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Dan's Blog Archive
Deb's Blog
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Send the Right Message with Your Online Advertising and Know Who You Are Targeting Credibility on the Web: How to Build Trust What You Say Determines Who You Get Can You Really Judge Website Pages by Their Titles? Seach Engines do
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Send
the Right Message with Your Online Advertising and Know Who You Are
Targeting
Online advertising comes
in many forms, and as methods to deliver the advertising
message get richer, the choices become more complex. You can
pick and choose which type or which combination of ad types
to use, where to place the ads, and what page you want
people to land on when they access your website. No matter
which form you choose, the message must do the job of
presenting an offer to your potential customers that will
bring them to a decision making page on your website. If you
don’t give them a reason to click through to your site, it
is a waste of time, money and effort to place the
advertising.
Online Advertising
Options
First let’s take a look at
the options you have on the internet for advertising your
products and services.
1. Search Engine Marketing
a. Paid Search
Advertising
Every major search engine with
significant market share accepts paid listings. This unique
form of search engine advertising guarantees that your site
will appear in the top results for the keyword terms you
target within a day or less. Given this, paid listings are
an option that should be explored by site owners who wish to
quickly build visibility. They may also be a long-term
advertising option for some. Paid search listings are also
called sponsored listings and/or Pay Per Click (PPC)
listings. The most well known are Google AdWords and Yahoo!
Search Marketing.
b. Contextual
Advertising
Contextual advertising is
a form of targeted advertising for advertisements appearing
on websites or other media, such as content displayed in
mobile browsers. The advertisements themselves are selected
and served by automated systems based on the content
displayed to the user. AdSense by Google is a good example
of Contextual Advertising
c. Inclusion
Advertising
Inclusion Advertising is
otherwise known as Pay-Per-Clickthrough Advertising. Placing
a text ad, video ad or Banner ad on a website that reaches
your target audience, you pay for each time someone clicks
through to your website. This is known as the Clickthrough
Rate or CTR.
2. Search Engine
Optimization
Search engine optimization
(SEO) is the process of improving the volume or quality of
traffic to a web site from search engines via natural or
un-paid ("organic" or "algorithmic") search results as
opposed to search engine marketing (SEM) which deals with
paid inclusion. SEO isn’t often thought of as a form of
advertising by site owners. But anywhere that your message
becomes a link to your website is an advertisement for your
business. Search results pages are filled with clickable
links which are the titles of the pages on your site. The
snippet of information below the title comes from the meta
description tag in your website’s code. That tiny bit of
information needs to be compelling enough to entice a
searcher to click on your website instead of your competitor
listed directly above or below your listing.
The goal of being at
position #1 for specific keyword terms is definitely a good
one. This position in the organic results gets the highest
percentage of click throughs. It also proves to be the best
spot for gaining conversions. Being on page one of the
results is important to gain traffic. How important?
At the NYC Search
Engine Strategies conference JupiterMedia stated that 5 out
of 6 commercial purchases which originate from search,
originate from the free (or organic) search engine results
listings.
3. Self Promotion Through
Your Dealership Website
Beyond the scope of
establishing a web presence where people can browse through
your inventory, and examine the brands your dealership
carries, your website itself is a sales tool and an
advertising medium. Your advertising message that gets the
visitor to respond and click through to your site, should be
confirmed in a more powerful way on the page they arrive on.
Building specific landing pages that are accessible only
through linking to a specific inclusion, contextual or paid
search ad is an important way to measure response.
If your banner ad is
referring to a specific offer, make sure you link to the
page that has that offer explained in detail. In addition,
it is an opportunity to funnel the visitor to information
which should be compelling enough to warrant a call, an
email or a visit to the dealership. If you are connecting
your banner advertising to your home page, your message in
your ad that brought them, must be continued there. If not,
you have wasted the effort made to get the potential
customer to your website.
Through organic search
engine optimization, the process is natural. The page title
tells the story of what information is on the page that is
ranking. If it doesn’t, it should. The search results give
you little space to entice the visitor. The searcher is
looking for specific information and your title is key in
telling them if they have found it. When they click through
and arrive on your site the message must, again, be a
compelling one to get them to act.
Who are You Targeting?
Where do you find your
target market when placing your ad? Your customers are
specifically RV consumers. RV consumers look for campground
information, travel ideas, storage tips, towing information,
RV industry news, recipes, maintenance tips, remodeling
tips, etc. RV inventory listing websites, RV publication
websites and RV trade journal websites reach the RV
consumer. Any RV forum, message board or community website
that promotes the RV lifestyle is a good place to start.
Make sure there are adequate visitors coming to the site to
warrant the advertising rate before placing an ad.
It is important to note
here, that any site where
two way communication takes place is a social media site.
Whether it is a Yahoo chat group about the RV lifestyle, or
an RV Enthusiasts group offering a message board it is still
social media. The buzzwords in the industry tout Twitter,
Facebook and MySpace, as if this is a new phenomenon. But,
there were RV social media sites in place long before these
sites were simply sparks in the imaginations of their
founders. So don’t think these are the only places where you
build relationships in cyberspace. Your efforts are
much better used in RV consumer related groups.
Always remember to engage
the audience with authenticity. Be transparent in letting
them know who you are. And make sure any content you submit
is relevant to the conversation. Placing ads in these areas,
you will find your potential customer so make sure the ad
contains a clear benefit to clicking through to your
website. Contributing to the conversation will give you
insight into what your customers are concerned about and
what they are seeking. It will also open the door to
relationship building.
Online Time Spent by Acitivity and Age Group
The proportion of time spent in communication with others is remarkably similar across age groups, but younger consumers tend to skew heavily towards Social Media outlets, while older consumers tend to prefer E-mail and Message Boards. Consumers age 35-64 spend the most time shopping online. According to a study by Neilsen the age group who does the most shopping online is the 35-64 demographic. This age group prefers message boards over the facebook and myspace pages of their younger counterparts. They spend more time with email, messaging and community websites. These are all things to consider when communicating and targeting this group. Email communications will probably work better than placing an ad on an entertainment network website. Posting public relations information regarding your dealership on RV community websites will gain more attention than making an announcement on your facebook page.
Online advertising differs
from traditional advertising because you are not targeting
the masses hoping to reach your target market. You are now
in a position where the target market is seeking you. You
simply have to be in the right place to be found.
Deborah Finnell
SEO/Web DP Ball Advertising www.dpballadvertising.com/seo.html deborah @ dpballadvertising.com Copyright ©2009 Deborah Finnell, DP Ball Advertising
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Internet Advertising vs Traditional Advertising Direct Mail Advertising - What it Teaches Isolate the Components in Your Ads and Determine What works for Your Dealership How Advertising Laws Are Established What is Your Unique Selling Proposition? Content Remains King - Internet or No Internet
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::: direct response :::
message from
dan ::: representation :::
integrity in marketing :::
pay-off now advertising ::: |
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Providing RV dealerships with basic knowledge of search engine and
internet marketing to help them increase purchase ready traffic to
their websites through the use of on page and off page methods.
Building websites since 1995 and performing organic search engine
optimization for RV dealers since 2002, Deborah Finnell of DP Ball
Advertising, will share ideas here that are easy to implement, yet
create a large impact.