Business Advertising

Advertising is an extremely important function for any organization that wants to market a product or service. Moreover, the Internet represents a high-potential new media where advertisers can reach literally millions of prospects.

For this reason, Internet advertising is the optimum media choice and, fortunately, a place where many cost-effective opportunities are available for both buyers and providers.

Internet advertising has special requirements

When business organizations need advertising help, they generally employ the services of a full-service ad agency that can supply everything from concepts to design & production to placement. Many very-large firms sometimes build an in-house advertising department in lieu of hiring an outside agency. The Internet, however, requires some new and special expertise that traditional print and broadcast advertising do not. And while some of the big agencies have now embraced this media and hired Internet specialists to provide their clients with the necessary expertise, many have not. For this reason, many firms and even agencies, purchase the Internet services they need on an outsource basis. They generally accomplish this by signing up with a website where they can post their advertising projects and take bids for the work from outsource providers of writing and graphic design services designed expressly for Internet use.

What are these special requirements?

While the Internet offers much greater ‘reach’ for advertising than traditional print and broadcast media, it also has more competition for customers. The question becomes how a company can make it’s website more visible to prospects than it’s competitors sites, and this comes down to earning rankings from the major search engines such as Google, Yahoo! and AOL. If a company is prominently listed on the search engine directories (that means on the first few pages of their category), they’ll earn the traffic. However, if they are on page 30, 50, or even further down the list, most people won’t see their listing and they won’t be very visible. That’s the first challenge any new website faces. To gain this prominence requires that the website pages be optimized for the search engines, and that takes a writer and graphic designer that understands their requirements and how they rank.

Once adequate directory ranking is achieved, the company needs effective advertising that motivates website visitors to take further action by ‘clicking’ on an ad or a request for further information. This also requires the services of someone who knows just which types of advertising best suits a company’s products or services within a stated budget allocation.

Here’s how to find the right specialist for your company’s advertising

Locate the qualified Internet advertising specialist you need by:

• Signing-up with a website that serves both outsource buyers of freelance services and freelance providers of the same services.
• Post a bid for your projects and be as specific as possible about the project requirements and the bracketed price range you are offering (e.g. $100-$300). Your can post a bid for freelance writers, website designers, programmers, graphic arts specialists or website marketing specialists as needed.
• Review the bidders and their experience. Be sure to ask for a few samples of similar work they have done with their bids.
• Select the best combination of experience and price and assign the project. The websites that offer this service will provide buyers with their guidelines prior to posting any bids.

You will be surprised to find that some excellent people are available at a much-lower price than the average full-service advertising agency can provide.