When you run a banner advertising campaign, your strategy should
be to achieve as much focus as possible in audience profile and
then look for ways to get wider audiences within that profile.
You want targeted reach. Let's look at some ways to achieve a
wider yet targeted reach.
Banner advertising methods
Buy ad space on suitable websites
Run an Affiliate program
Participate in a Banner Exchange scheme
Buy ad space
This is the conventional approach to banner advertising and you
have to decide on the type of websites that suit your product in
terms of content. When the content is relevant, the audience
visiting that site is likely to be a focused audience for your
products/services. Given the fragmented audiences on the
Internet, each website in a particular specialized area attracts
a small audience. Unless you have a major player like Amazon.com
in a category like books, you usually have to use a combination
of sites to reach a significant portion of your intended target.
You can choose large portals where there is a lot happening -
News, business sections, sports, email facility, search engine
facility, games, music etc - for instance, a portal like MSN or
a newspaper website. Portals attract a larger number of visitors
who usually visit to check their email or catch the latest
headline news. The visitors to such portals usually cut across
demographic barriers and represent all age groups and occupation
types. But even on such a portal you can choose the sections
that you consider relevant for your brand. This brings focus and
given the high popularity of the portal you benefit from the
larger audience base within your target group. Research shows
that travel-related advertisers prefer broad reach sites like
portals and search engines, while consumer goods companies
follow the targeted ad approach, preferring to spend a major
portion of their ad dollars on focused content sites and
channeling a smaller proportion of their ad budget to broad
reach sites.
Affiliate programs
Affiliate programs revolve around the banner and in the
placement of banners at affiliate sites. If you start an
Affiliate programs you are guaranteed wider Internet presence
among potential customers. Those who seek affiliate programs for
their websites look for programs that complement their site
content. Your affiliates display your banners, and when visitors
clickthrough to your website and buy your product, you pay
commission to the affiliate.
You do require a certain amount of initial outlay to kick-start
an affiliate program because of the support tools and software
necessary to run an affiliate network. There are companies that
offer customized affiliate program solutions as well as
companies that offer specialized banner creation services. You
can achieve additional sales when you run an affiliate program
as well as widen the presence of your brands through banner
displays at a large number of affiliates.
Banner Exchange schemes
Banner exchange schemes especially benefit small and medium
businesses. This is a barter-like opportunity to create brand
awareness without spending money. In a banner exchange network,
members display each other's banner ads at their web sites in a
particular ratio. In a 2:1 scheme, for example- for every two
banners displayed on your site your banner is displayed once on
the banner network.
The scheme is mutually beneficial for the participating
websites. On many banner exchange networks you can choose the
categories of web sites. This provides targeted displays and
ensures audiences with similar interests for your banners,
thereby increasing the likelihood of click-throughs. Check out
www.linkbuddies.com
Create a banner and choose a suitable scheme If you are battling
with how to create awareness for your website within limited
resources, you should explore the innumerable banner exchange
schemes available. You can create banners for free through
online free banner design websites that offer all kinds of tools
from color, animations, 3D effects and so on, and thereafter
sign-up for one of these schemes. If you have been in business
for a while and can afford to invest a little bit in the name of
long-term brand building, then go ahead and launch an affiliate
network for your brand/brands.
If you want your banner to have a presence on high profile high
traffic sites, you can buy space on sites of your choice. You
can also adopt new design techniques in ‘rich media' to improve
the impact and effectiveness of your banners.
The internet is a great place to achieve focus in audiences
reached and finding these opportunities is the key to running a
successful banner campaign.
About the author:
http://www.emarketinganswers.com C.S. Raman is a prolific
business writer on topics like marketing, web copy content, and
business management. He is a guest writer for
emarketinganswers.com, providing free emarketing resources and
promotion tools. He has over two decades of work experience as
VP of two top US ad agencies. You are free to reprint this
article in your web site. However, please keep the author's
section at the bottom of the article as is.
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