Online Advertising Budget …
“With this Coronavirus situation, I tell you to CUT THE ADVERTISING BUDGET. It’s something we don’t need right now. We have to save money”
Are you sure?
I invite you to join me in this article. I might convince you of the importance of keeping your digital strategy active.
This is what I propose:
- If you currently have a digital strategy, which hopefully includes an online advertising budget, DO NOT CANCEL or reduce it.
- If you have never carried out an online advertising strategy and currently have the capability to do so, carefully evaluate this possibility.
- And if it is truly impossible for you to maintain the advertising budget, don’t worry, there are organic ways, with zero advertising cost, that can help you position yourself and create bonds with future customers through the internet. (But this is a topic for other articles.)
We had already shared this in several articles, and now, NEIL PATEL, one of the strongest representatives of SEO and a pioneer of digital marketing, recently published an article:
5 Opportunities for How Businesses Can Adapt Their Marketing Strategy During the Coronavirus. (view here)
In it, he confirms the importance of adapting to this new situation and finding ways to “take advantage” of it.
But not in a negative way; rather by putting our knowledge and possibilities at the service of the community, without forgetting the challenge of reinventing ourselves, exploring new avenues, and ensuring that our business continues to operate.
In summary, Neil Patel advises:
- Help others selflessly.
- Think of payment plans to facilitate access to your service and product.
- Teach and share knowledge.
- Find new audiences that you hadn’t considered before and that might now be ready to acquire your product and service.
- And he assures that online advertising budgets can go a long way during the Coronavirus Covid-19: “Paid ads are really, really cheap.”
Let’s analyze this last point further:
Why are internet ads so cheap?
You might wonder, why?
There are several factors that make this statement a reality:
- Internet usage has dramatically increased: with everyone spending 24/7 at home, the “old reliable” is the Internet.
People are turning to the web to:
- Stay informed about current events.
- Communicate with loved ones and friends.
- Study and/or work.
- Entertain themselves.
- Acquire products and services.
- FOR EVERYTHING (well, almost everything).
- Many people around the world have suspended their online advertising budgets, for example, on platforms like Facebook.
This reaction is understandable: people do not know how much longer this global pause will last, they fear not investing their business money wisely, and they want to save for when it’s all over.
(But it is precisely in these types of situations where an entrepreneur or business owner must be able to see business opportunities and make wise decisions with a cool head.)
These two factors create a very interesting mix that results in:
Advertising online during the coronavirus is cheaper.
The online advertising budget goes further at this moment
Let me explain this a bit better:
The online advertising system operates under a bidding or auction dynamic, which means that the more advertisers there are, the more money they have to invest to be more visible on social networks or to occupy the top search results on engines like Google.
So, again:
Since there are currently fewer advertisers, you can have a great reach and impact with the campaigns you run for less money.
And if you add to that the few competitors you will have, the increase in hours that each person is spending in front of their screens, imagine the great opportunity you have:
Achieve a higher Return on Investment (ROI)
For example, with one of our clients who is an e-commerce, we are running an advertising campaign that is part of the Top Of The Funnel stage of the campaign.
Our goal with this particular campaign is to generate a great reach and interaction with a brand video, which allows us to save a wide audience akin to that “ideal customer” to focus the following campaigns with greater precision.
So far, we have achieved video views and interactions for less than $10 COP (much less than 3 cents USD) NOTHING.
With the same client, we have managed to acquire customers at a cost of $7,000 COP who, on average, are making purchases worth $90,000 COP.
Results that can improve significantly with the optimization actions that we will carry out along the way.
NOTE!: these are not happy numbers; behind these results is a well-thought-out strategy. However, it is the perfect example of what a business can achieve during this quarantine with an online advertising budget.
Even with businesses that offer products and services that are not essential!
To complement the topic, we share this graphic that Neil Patel included in the article I mentioned, where the increase in the Return on Investment of online advertising before and after the Coronavirus Covid-19 is evident.
Interesting, isn’t it?
Taken from Neilpatel.com
WHY INVEST IN ONLINE ADVERTISING FOR MY BUSINESS DURING THE CORONAVIRUS? (online advertising budget)
I know, most businesses are closed right now or have reduced operations. Very possibly you are in the same situation and are asking yourself:
Why would I want to advertise if I can’t operate or if my audience doesn’t want to buy now?
The answer is simple, with online advertising you can target different objectives that if well thought out in terms of a conversion funnel, will not only help you maintain your brand positioning but also start the process for your users to become your customers.
Some of the objectives you can achieve are:
- Attract new users
- Increase your online community
- Build a database
- Brand positioning
- Generate sales of your products
- Generate calls or video calls with prospects
This is how Facebook’s ad platform presents it:
Another relevant aspect is to analyze the competition within your sector. What are they doing? They have probably also decided to stop their advertising or don’t even have a budget for online advertising.
We saw it in the example analyzed in a previous article where we talked about Kellogg’s vs Corn during the Great Depression: two marketing strategies to face a crisis. KELLOGG’S turned out to be the winner by continuing with its advertising strategy.
So, taking advantage of the current conditions of the digital environment means keeping yourself in the minds and hearts of your current customers and:
Attracting a larger number of new users to your digital platforms who will sooner or later become your customers.
The above demonstrates that continuing to advertise or implementing an advertising strategy is a great opportunity, whether you advertise on:
- Search engines like Google
- Or social networks like Facebook.
But CAUTION!
To make this even more effective, you need to know how to carry it out. If not, you could make the mistake of burning your online advertising budget.
RESOURCES TO MAKE YOUR ONLINE ADVERTISING BUDGET LAST:
We share these resources with you so you can become more familiar with the topic.
(I hope they are very helpful)
Article: INVESTING IN ONLINE ADVERTISING: A Waste Of Money?
Podcast: Marketingtip #6 Using Facebook ads and Google Ads
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FREE Ebook: Introduction to Facebook Ads where you will learn basic and quick tips to make effective ads
If you have any additional questions, we invite you to join our community:
Free Facebook Group LEARN Digital Marketing, Entrepreneurship, and Online Advertising
There you can share experiences, learn, and tell us your doubts about topics like online advertising.
The idea is that we all help each other!
CONCLUSIONS:
- We are in a HARVEST time. What you do in this period will be key for the survival of your business and for it to eventually bear prosperous fruit on the internet.
- During this pandemic, online advertising is cheaper and generating a higher ROI, making it a good investment for the business.
- A larger number of people are spending more hours of their time on the internet. Are you going to waste this opportunity to reach more users?
- For online advertising to be truly effective, you must design, implement, and optimize it appropriately. Ideally, it should be a series of campaigns that respond to each stage of your sales funnel so that conversion rates will be more effective.
- Maintaining or assigning an online advertising budget is a key option so that not all your business goals at the beginning of the year are lost.
So what do you say: are you going to take advantage of online advertising for your business?
