SEO Where Does It Fit In My Marketing Plan?

You’re a small business owner; you have a marketing budget but still most of your advertising endeavors are bills rather than part of a budget.  You dabble in some print advertising, and maybe you do a little radio, so how does SEO fit in?

Good question…Being a media buyer for many years, I would have to say every day SEO becomes more and more of a priority and is becoming a more efficient ROI (Return on investment) for business owners.

Let’s take a quick look at how each platform operates, with every business being unique to oneself and having different needs then you can decide for yourself.

Television advertising is especially beneficial for products/brands that are not easily SEO | SEO and Your Marketing Budget, facebookunderstood and need to be physically demonstrated or seen to showcase their benefits. It allows a company the flexibility to be creative by developing a personality or brand for their product/service that can be portrayed using both sight and sound.  Television is best used to create one’s image.

However, television advertising is not appropriate for all businesses. It can be very expensive, both for the production of a quality commercial advertisement (which is essential for the highest effectiveness) as well as the placement of the spot itself.

Newspaper Advertising:  Newspaper circulation numbers continue to decline, yet their rates, not so much.  The newspaper has always best been used for price and product, and today is no different.  Ads are relatively inexpensive to create and for the most part, can be changed rather quickly (unlike television).  But newspaper advertising also means having to discount your margins while paying the highest cost per thousand (rates). I’ve never found a newspaper to be the most efficient way to spend your marketing dollars, but it remains a very popular way for small business’ to waste errr spend their money.

Radio Advertising:   Radio allows you to target more niche audiences utilizing formats that best suit your demographic.  It’s far less expensive to create a quality commercial than TV, but because you’re targeting niche audiences they are smaller than what you’d think.  While Radio advertising is appealing to some small businesses with small advertising budgets, because it is relatively inexpensive to produce and it can reach a broad audience. However, because there is no visual component to radio advertising, it is often hard for listeners to retain the information in the advertising message.

Social Media:   Facebook and Twitter are very efficient to build relationships with your current customer base, speed up the buying process, and in some ways acting much like and being a good replacement for newspaper advertising.  The problem, especially with Facebook is it lacks the ability to connect and reach a ‘new’ customer base, and for business owners, it’s as much about growing the customer base as it is retaining your customer base.

So that takes us to Organic SEO (Search Engine Optimization):  Compared to the examples of SEO | SEO and Your Marketing Budget, facebooktraditional marketing tactics outlined above, online marketing with organic SEO can produce a lower cost per impression. More importantly, prospects that view SEO results are much more targeted than those of traditional marketing tactics; after all, they are searching for exact keywords that you set up.

Although the low cost per impression of online marketing with organic SEO is appealing, there are many additional benefits. Unlike your TV commercials, print ads or radio ad, SEO is “always on,” 24 hours per day, seven days per week. I always laugh when the newspaper reps talk about how their publication sits around the house and is always used as a reference.  That was the 1970’s, and it was called the TV Guide!

Additionally, only those users who are searching for specific terms (the terms you set up) see the listing, making SEO significantly more targeted and relevant than any of the above-listed tactics.

More importantly, online marketing with SEO targets internet searchers that are already in the mindset of looking for information rather than people who may be passively flipping through a magazine or watching TV.  The important word being ‘search’!

Lastly, prospects that search for products and services online automatically assume the top links listed in the search results are the links to the most reputable companies, with over 60% of all hits being businesses and brands on the top 3 of page one and 80% of searches never go past the first page, shows investing in SEO and the individuals who are searching for more information might be the most efficient best return on investment with your advertising budget.

SEO Marketing Summary:

For those businesses with a large enough budgets creating a delicate balance of traditional advertising as well as on-line will deliver the best results, but this for businesses with the ever-decreasing advertising budget and needing to make the best decision for them, SEO could be the best return on your time and money for your business.  So how does your business perform on a local SEO search?

If you would like to see how your businesses searchability is Paradux provides a FREE no obligation extensive SEO report.

If you would like to talk and explore the possibilities of SEO a little more click on our calendar and schedule a FREE 15 minute SEO consultation.

About the Author:

Mike Frey

Before co-founding Paradux Media Group, Mike spent more than 15 years in the world of marketing and advertising. While working with hundreds of locally owned businesses, he developed an appreciation for minimizing clients’ dollars while maximizing tangible results for those clients.

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2 Comments

  1. Aayna on December 17, 2012 at 9:26 pm

    Hey Mike,
    An informative post!! You have clearly differentiated amongst different marketing platforms with great elegance. Each of these mediums requires SEO, but the use of SEO varies greatly. Each of the modern marketing tools, require SEO in adequate amount to create a presence. Thanks for sharing this post.

  2. Purnima on January 11, 2013 at 9:51 am

    Engrossing share Mike.
    You have put forth the different advertising platforms in a simplified manner . This is intrinsic piece of advice for me as I am new to blog world and many a times its difficult to outface the marketing costs. Thanks for the share.

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