Your website, or your practice (offline) is about to mark the first year of its existence. As a new company some of your biggest concerns are customer support, inventory and usability of your product. The framework of the company is sturdy and the product has been getting positive, natural reviews. When you review your expenditures, you realize that very little has been spent on direct marketing.

As the owner you want to control all aspects of the company, and at a certain point delegating responsibility is a key factor in flourishing and for some, surviving. Once the delegation of responsibility begins one of the main tasks will be marketing. In this brief case study we will look at the two main avenues of marketing, paid and what can be called organic or non-paid advertising.

Paid Search

Paid search gives you the ability to advertise your business in a way that is instant. Overnight the company can allocate a certain amount of money for their marketing efforts, and presto you are gaining exposure, and a new audience, but at a price. A Google campaign is organized on demographic settings, which is not as complicated as it sounds. How to know how to target your ad? It’s quite simple. Understanding your audience, either online or offline will enable you target ads to your clientele in a precise and accurate way.

Tailoring your campaign to the search queries is for advertising on Google, where tailoring ads on Facebook is based on people’s “interests”. This is a big difference, and an important financial difference at that. In Google, you are basing your ad on the relevancy of your product and your goal will be to match your product to the target audience. However, on Facebook, you will work according to their guidelines, and focus more on on behavioral patterns.

Non-Paid Search

Saving money by cutting ad spending is usually a signal that the company is struggling. The advantage of selling online is that you can tap into your deep understanding of your product and industry and market yourself as source for information and inspiration. There are millions of new ways to invent, and reinvent your brand online. Let’s quickly name a few.

-Podcast

-YouTube Channel

-Blog

-Open a category to review your competition on your website

-Affiliation  

-Social

-Marketing

As a general rule, engage yourself prior to seeking a marketing company or an individual to perform non-paid advertisements. You know your audience best, and you will quickly notice which medium will work, and which will not stick. Think of your users and how they will access your information. Always think of the end user and how they perceive your message.  

These low cost, nearly free, marketing efforts can bring a wave of interest from new users, without having to spend money outright for their clicks. Select one angle from the five mentioned above and master it. Develop yourself as a thought leader using one of these mediums