Are you a small or medium-sized business looking to grow and connect with more customers? If so, you’ve clicked on the right blog.

We speak to businesses all over the world who rely too much on the old ways of doing things. They pay too much for old-school advertising with no way to track performance because they are nervous about entering the digital space.

What if we told you about a strategy perfectly suited for small or medium-sized businesses with limited budgets who want to get the biggest bang for their buck?

Keep reading this blog to find out what you can do to effectively reach new customers while saving a few dollars.

Finding New Customers the Old Way

How is your business connecting with new customers? The old tried-and-tested techniques are television commercials, billboards, word-of-mouth, direct mail marketing, and in-person events. Businesses of all sizes have been depending on these techniques for decades.

Don’t get us wrong, there is still a place in your comprehensive marketing strategy to use traditional advertising techniques. But, the problem is you are missing out on a big opportunity to laser target your audience and ensure you’re only communicating with people who are interested in your products or services.

Here are the two biggest challenges with traditional advertising: higher costs and limited tracking capabilities.

Television commercials and billboards are two of the most expensive advertising mediums, yet how can you really tell whether the thousands of dollars you spent were effective in bringing in new customers? The truth is you can’t, or at least not as effectively as digital campaigns that track clicks, view times, or conversions.

Buying a television commercial or billboard is like throwing your ad into the wind and seeing what sticks. It’s possible to select certain channels or locations based on demographics, but at the end of the day, much of your advertising will reach people who aren’t ideal customers.

Another issue with traditional advertising is that they have to run for a long time to determine whether they’re working. This can get expensive, and once again, it’s hard to pinpoint whether the ad was truly responsible for an increase in foot traffic or sales.

Now let’s discuss how you can break into digital advertising.

Finding New Customers the New Way

How would you like to buy advertising that is:

• Cost-effective?
• Gets you in front of users TODAY?
• Reaches online users who are actively seeking your products or services?
• And is easily scalable based on your budget or goals?

This sounds too good to be true, but we’re describing Google Ads. You can get all of these things at the same time!

Google Ads are affordable digital advertisements custom-built for your business based on specific marketing objectives. Once activated, they will appear to prospective customers who are searching for what you have to offer.

As a first-timer to Google Ads, we recommend starting off with Google Search Ads. These are the easiest to set up, appear in search results, and are effective for businesses of all sizes.

You’ve probably seen these ads without even realizing it. When you search for something on Google, the Search Engine Results Page (SERP) will display both organic and paid results. The Google Search Ads will appear at the top of the page labeled as an “Ad.”

So, why should you take on more Google Ads and less traditional advertising? Here are the top five reasons:

1. You have more control over the campaign through the Google Ads Manager
2. You can easily set a budget and make sure your costs stay on track
3. Google Ads allow you to focus on your local community and the people who will shop at your business
4. These ads are the best way to get in front of users who’re actively searching for your product or service
5. The Google Ads Manager allows you to track everything and see exactly what is producing new customers for your business

Does this sound interesting to you? If so, let’s go over how it works using some real-life examples.

How Google Ads Work for All Businesses

Pretend for a moment that you own a car detailing business. You may have dabbled in some digital advertising by setting up remarketing campaigns through your website or social media accounts. This is a great start.

The beauty of Google Ads Remarketing Campaigns is that your content is being redelivered to people who visited your website. This means they’re already interested in what you have to offer. The job of convincing them to buy is therefore easier.

Besides finding interested online users through remarketing, you can also grow your user base ten times faster than organic search by setting up paid ads. Specifically, Google Search Ads. 

How do these work exactly? You bid on specific keywords or phrases that people are searching for online. Being effective at this requires a certain amount of research and testing.

The goal is for an online user to see your ad when they search for keywords like “auto detail,” ” car detailing,” “car detail company,” or “auto detail cost.”

There are many keywords or phrases that you can bid on to make sure your ad is delivered to the right people. Most importantly, these people should be searching for your service RIGHT NOW! That way they intend to buy.

New people who have never heard of your brand before search online for your service and see paid ads. Then, you have a “catch-all” system that remarkets to them for the next 30 days if they haven’t made a decision.

It’s that simple to grow your business!

What Types of Businesses This Works Best For

We know your next question: should I use paid ads for my business? These ads can be used for any type of business venture but are especially effective for these:

• Service-based businesses like dental offices or car detailers
• E-commerce businesses with a broad range of products
• Seasonal businesses like florists or special event services
• Emergency repair services like plumbers

More importantly than your type of business is why you’re looking to run advertising in the first place.

Below is a list of benefits that paid advertising can bring you. How many of these benefits are you looking for?

• You need more leads or conversions fast
• Your business uses data to make important decisions and you track visitors
• You want the ability to start or stop advertising campaigns quickly and easily
• You prefer being in control of your keywords, budget, and ad copy
• Your business is mostly online and you use other digital marketing tools like social media to bring in online visitors

Does this sound like you? If you found yourself agreeing with most of what we listed above then you’re the type of business that should start using Google Ads.

Results & Past Examples

We’ve discussed a lot about setting up Google Ads, but if you’re anything like us, you also want to see real results.

In this section, you’ll find some screenshots showing how a variety of real businesses collected more leads thanks to paid advertising. Each of these businesses also worked with us to set up their campaigns.

The HOTH helped to bring 100+ leads to a window tinting company that started working with us in 2019.

Later, we helped a dental office to connect with new patients.

The chart below shows the growth of leads for a local retail company.

Our digital marketing team works with businesses to determine what type of conversion they are looking for. Whether it’s website visits, phone calls, form fills, registrations, or purchases, we can help get them all.

Take a look at how we helped an auto dealership get 752 new leads in just 90 days.

And, finally, you can see how we drove over 1,400 leads to a local retailer in six months.

The success we had in each of these campaigns all had to do with the paid advertising we helped set up for the client. 

Would you like to see more? Check out all of our HOTH Case Studies to read about how we helped many different businesses with PPC and SEO.

Conclusion

We covered a ton of information about paid advertising and, hopefully, you came out with an interest in using Google Ads for your business. Or, if you currently use them, finding a way to improve upon them to keep growing your business.

These ads not only work for local businesses but nationally and internationally as well. The sky is the limit. 

HOTH PPC is our department responsible for helping clients to create and optimize paid advertising campaigns.  Besides setting up Google Ads, our team can also help build customized landing pages to increase conversions. Our client reporting system also provides a wealth of data and information.

Give us a call if you still have questions about paid advertising. We would love to discuss your business goals and how we can help you grow.