Albeit a bit challenging to figure out, there are a lot of advantages to gain through the use of ads. For one, you can target the customers that you want and filter out those that you don’t. Online advertising is one of the most effective means of advertising today, and that’s thanks to the advent of technology. Times have certainly changed, and gone are the days when ads could only be seen on TV or print media, or be heard on the radio.
Ads are very important as these can help your business grow. For small and local businesses like yours, ads enable you to attract new customers and sell more of your products and services to the loyal customers that you currently have. Furthermore, ads can create good perceptions about your business.
Having said all those, here are ways on how you can grow your local business with the help of ads:
1. Use Keywords To Your Advantage
While it may seem like all-too-common, overused advice, it still makes a lot of sense to use keywords to your advantage. Keywords are still one of the best ways to grow your business as these can help you reach more prospective customers. When you have an Internet page, the keywords can help improve your website’s rank on search engines. The same principle applies to ads.
Even with the smallest advertisements, putting keywords helps a lot. These keywords are important so that search engine crawlers have words to skim through whenever an Internet user searches on a particular niche, in which you belong.
Here are some tips you may follow when using keywords for your ads:
- Choose keywords that are highly relevant to the particular business niche to which you belong.
- Craft the right text or phrases to go alongside your keywords.
- Always spend ample time researching keywords that are most relevant to your business ad.
- Group keywords into an organized hierarchy.
2. Post Promotions On Your Ads
Promotions refer to the deals or products that you’re currently selling at a discounted price. These can as well refer to other promotional activities that your business may also have. Especially when your business is still small and localized, you can use these promotional activities to your advantage by posting them on your ads. It has the effect of generating excitement on the Internet user that views your ads. For example, Mr. A is scrolling through their Facebook page. Then, suddenly, an ad showing that your products are on promo pops up. This can help drive Mr. A towards your brick-and-mortar shop or even to browse through your website. You’re making your business grow with this strategy by merely bringing in more visitors to your store or your virtual page.
Here are other great reasons why you should incorporate all promotional activities your business has to your ads:
- Creates awareness of your brand
- Informs your target audience about the existence of your business and your products
- Reinforces a favorable attitude in the minds of your audience
- Persuades customers (online users) to buy your products
- Reminds other Internet users that your business does exist
3. Measure Your Performance
Yes, you may have had online ads up and running for a long time now. But, how are you confident that they’re effective? Do you have metrics in place to show that the goals of your ads are attained? An indispensable part of using ads to grow your business also involves optimizing these ads. By this, it means that you regularly check your ads to ensure that they’re performing well. That way, you’d know whether or not it’s time to change or revise your ads to better reach your goal of growing your business.
Here are some of the best ways to go about with measuring your ads’ performance:
- If you have Facebook ads, log in to your ads manager platform. That way, you can get better started with measuring and studying the numbers and performance of your ads.
- Study the relevant analytics that is needed to ensure that your ads are doing well.
- Find out what is and what isn’t working in your ads.
4. Advertise Across All Platforms
By advertising across all platforms, this means taking advantage of all areas across various media and sites for advertising. It means making sure that your ads are visible no matter where your target customer is also signing in from. For example, whether Mr. A is browsing from a laptop, desktop computer, mobile phone, or a tablet, they’d still see your ads.
One of the best ways for you to ensure this is to sign up for Google Ads. When you have Google Ads, you can easily sync this with whatever kind of device a person on the other end may be browsing from.
To help you even further, here’s how you can get started with Google Ads:
- Before starting with Google Ads, you first need to have a Google mail address for your website and your business.
- Then, sign up for Google Ads. Enter all the necessary information that Google asks about your business. Through this information, you can also begin with creating your first campaign.
- Set up your billing methods.
- Start advertising!
5. Get Seen On Digital Maps
A part of growing your business with ads also necessarily involves getting seen on maps. That’s why, for one, you need to learn how to add your business on Waze.
Because of advancements in technology, people all over the world have also made significant changes as to how they go about using maps. With just a few clicks on their mobile phones, there are now apps that can help drivers navigate through various locations, even though places they’ve never been to before. As a local business, therefore, it’s also important for you to take advantage of this platform. Make sure that other people see you and know you exist by being present on these maps.
When your local business can be seen on these digital maps, there are many other features that you can utilize for your benefit. For example, you can provide virtual tours of your business through a feature on Google Maps, as well as you can add photos, feedback, and recommendations. That way, even when other Internet users are not going to your business at the moment, they can still learn and know much about your business through the information presented on Google Maps.
This kind of presence can help strengthen your popularity, thus helping your business grow. Here are other advantages that you can gain from using ads to be present on digital maps:
- Enables you to engage with your customers for free
- Strengthens the overall profile of your business
- Expands the ways through which your customers can reach you
- Allows you to see and study the different ways by which your customers connect on business listings or maps
6. Re-organize Your Team’s Structure
For instance, you already have ads in place all over the Internet. Naturally, these ads didn’t just pop up there for no reason at all. They’re a product of all the hard work and effort that your team has exerted. However, this isn’t to say that just because you now have ads up and running, you won’t need to make certain alterations to how your team moves anymore.
In one of the examples above, it was mentioned that a part of growing your local business with the help of ads is in studying whether or not these ads are indeed performing as well as they should. As you study and go through your metrics, you may also want to make regular changes in the organizational structure of your team assigned for your online ads. In doing so, you prevent stagnancy. Remember that digital marketing is a very fast-moving space, so it also needs effort from your part to keep up with these changes. Else, the failure to do so may yield negative results. You’re only wasting time and energy on ads that don’t add any value to your growing your local business.
Here are some tips to follow in managing a team assigned to your ads:
- Analyze all the data that comes from all the metrics that you employ.
- Brainstorm, create, and make regular changes to your ads depending on the location (e.g., different ads for websites and social media accounts).
- Employ members of the team to serve as community managers, meaning individuals that keep an open dialog with your customers and the company as a whole.
- Design all your ads, such that they’re always relevant and competitive.
- Don’t forget to manage your online reputation.
Conclusion
If you’ve long been in the business, by now, you may have already heard a lot about ads and their advantages to any type of business. But, are you aware of how valuable these ads are to your own? Since digital marketing came into place, online ads have become even more profitable and effective than ever. As the Internet population continues to grow and multiply, the effectivity of these ads are constantly increasing, too. In toto, ads help your business grow as it increases your Internet pages’ traffic, as well as your revenues.
