Online marketing can, at times, seem expensive for a small business. While big businesses spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on temporary advertising every day (that would be better invested in online marketing), small businesses usually invest in very little marketing, if they invest it anything at all.
For those businesses, the idea of spending one, two, or even $5,000 on a website that may not perform right away seems like an incredible ways of money. In some ways it is. But it is only a waste of money if you think about it in terms of short term ROI.
Short Term vs. Long Term
One of the primary advantages of online marketing through the development of website content is that content has no expiration date. The same cannot be said about other forms of marketing. For example, let’s say you pay $1000 for a radio advertisement. That advertisement brings you $5,000 in business, indicating you made $5 for ever $1 you spent. Not bad.
But once the radio advertisement is over, that’s it. You have to invest another $1,000 again in order to get more airtime. You’re also missing out on all customers that are not listening to the radio at the time, and it’s possible your $1,000 investment gets you nothing.
Content, on the other hand, works very differently. Let’s say you invest $5,000 in content marketing. At first, the ROI is going to be fairly low, because content is slow. In a worst case scenario, let’s say you make only $3,000 because of your $5,000 investment – indicating a loss of $2,000. Does that mean content marketing isn’t worth the value?
Not at all, because content never dies. Your website will continue to receive visitors in year 2 (another $3,000), year 3 (another $3,000), year 4, and so on. Content will continue to bring you value for years, and eventually your ROI will be well over the 5 to 1 you received for the radio advertisement.
Content is a Long Term Investment With Short Term Gains
Content does have immediate benefits. Anyone looking to learn more about your company will always search online for information, and content develops trust and ensures the customer wants to use your services. That’s real value.
But beyond that, the value of content will continue to last for years after it’s posted. That means that even if the initial investment doesn’t provide you with the ROI you were hoping for, you’ll profit considerably more in the long term, and that means that your business is likely to be far more successful as the years go by.
