At times some of the terminology used by people in the ad industry can leave you tongue tied, and clueless. The intent is that by the end of this blog you will understand search engine marketing, social media marketing, and display advertising at least on a basic level.
Let’s begin by defining search engine marketing and its components. Search engine marketing commonly referred to as SEM, is designed to increase the website’s visibility on the search engine results page. Search engines provide two types of results one is sponsored (paid) and the other organic (non-paid). There are several ways to gain organic visibility including video, location map, and products. An advertiser will typically use various white hat SEO techniques (refers to the usage of tactics that follows search engine rules and policies targeting a human audience) to ensure that a page ranks not only high, but also multiple times on a the search engine result.
Paid search advertising is another important component of search engine marketing. Paid search advertising, commonly termed PPC (pay-per-click) is effective at creating more exposure for a product or brand and is a great way to generate qualified traffic to a website. When done it conjunction with search engine optimization it can yield fantastic results. In 2012, North American advertisers spent $19.51 billion on search engine marketing, a number that continues to grow. A typical Paid search marketing campaign involves bidding for ad placement for keywords related to your offering. In this model, payment is made based on click received. Search engines such as Google make it a priority to maintain the integrity of their search results and merely having the highest bid won’t guarantee placement.
Next there is social media marketing. This is the most commonly misunderstood marketing medium. Advertising a brand or product on social media is an art; blatant advertising will alienate your audience and potentially drive them away. To be effective a business must belong to the community, and be willing to interact with its members. Yes, it is time-consuming and does requiring nurturing but can be extremely beneficial.
The benefit of social media extends beyond just engaging with your target audience. It redefines word-of-mouth my making it easy for your audience to utilize several social networks to share information about your products and company. The goal is to create content both on social media and on the web that users will want to share with their network to help increase brand exposure and reach.
Social media is done in two ways, one by actively participating on social media platforms and the other by allowing users to easily share your content through social media.
Last, but definitely not least, display advertising. Display advertising uses text, logos, animations, videos, photographs, and or graphics to promote a product or brand. Display advertising is much more targeted than traditional advertising because the advertiser can chose to target an audience based on geography, similar interests, and behaviors. Display advertising continues to increase in effectiveness as the technology to track users becomes more sophisticated (remarketing). Display advertising gives the advertiser the power to place ads on websites that are relevant to what is being promoted, and show the ad only to those people who are most likely to show interest.
Display ads can appear on multiple areas of a website page, and can be purchased several ways, similar to media buying for printed ads. Display advertising works by creating awareness for a brand or product and ultimately drawing a click. Unlike a printed ad that requires a separate call to action, a display ad can be clicked immediately and the visitor can be taken directly to the landing page with the appropriate information. Display ads can be designed to generate traffic to a website or can function as a regular print advertisement: to inform, notify, and increase brand awareness.