Starting and running a business online is demanding. Although it looks easier to reach customers who are available in their millions across the world, reaching them requires knowing the tool and strategy to achieve your purpose. But, digital marketing can be a huge success for your business if you do it correctly. The challenge, however, is how to understand the nitty-gritty on digital marketing to the point where you can bring the nut and bolt of it to work for your business.
The internet is an excellent tool for startups. One area of digital marketing that helps a startup effectively explore the unlimited resources of the internet is Search Engine Marketing, popularly called SEM. If done correctly, the benefits a startup will get from SEM can take the business from a broke ass to multimillion dollar business overnight.
What is SEM?
It is an acronym for Search Engine Marketing, SEM is the process of getting the website traffic by buying ads space on search engines.
SEM other names include Paid search ads, Paid Advertising and PPC. It uses the search engine to connect with prospective buyers by being visible and getting clicked to present the company’s products and services.
How Search Engine Marketing will impact the startup’s business when done properly
Continually optimizing your website landing page, and content including proper CTA (call to action) is the only way to get a desirable result and return on your investment.
The following are ways SEM will benefit your business:
Low budget, huge benefits
Unlike traditional advertising, SEM (PPC) takes a little budget, as low as $10, to deliver huge benefits for your business in the following ways:
- Targeting. You can aim at visitors at every point of contact with a favorable result. Using the right keywords, you can bring a lot of potential buyers into your sales funnel without breaking the bank. You can target visitors according to geography, language, time, and other criteria to connect more qualified prospects.
- Matching. It’s like throwing a net in the ocean to catch fish; the more precise is your net, the better the quality of fish to catch. In the same manner, the narrower is your matching criteria, the better for the quality of your prospects.
Immediate brand awareness
While SEO may take time to be fruitful, SEM using paid advertising begins to see the remarkable result instantly. It gives you the opportunity to try both free and paid advertising using your searched keywords. No sooner than you started SEM that your brand begins to get the recognition and result it deserves.
Growing with your business
SEM is scalable, as your business grows; you will begin to see incredible growth result. You don’t have to start big, start small and keep growing; you won’t believe what you would see results. The good thing about SEM is that you can increase your PPC budget as you continue in business. This way you never get taken aback by the high bill for advertising.
Faster revenue
When you use the right ad copy and SEM strategy, you can begin to see an immediate result in revenue as early as getting revenue the same day. It is that fast; you can start making money today if you take your time to plan and implement your strategy using AdWords.
Meet the right people at the right time
There is as many as half the world population on the internet and more than 90% of people who use the internet get what they want through search engine searches. By implication, the search engine is the most crucial factor for your website to get traffic. No matter what you offer to the market, SEM is as essential as your business.
Reinforces Brand recognition
Many customers that buy from you have most likely been watching you for some time. Don’t be surprised when a prospect that has not purchased from you becomes a referral. This is because has come to associate the product with your name and anytime someone asks them for a recommendation; they will mention your business name. The implication is that, as long as you continue to promote your business, someone is watching you.
Easy reach to target audience
A well designed and implemented SEM plan allows you to focus strictly on your target audience. Unlike with traditional marketing where you do more of probability to reach your target, SEM gives you laser focused ability on your target audience.
Competitive edge
In a situation where prospective customers could identify and associate your name with a product, and serve as a referral to new clients, you will have a clear advantage over the competition. Where you discovered that competition is using paid advertisement, you can do more SEM and increase your PPC cost to boost your chances.
Less expensive than conventional advertising
Traditional advertising isn’t for the small businesses because the initial cost of putting up an advertisement can be more than the business can afford. However, SEM advertising to target the same number of audience will be a small amount you can close your eyes to do often.
As digital marketing technology improves, the business environment becomes a landscape for innovation where different companies will use their knowledge to unseat competition. You don’t have to play the costly game of business marketing since you can use SEM and other digital marketing strategies to leverage startup success.