Podcasts Business Clickstarter: Australian Digital Marketing Podcast S1 Ep151: Choosing where to advertise

S1 Ep151: Choosing where to advertise

Published: May 26, 2021, 11:19 a.m.

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There are over one hundred different ways for a business in any market to advertise themselves. From the more traditional methods like newspapers and phone books to the latest digital platforms it can be hard to know what to choose.
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This is Clickstarter, the Australian Digital Marketing podcast. I\\u2019m Dante St James.
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When choosing a method of advertising as a small business, there are a few things to consider:
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\\xb7\\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 Where am I most likely to encounter my target audience?
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\\xb7\\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 What can I realistically afford to use?
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The default answer isn\\u2019t always Facebook ads, by the way, even if it might be the answer to many small businesses these days.
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Where is your most likely customer most likely to be found?
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This is question number 1. And it sits first because it is the most important question. You could find the cheapest method of advertising and commit to it, only to find that no one is there. Which is probably why it\\u2019s so cheap.
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You may assume that, with its millions of people watching entertaining, funny and interesting videos, that advertising on TikTok would be a great idea. Yet, if you\\u2019re selling sheepskin car seat covers, you\\u2019re not going to find an audience of buyers there. That\\u2019s because the audience there is mostly young (but getting older) and doesn\\u2019t have a large disposable income for something that could cost them hundreds of dollars, and they are very trendy and fashion-conscious. This means that something that hasn\\u2019t been popular since the 1980s is unlikely to be popular now. And of course, the minimum cost of advertising on TikTok is $3000 a month, so you\\u2019ll need to sell a lot of covers to make that back.
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Do some research first on where your most likely buyer is. If they\\u2019re over 55, they\\u2019re watching commercial broadcast TV and listening to talkback radio. Online, they are most likely to be on Facebook.
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If your target is young first-time parents, they\\u2019re going to be on Instagram, Pinterest and in blogs of other young parents. Finding a network of Mum bloggers could work. Or scheduling something to young parents as an ad campaign on Facebook and Instagram might be more likely to work than advertising on a radio station.
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The important thing is to know who your best potential customer is, and know where they hang out.
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How much does it cost?
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Advertising on TV and radio is notoriously expensive and generally out of the realm of possibility for most smaller businesses. You\\u2019ll be looking at $1000 upwards per month on them. To be fair, the cost of running a TV or radio station is also expensive, so they have big overheads.
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Most smaller businesses will head towards Facebook and Google where they can control costs a bit more. You can start around the $150 a month on both of them, but you don\\u2019t really get any great impact until you reach above the $350 a month mark. The advantage to them is that you can target your audience much more precisely than you can on traditional media like TV, radio and print.
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Once you\\u2019re certain of where your audience is, you can decide whether you can actually afford to reach them there.
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To learn more about digital marketing the Australian way, jump into the Learn section at clickstarter.com.au and start on the road to helping your Australian small business to get known, get found and stay known.
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