What’s the reason any company advertises on any form of mainstream media (TV, Radio, Print)?
The Answer: To target a key demographic. Female or housewife oriented product commercials advertise on soap operas and daytime talk show television programs due to the audience. It’s more cost-effective for the company to target that audience than to air the same tv spots during a football game.
The same is true for the Internet, with one major exception. Thanks to PPC marketing, the advertiser can not only target the critical demographic, but the specific product sought! Let’s take a well-known company: Nutrisystem. Nutrisystem continues to run nationwide television campaigns (typically on smaller cable networks and at non-peak times), though have also turned to the Internet for keyword searches of “lose weight, ” “weight loss, ” and dozens of other commonly searched keyword phrases. Even though they are one of the largest weight-loss companies in the United States, they still need brand-recognition on the Internet. Natural search engine optimization takes time and nurturing, but PPC campaigns can be set up and active in a matter of minutes!
Pricing Differences across the mainstream media:
Television and radio charge advertising rates per viewership. These media providers will give the advertiser an estimate of the total viewers, and charge a flat rate. The bottom line: there is zero knowledge on the percentage of viewers who are remotely interested in the product the advertiser is marketing. With PPC / Internet search marketing campaigns, pricing is established via per-click (hence the name – pay per click). If you structure the targeted keywords and phrases correctly, you can achieve top rankings (on Google, Yahoo, and MSN) for as little as one dollar per click (or less!).
PPC and the local mom-and-pop business:
This is where local business owners can find their ‘niche’ on the Internet. When you’re looking to find local restaurants or stores in your city, what do you plan on typing in? Let’s say you’re in the mood for Chinese food. Unless you already have that refrigerator magnet on your door, you need to locate a restaurant in your area. Either you can geo-target a PPC campaign to appear to searches only in the desired area, or you can include city-street specific names in your targeted keyword/phrase list for the PPC campaign. This helps out local non-Internet based stores in many ways.
- Branding – get the company’s name on first pages of major search engines
- Appeal to the more significant audience – For a few dollars a day, Internet ads can acquire hundreds or thousands of impressions to targeted local traffic
- Technological Advancement – A Los Angeles flower shop with a couple of dozen orders a day can appeal to a worldwide audience with the ability to process requests over the Internet to L.A. and non-California based visitors or customers!
Although ppc search marketing is one of the newer forms of mass-marketing, it is continuously growing with new advertisers every day. From small, local businesses to multi-million dollar franchises, this is the most targeted form of advertising in today’s media world.