log on to the Internet in the office, at home, or at a cyber café and see what is going on at your website. 

In fact, people would rather have a website address than a telephone number.  A telephone number conjures up visions of someone with an annoying voice trying to pressure you into buying something.  On the Internet, people can satisfy their curiosity without any strings attached.  In that way, a website provides an excellent advertising opportunity.

The competition on the Internet is stiff.  Each website is clamoring for their piece of the market right along with you.  To increase your traffic, you have to stand above the rest.  One way to do this is to advertise your website as often and in as many places as you can.  But, not just any places — appropriate on and offline venues your potential customers will see.

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Banner ads are used as a form of advertising on a website.  Some can be big or small, but the point is to get people to click on them.  With the rise of other types of virtual ads, are banner ads still effective?

First, let’s discuss what a banner ad is and what it is supposed to do.  When a page on a website loads, there are advertisements at the top and/or bottom of the page.  Those are banner ads.  Some are flashy, blinding (you need sunglasses to see them), small (magnifying glass) or large.  Banner ads are click-through ads.  If you click in the space, you are redirected to another site that tells you more about the ad.

Many banner ads are ignored, especially if they flash a lot.  Looking at all those annoying colors while you are trying to read the text on a page is maddening.  People figured the idea was to make them as big and bright as possible to be seen.  That worked but that didn’t mean that anyone would actually click on them. 

Banner ads can be many sizes.  If your banner ad is too large, it won’t load as quickly as the webpage.  By the time it finishes loading the graphics and text, your potential customer could be on to another page.  Banner ads still exist of course, but more and more people are opting for programs like Google AdWords which customizes ads to your website.  You can bring in a little revenue and the ads don’t take up a lot of space or blind anyone.

If you want to use banner ads on your website, here are a few tips to increase your click-through rate.

1.  Add a “click here” button.  People who click on these ads want to reach the destination as quickly as possible.  Giving specific instructions helps them get there.  You can actually click anywhere on the ad where your cursor turns into a hand, but without explicit instructions where to click, some people will ignore the banner.

2.  Forego the bright colors for a little flash and bigger font.  An ad can have color on the flashing words or buttons.  That catches the eye.  The words need to be bigger than a fly speck and tell the visitor why they need to click on your ad.  You only have one shot at this with each visitor, so make it count.

3.  Connect the banner ad with the page they want to view.  Clicking on ads that take you everywhere but the page with the offer frustrates visitors.  Most won’t hunt for the page – they’ll just go back to where they were before.

Banner ads can be effective if used in a certain manner.  Keep them short and to the point with a little flash to attract traffic.

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In order for your advertising to perform optimally, that is for it to generate the awareness and sales you desire, it’s imperative that you create a system to test and track your results.  Tracking will tell you how your advertisement is performing and testing will tell you which specific variables, like your headline, work the best.  Here’s how to make advertising work for you.

Step One:  Find the right tools for the job.  Google analytics does a wonderful job of tracking website data.  Creating an advertising strategy whereby you can track the click through rates of specific advertisements will go a long way toward providing the information you need. 

Additionally, if you’re using AdWords or other pay per click search engine advertising methods then they’ll provide the necessary data. 

In order to tweak an ad for optimal results, many business owners use a system called Split Testing or multivariate testing. This method involves testing the results from two different variables in the same advertising campaign.  The results are tracked over a specified period of time   There are many software programs which will facilitate a complex multivariate testing strategy however, it can also be as simple as sending the viewers of each different advertisement to a unique webpage and tracking the results. 

Step Two:  Decide what to test.  You can split test just about anything from the headline to the background color in your banner ad or your call to action.  The most useful items to test include:

• Keywords
• Graphics
• Copy
• Headlines
• Price points
• Photos
• Bonus offers
• Text links
• Calls to action

The most important thing to remember is to keep everything constant except the item you’re testing.  This means that if you’re testing to see if a particular keyword works better in a PPC campaign, the advertisement has to remain exactly the same for both keywords. 

At this point you’ve chosen your ad type, you’ve chosen a location to advertise, you’ve written your ad and you’ve created ways to test the ad to analyze effectiveness.  You’re ready to start advertising and testing and tracking your results for maximum effectiveness and return on investment.

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Advertising is a viable marketing strategy to reach and influence your target audience.  It is perhaps the marketing tactic with the longest history, and online advertising in particular is a growth industry.  However, simply placing an advertisement for your business doesn’t necessarily mean you’re going to achieve results.  Here’s how to optimize your advertising efforts by choosing the right place to advertise for your audience.

Step One:  Determine where your audience hangs out – what websites do they visit? 

Blogs.  There is a blog on just about every topic under the sun.  Analyze your audience, determine what blogs they frequent and search for advertising guidelines.  Some blogs do not publish their advertising guidelines.  You’ll instead need to contact the owner of the blog.  Banner ads and text ads work best on blogs. It is important to find a blog that:

• Speaks on a relevant topic
• Has a fair amount of 
•  Doesn’t have too many competing ads

Social Networking Sites.  Social media has become a prevalent force in our personal and professional lives.  Explore the wide range of social networking sites and your target audience’s interests to see if there are any which match. 

Websites.  Websites are very similar to blogs in terms of the typical advertising format and the guidelines to find appropriate and profitable places to advertise. 

Search Engines.  Google, Yahoo, MSN and a whole slew of other search engines offer advertising programs.  They’re a highly targeted advertising strategy – you’re only viewed by people looking for information on your business products or services. 

Email.  Enewsletters and email marketing messages are still a great way to reach a targeted audience.  Enewsletter advertising is cost effective and because they are subscribed to, the recipients are generally looking forward to receiving them and more receptive to the advertising content. 

To begin thinking about ideal locations to advertise it’s important to understand the habits and preferences of your target audience.  Visit sites they visit, consider what they need before or after they might buy your product and research potential advertising locations. 

Consider your target consumer’s buying cycle, behavior, interests, and habits.  If you’re really stuck for ideas on where to advertise, research where your competition advertises.  While you may not want to advertise on the same website, blog, or social networking site, you can at least use those ideas to get the creative juices flowing.

Step Two:  Choose The Right Format For Your Audience. 

There are many types of advertisements including banner ads, text ads, pop-up advertisements, and even video advertising.  Often, it’s difficult to know at first what your audience will respond to.  This is where step three will come in very handy. 

Step Three:  Tracking and Testing Your Advertisements

The advertising of old had one big drawback, there really wasn’t a way to track the effectiveness of an ad.  Online, the whole world of advertising has changed.  You can track everything from the effectiveness of a headline to the color of the ad, the font, the call to action, the placement and so on.  Every variable is easily tracked and tested so you can maximize your advertising efforts.  Data collection programs like Google analytics and basic split testing tactics often provide all the information you need to create and perfect advertisements to influence your target audience.

Online, reaching your target audience and influencing them to visit, promote, and buy is accomplished by studying their online habits and creating advertisements which speak to them in a personal and effective manner.  Testing and tracking optimizes your efforts and helps you hone in on those messages which have the most influence.

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When it comes to growing an online business, one of the most common and most effective strategies is to increase your customer base.  This is often accomplished by a variety of means including, social networking, word of mouth, search engine optimization tactics and advertising.  Advertising, when done correctly, can actually be the most effective means of growing your business and your customer base.

What is Advertising?

Advertising is defined as the process of attracting attention to you business, by paid announcements in the print, broadcast, or electronic media (online). Online advertisements usually take the form of banner advertisements, pay per click advertisements or search engine advertisements, text ads, pop-up advertisements and video or audio. 

In order to increase your customer base, it’s important to choose not only the right type of advertisement but also the right location and to follow up with accurate testing and tracking.

Here are five steps to take to make sure your advertising strategy will produce the results you desire – will increase your customer base.

Step One:  Who is your Target Audience?  It’s important to make sure your advertisement is focused on an individual group of consumers.  Writing an ad that appeals to everyone is difficult and will most likely not generate the results you’re looking for.  Remember you can write 10 ads, each one directed at a specific market segment within your total audience.

Step Two:  Create a compelling ad.  Writing online ads is much different than writing an advertisement for offline print.  The goal for offline advertising is typically to capture someone’s attention and generate memory.  The goal for your online advertisement is to motivate a click to your website.  

Step Three:  What is your goal for the ad?  Do you want to collect subscribers for your ezine?  Send visitors to your website?  Generate interest for an upcoming product launch?  Make sure the copy, ad type, and location all fit your goals and then make sure you’re sending click throughs to a relevant page. 

Step Four:  How will you test your advertisement’s effectiveness?  The goal is to know how many people are responding to your ads. It can be as simple as sending them to a unique sales page.  You won’t know if your ad is working unless you have put measures into place to track it.  Additionally, test your ad copy, size, graphics etc for results.  Use two ads each with different headlines, calls to action or even size and send them to identical sales pages.  Which ad performs better?

Step Five:  Make sure each new advertisement integrates into your current marketing strategy.  That means including your promotions, press and publicity and even your email marketing into your advertisement strategy and vice versa. 

The goal of advertising, beyond motivating a click through, is to increase and expand awareness of your company.  The larger your customer base the larger your sales and profits.

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In any business, the first step is to find the customers.  Throwing open the doors won’t guarantee that anyone will come in.  And, if they do, it is no guarantee that they will buy from you.  The same goes for website businesses.  Use every opportunity to market your business on and offline.

Let’s talk about marketing and advertising.  Advertising is like those billboards you see from the highway or the commercials that air between segments of your favorite show.  Advertisers use images and words to get people to pay attention to them.

But, who is “people”?  That is where marketing comes into the picture.  Marketing determines the demographic of your target audience — who they are and where they are.  If your target audience is single working moms, you aren’t going to run an ad during the day or choose a 10 a.m. radio spot.  They probably won’t hear it.

When you market your website locally, you want to use the same marketing techniques that you used online to find your target market.  There are many offline places to market your business.

Go to the newspapers.  Newspaper ads are still good places to find new customers.  Depending on your business model, ads that introduce your business and give a website address for more information are seen by thousands of people a day.  Over morning coffee, the businessperson reads the newspaper.  Dads might read at their desk in the morning.  Moms might unwind with the paper after the kids leave for school (if she stays at home).

Press releases in the newspaper are larger than ads and garner greater visibility.  Place just enough information in the press release so that anyone reading it immediately wants to visit your website to find out more.  Use bold lettering for information that requires close attention.

Make use of business cards.  Keep a small stack of ten or twelve on hand at all times.  You never know who you might meet.  Don’t forget to include your website address on the business card.  Insert cards in any mailings that you send out.

What about letterhead?  If you’ve registered your business name or your website domain name, slap it on every piece of correspondence you send out.  When sending notes to family or friends, use note paper embossed with your letterhead.

Use promotional items.  Companies may gladly create samples for you in hope of future business.  Wear a t-shirt with your logo and website address to a family function.  Give out coffee mugs to friends and pens to everyone you see.  Functional items that people will use over and over again will have your website address front and center.

Just because you have an online business doesn’t mean all your marketing is done there.  There are people right in your sphere of influence that would be right for your products.

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Newspapers have always been a traditional form of advertising.  Before television took hold, the newspaper was the way that people found out what was going on in the world.  Today, newspapers compete with television, radio, and the Internet.  Is it worth the money to advertise in a newspaper?

That is a good question.  The newspaper still offers a classified section, but is the price worth what you get in return?  It depends on your target market and how important the local market is to you.

If your target market reads the newspaper, then you are going to want to advertise there.  Even so, your ad will have to stand out from hundreds of others to be effective.  This means using larger font and a larger ad space to include all of the pertinent information you’ll need potential customers to know.

Pros:

• Seen by hundreds of people every day

• Can establish your brand in the local market

• Enhances other advertising methods for storefront businesses

• Is less expensive than magazine ads

• Will reach all those within your circle of influence

People cut things out of the newspaper and save them.  If you find an ad you want to pursue, you cut it out or circle it to find it later.  A newspaper can be taken with you anywhere as a reminder to visit that shop or that website.

On the other hand, those same ads are so small sometimes that your eyes barely skim them.  You will look at the one that catches your eye with larger font or color.  It is easy for your ad to be missed by people.  With newspaper ads, you are paying to reach a large group of people — the entire city.  Your target audience may be within that group but the campaign is not focused as much as you probably would like.  The same thing that you can say in a newspaper ad, you can say on a business card.

Cons:

• Not targeted to one specific group

• Small size of font and ad; can upgrade for a fee

• Better return on investment with other options

The newspapers sensed the move to more digital media and now, newspapers can be read online.  If you have Internet access on your telephone, the hottest lead stories are at your fingertips wherever you are.  Does this work for ads?  It all depends on your newspaper and how you choose to view it in other media outlets.

Whether to use newspaper ads is up to you.  Business benefits from advertising but it benefits more when the people you are trying to reach respond well to the advertising medium.  For some, the money spent on newspaper ads doesn’t bring what they need.  Local storefront businesses can typically get better response with this method.

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A company has identifying markers.  It is a way to begin establishing a brand for your product or service.  One of those markers is the company logo.

Let’s see how many logos you are familiar with:

1.  The white swoosh on the side of a shoe?
2.  The segment of white ribbon twisted on a red background on a can?
3.  The joined yellow arches on a restaurant sign?
4.  The earth spinning on a tilted axis with words revolving around it going counter-clockwise?

You are probably familiar with all of these descriptions of logos for companies.  A logo is just as important as the mission statement behind the company.  In establishing a product as quality, a logo identifies that product even when nothing else is seen.

It’s like when you take a driving exam.  Part of the exam consists of sign recognition.  There are no words on the signs, only the color and shape.  From that, you must come up with the words.  The longer you are bombarded with these images, the more recognizable they become on many levels.

Designing a company logo is a serious job.  It may take a while to get the exact image to fit your company’s motto.  Work with a professional to design the look of your company.

The logo speaks to your tagline, your marketing audience, your work ethic, and your company name.  You wouldn’t have a dolphin as the logo design for an outfit that sells climbing gear.  No one would ever put the two together.  It can be a simple design that encompasses all of the things above.

A complicated design can be hard to duplicate properly.  Too many fine lines and subtle color changes that disappear when the image is shrunk down may be unrecognizable on cellophane wrapping or a cardboard box.  The product packaging comes into play also.

The logo will grace your letterhead along with the company name.  A logo is often the first thing that a person sees before they even read the name of your company.  On promotional merchandise, people notice the logo and how it matches with the company name.

As your company grows and you gain sponsorship or partner with other enterprises, you’ll use the logo in print ads and commercials to signify your company principles.  A little field mouse doesn’t project strength any more than the image of an elephant exhibits grace and delicacy.  The logo speaks with and without your tag line present.

Oh, about those four questions.  Here are the answers:  Nike, Coca-cola, McDonald’s, and Universal Studios respectively.  But, you already knew that.  That is the importance and power of a company logo.

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We see so many advertisements in a single day that often we tune them out.  A glance tells us all we need to know and whether we are interested in the product or not.  Advertising can be hit or miss, but you can save more money if you hit most of the time.  Are you advertising your business in the right places?

About twenty or thirty years ago, advertising was not as sophisticated as it is now.  Even now, with more traditional methods of advertising, the proof is in the sales at the end of the quarter or in the monthly receipts.  An advertising campaign implemented in January can be evaluated in April as to its effectiveness.  That’s a long time to wait to find out that your strategy wasn’t as successful as you’d hoped.

What are your business needs?  One of them is data analysis.  This is how statistics are generated — from the hundreds or thousands of numbers and demographic data sets compiled by research companies and company reports.  With the Internet, that information can be in your hand in a much shorter length of time.  You can find out almost immediately if the advertising method you chose is working.

Choose a variety of advertising methods.  This includes a mix of on and offline tools.  Online, software has been created that allows website users to track unique data for their sites.

You can determine how many unique visitors come to your site.  With ad programs like Google AdWords and banner ads, you learn the click-through rate for your ads.  Online coupons can be tagged with code or a numbered sequence to track when and if they are redeemed.  If the numbers steadily go down with online coupons, it’s time to try something else.

Opt-in tools like free registration or referral systems increase the information you know about your customers.  With names, addresses, and email, you can see where your customer base is centered.  With this information you can create personal emails to target certain customers.  Adding links to your site in the email can track those who use it to visit you.

With more traditional methods of advertising, the analysis comes a lot slower.  To speed up the process, you can form focus groups, send out questionnaires yourself, or hire a research company to conduct surveys through the mail.  They do it for a living, so they’ll have more time to analyze this data.

Spikes in sales will be noticed even if they can’t be quantified.  If you have ten people on average in your store through the week and, after you’ve placed your ad in the newspaper you have three times as many, you’d think that advertising rate was a winner.  You are gaining more traffic.  Once they are in the door, it is up to you to seal the deal.

There is no question that Internet advertising methods bring a quicker evaluation of the results of your efforts.  That doesn’t mean that traditional methods won’t work.  With both, look to methods that will reach your target audience.

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