Many companies now advertise on search engines. It can be very lucrative if you know what you are doing. We advertise on search engines. If you are reading this article on-line, it is a good chance that you use the internet on a daily basis to find what you need - doesn't everybody? You can tell from the title of this article that the answer to that question is "no". There is still a significant segment of the population that still aren't yet internet users, let alone skilled at using the web to find what they need.



Ponder these statistics for a moment:

US - Population: 299,093,237

US - Internet users as of Jan/06: 205,326,680

That means 68.6% of the population use the internet.

(Information from Nielsen/NetRatings, published on InternetWorldStats.com)

According to this information there are almost 94 Million Americans (or 31.4% of the population) who are not internet users. Of course some of these people are going to be too young or too old, but even removing the approximately 46 Million Americans who are either above 75 or below age 10 you are left with 48 Million Americans (or 16% of the population, data from 2000 US Census) in key-buying demographics that do not rely on the internet for their product and service searches. And how about those considered 'internet users' by the Nielsen statistic that only use email and only occassionally?

So if you are only marketing via the internet, you are probably excluding up to 40% of your possible customer base right off the bat!

Search Engine advertising can be a great asset because it helps people who are looking for your service find you. But what about the people who don't come up with the idea to use your service on their own. For example, we have an extensive search engine advertising program, but we also have almost 1 Million addresses that we have purchased and mail to regularly. Most of the people we get from our postcard mailings are not postcard buyers already. They are business owners looking to expand, and we educate them through our mailings how to do that with postcards.

If we only advertised on the internet we would only get business from people already looking for our service. Truth is, most of our customers have never Googled the word "postcard" because they hadn't thought of doing direct mail until we gave them the idea.

Maybe you are in a Business-to-Consumer Industry, the same rule applies. Some people will type "duct cleaning service, Tampa" into a search engine, but most people don't think of duct cleaning on their own. If a man is looking for a piece of jewelry for his wife, he may find you on Google, but with postcard mailings you can generate orders from guys not thoughtful enough to come up with the idea on their own.

While internet advertising can be a healthy part of your balanced marketing diet, if you are only using the internet, you are far from maximizing your reach and your sales. Diversify your marketing plan with direct mail and your will have more healthy sales numbers come the end of the year.