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Google Ads Are Great for Small Business

Google building hosting ads great for small business

It’s a misconception that the monolithic online advertising platform of Google Ads is only for large businesses. Google Ads provides a platform that is actually advantageous for small businesses to grow their reach and brand discoverability. Scalability, precise targeting, and detailed reports make Google Ads great for small business. If you’re curious how, keep reading.  

Budgeting that Scales

Scalability is one of the central reasons Google Ads is perfect for large and small businesses alike. Google Ads doesn’t require running a full marketing platform of every kind of campaign with a massive budget. Instead, small businesses can start with a single targeted campaign and expand as you determine what methods are successful. After that, it is easy to scale up and down as needed. This is great for small businesses who occasionally have product or service launches, special promotions, or more active seasonal periods. Google Ads makes it easy to run those additional campaigns at the appropriate times and scale back to more standard ads when its timely.

Pay Per Click Model is Great for Small Businesses

Google Ads run on a pay or cost per click model, i.e., a business only pays for each click on the ad. The rates for these ads are according to the search terms set for the ad. More popular key terms will have a higher fee than those searched less frequently. This is great for small businesses because they often operate in a niche, meaning their ad key terms can be more focused and cheaper. Furthermore, you will only be paying for the ads that are working, meaning an ad’s cost is directly relational to its performance.

Targeting Locality

Today, many small businesses benefit from online sales, but they still rely largely on local customers and clients. This makes Google Ads especially great for small businesses. Over 46% of Google searches are for local information. This means nearly half the searches made by those near your small business are providing ideal advertising opportunities. With Google’s Geotargeting, you can define your ads to appear specifically in searches made in the area around your business. Google’s detailed metrics even allows you to target certain demographics within those locals. Overall, Google Ads are great for increasing your business’ local presence and discoverability.

Customizability where Ads Appear

Google Ads can appear in Google searches, shopping suggestions at the top, maps, Play apps, and partner websites. This provides a small business with a wide assortment of places to put their ads. These further allow a business to target a specific demographic or potential client. For example, product-based businesses can have their products appear at the top of any search as a shopping suggestion, increasing your business’ discoverability as a shopping option.

Clear Metrics and Transparent Results for Small Businesses

Google provides thorough and clear statistics and reports for any ads and campaigns you run. These statistics will indicate which leads generate clicks, where ads are most effective, and what kind of ads people respond to. For small businesses that will be creating fewer and more targeted ads, this provides immensely valuable information for tracking performance and selecting and creating the most effective ads. Those metrics also include detailed budget tracking that is highly beneficial for small businesses. These clearly show the ROI of each ad and campaign so you can properly scale and allocate your advertising budget appropriately.

Great Feedback for Small Business SEO

Advertising tends to provide more immediate results for determining what generates clicks and visits to your business’ website than building up its search engine optimization (SEO). Smaller businesses tend to add pages slower to their websites, since they inherently have a smaller content production pipeline. This can make optimizing search engine performance a lengthier process for a small business. However, SEO is vital for the performance of your business’ website in searches and growing your brand’s discoverability. The performance metrics from Google Ads are great for a small business to determine what potential customers or clients are interested in, helping you tailor your site’s content to organically appear more often in their searches.  

Getting Started with Google Ads

Hopefully this short list of key features of Google Ads makes it clear how the platform is great for small businesses. It’s scalability, local functionality, diverse tool set, and detailed reporting make it ideal for small business advertising. Want to start growing your business’ discoverability with Google Ads? Contact Rosewood and ask about our Google Ad services to help you get you started!

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5 Marketing Ideas for Valentine’s Day That Aren’t Cliché

Mother and daughter making valentines day crafts. Marketing ideas for Valentine's

Valentine’s Marketing

Valentine’s Day is a big day for romance and marketing. These are also the two arenas where clichés only lead to eye-rolls instead of undying affection. Romance and marketing need to be inventive and authentic to get attention. Valentine’s Day is one of the first holiday opportunities in the new year for business marketing, but it also means every business is advertising around it. When so many businesses are trying to woo customers, you need to stand out to really charm them. Here are five tips to break away from those eye-rolling Valentine’s clichés and start planning original ideas.

Be Original and Make Your Business Creatively Romantic

Often when people imagine Valentine’s Day, they think of restaurants, candle-lit dinners, and flowers, but romance takes countless forms. Originality is the essence of charm. Imagine how your business can fit into romantic plans or a date, and have your marketing inspire novel romantic actions or gifts. Maybe certain products or Valentine’s packages can make a heartfelt gift or be the basis for a cute date. Have fun with it: new pajamas for a night away, bikes for a couple’s ride on the trails, or a board game for an intimate night at home. Be creative and market to the experiences and emotions of moments your business’ products/services can create. Even a gift card can be made romantic for partners to share a shopping spree date.

Market to their Original Relationships: Friends

Valentine’s is typically for romantic partners, but not everyone will be spending the holiday with their sweetheart. Friends, however, are no less important loved ones in our lives. You can include marketing that inspires shows of affection between friends. Our friends provide valuable emotional support like our partners, and it’s also nice to show them care and appreciation. Galentine’s Day on February 13 has recently become a more notable day for women to shower each other with amicable affection. It’s perfect if your business primarily caters to a feminine demographic. If you are looking for a more gender-inclusive option, you could go for the similarly punny “Pal-entine’s Day”.

Embrace Their Own Valentine

Along with partners and friends, everyone should have and show love and care to themselves. You can market services and products for those who are looking to or should give themselves that much deserved affection this Valentine’s Day. Along with marketing for platonic relationships, this strategy lets you reach customers or clients who may otherwise feel rejected or dejected during the holiday of love. Marketing that emphasizes their individual value and sympathizes with their possible loneliness helps motivate them towards acting on that original self-affection.

Be Their Valentine

Your marketing doesn’t just have to focus on customers and clients showing love to those important in their lives. Your customers and audience are valuable to you and your business, so Valentine’s Day is a great opportunity to show them some of your own love. Be their Valentine with special promotions or discounts. Create social media posts that acknowledge and thank your community. Be sure that those displays of affection or gratitude are authentic and in line with your brand so they feel sincere. Front-facing the human element of your business in this marketing will further ensure those Valentine’s posts create a real connection.

Combining These Together for Something Truly Original

One of these strategies alone will help you create some original Valentine’s marketing for the well-trodden holiday of love. However, using a strategy that only targets romantic partners, friends, or singles will exclude the others. Combining multiple of these strategies will allow you to reach and acknowledge most if not all your community and potential customers. Use multiple strategies together to create a fully original affectionate marketing roster that can pull on everyone’s heartstrings.

Originality is the Essence of Marketing and Romance

With these strategies you can bring some spice to your marketing this Valentine’s Day. Demonstrate how your business can play a vital role in your customers and community showing each other affection along with showing your own. Want more original strategies and ideas? Contact Rosewood’s marketing team for help creating novel and effective marketing.

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How to Hire an Influencer

Woman working on her laptop through a glass window.

Social media remains vital to your business and influencers can help you use it to its maximum potential. Influencer marketing is one of the most effective digital marketing strategies. At least 61% of people trust a brand because of an influencer’s recommendation. Every dollar spent on an influencer campaign earns an average $5.79. This gives it one of the highest ROIs compared to other marketing strategies. You’re probably looking to hire an influencer for your brand and are curious how to start. An influencer relationship will ideally be long, so be certain to make relationships with the best influencers for your business. Here are some key tips for how to hire an influencer.

Determine Goals and Budget

As with anything for your business, you need to establish a goal and plan for hiring an influencer. Determine the promotion’s length and cost. You should also consider the sizes of influencer you are looking to hire to properly scale the promotion’s budget. Mega influencers bring large followings but also big price tags. Micro- and mini-influencers may have smaller follower numbers, but they boast higher engagement rates, can provide a closer partnership, and will cost your business less. 

The kind of campaign

Part of determining that budget will rely on you determining the type of promotion you’re hoping to get from an influencer. Here are some of the most common types of influencer promotions:

  • One-time mention – An influencer mentions a business in one piece of content 
  • Content integration – Products or services become part of the influencer’s content. For example, a fashion influencer may include a product as part of an outfit. 
  • Collaboration – An influencer works with a company to design a specific product. 
  • Review/Unboxing – An influencer creates content products and/or provides a (hopefully) positive review of your products/services.
  • Long-term cooperation – Sometimes called an ambassadorship. These are prolonged influencer relationships, which can include other kinds of the above campaigns. 

The kind of promotion will determine the cost. A one-time mention may be better suited for an influencer with a bigger audience, where you will have a larger, single payment. Other promotions like content integration, collaborations, and ambassadorships will be longer partnerships and contracts, so plan accordingly.  A digital marketing team can help you determine the right kind of promotion.

Consider Your Target

The strength of influencer marketing comes from their ability to reach and interact with those they influence: their audience. When hiring an influencer, be sure that their community aligns with your own business’ target. A proper match will advocate your business to many potential clients or customers. On the other hand, an engaged audience will mean little if it does not include those likely to be interested in your products or services. 

Fits your Brand

Along with your audiences, your brand and an influencer’s need to align, especially if you plan to have a prolonged promotional partnership with them. Be certain an influencer’s values, messaging, and tone pair well with your own business’. They don’t need to be identical, but they should be collaborative. Research their reputation and consider how that might affect your business. When an influencer’s values or messaging oppose your brand’s, it can lead to confusion, misrepresentation, or even damage your business.

Watch Their Work

When you have determined a prospective influencer you may want to hire, follow their content. The best influencers engage their audience with consistent content.  Watch how they regularly engage their audience. Do they respond to comments? Are they posting content daily or weekly?  These are key performance factors to help you determine the strength and value of an influencer to help your business reach a target. This analysis will also help you determine aspects of their brand and whether their followers are your target audience or filled with ranks of automated bots.

Develop a Relationship

The best relationships with influencers develop organically. You can begin interacting with an influencer by engaging with their content. This allows your business to capture their attention. Even better, you may have a previously built relationship. An influencer may have already recommended your products or services themselves, or you have previously sent them products which they enjoyed. This will put your hiring proposal before others who lack any familiarity with the influencer. 

The Hiring Process – Proper Communication

Once you have chosen an influencer and established a rapport, you need to propose hiring them. Use the preferred communication channels. Many prefer an email and provide one on their profiles. If there isn’t one provided, directly message the account and they should provide you with contact information. For smaller influencers, this communication will often be directly with the influencer themselves, but larger influencers may have a team who help them coordinate promotions and agreements.

In your communications, be clear about the kind of promotion, the products or services, and your goals. Explain to the influencer why you believe their perfect for the promotion, the products/services, and your business. In turn, listen to their suggestions or feedback about the promotion. They know their audience and how to create content. Maintaining this dialogue will be vital to continuing a long-term partnership between your business and said influencer. You can then negotiate payment to draw and finalize a contract. Compensation can take monetary and gifting forms.  

Time to Start

Following these tips will help you be successful in hiring the right influencer, with whom your business will hopefully have a long relationship. The most effective influencer marketing is a sustained partnership where their audience becomes attached to your brand by association.  If you need help creating influencer relationships or planning a promotion, contact Rosewood’s digital services team.  Their social media expertise can help you determine promotion type, find the right influencers, and start building relationships.

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