Marketing Strategies for Today’s Customer and Tomorrow’s

MoreVisibility - May 21, 2008

Today the internet is a part of our everyday lives and people use the internet in a variety of ways. Personally, I get all of my news online. I do not get a paper delivered to my house in the morning, but I do read current news stories every day. One of my favorite sites is ESPN, I am a big sports fan! With the increases in search volume each year on Google, Yahoo and MSN its clear people are using the internet to find anything and everything. As a business, it is important to know when and where to market to your potential customers online. There are customers ready to buy now, and there are others who may not need your product or service yet but will in the future. The key to any successful marketing strategy is to get your message in front of both types of customers.

For customers ready to buy now, a Pay per Click (PPC) marketing strategy is an excellent way to ensure that your company name and message are in front of prospective customers when they search for your product or service. You bid on the most relevant keywords to your business and when someone searches for that keyword your ad is displayed. The message in your ad should be clear with a strong call to action. This customer is ready to buy and they are looking for your product or service, you need to be in front of them!

But what about the potential customer who doesn’t need your product or service now, but may need it in the future? They are still online doing a variety of things but not necessarily conducting a search for your product or service because they don’t need it…yet. A great way to account for these future customers is to run a Placement targeted campaign. When you incorporate a Placement targeted campaign in your overall marketing strategy you are essentially handpicking your audience. You can choose an entire website or a specific page within a website to have your ads displayed, for example the Lifestyle section of a news website. With this type of program you are getting your company name and message in front of potential customers in a more subtle way. This can lead to greater brand recognition for your company. When that customer is ready to buy, they may recall your company name from a previous placement targeted ad and go directly to your website instead of conducting keyword search, or be more apt to click on your PPC ad.

Of course, this is a somewhat simplified view and much planning is needed to effectively market both a PPC campaign in conjunction with a Placement targeted campaign. Here at MoreVisibility, we manage both PPC and Placement targeted campaigns for our clients because we recognize the importance of not just the customer ready to buy now, but also the customer who isn’t a customer…yet.