Most small business owners I know are always looking for new ways to market their business and get new clients through the doors. Every marketing expert and their cousin is telling them that Social Media is the way to go. After all, everybody’s on social media and it’s free. But the truth is that it is not free, the business owner has to invest time to learn which platform to use and the best practices to market on that platform. Also, everybody is on social media, but when they are on it, they are not there to purchase anything, they are there to interact with friends and family or catch up with the latest gossip.

Don’t get me wrong social media is an amazing marketing channel and our business offers amazing packages to help small business owners, but having all your marketing eggs in one basket is not a good idea.

If you want to get to your target audience right when they are thinking about a product or service like yours, search advertising is the way to go. As you know nowadays people search for everything you can think of on Google. Adwords allows you to position your business at the top of the search results by bidding for certain keywords and phrases.

There are 3 benefits Adwords has for small businesses

1. Getting in front of people when they are ready to buy.

By bidding on keywords that have commercial intent like, “buy running shoes” for example, you will get more targeted people that are further along in the buying cycle.

2. Control of your budget

By determining what your expected Cost Per Click or Cost Per Acquisition will be, what the lifetime value of a customer is, you can determine what you are willing to spend on Google Adwords.

3. Measurable Results

You can track if you are getting results from Adwords or not. With a little testing and tweaking, most businesses can make AdWords work for them.

Another benefit that small business can take advantage of once they are running their AdWords account or have hired someone to run their account is remarketing. This allows you to advertise to people that visited your website and follow them around the internet.

In conclusion, Google Adwords is still one of the best advertising platforms and works best if the business owner knows his/her numbers. Adwords combined with other online marketing techniques can be a powerful combination. Having your business at the top of the search results build authority in the marketplace and people are more likely to buy or recommend your services.

We are Google Adwords Certified, so if you have any question or need assistance with the setup or maintenance of your Google Adwords account please contact me at quinton@qmarketing.co.za and I will get back to you as soon as possible.