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Media executives once decided what content the public would receive, and professional critics judged the quality. Now, empowered by a large set of effective tools, the public is generating, expanding upon and rating its own content. How can you take advantage of this for your own advertising activities?

1. Get users to actively discuss and promote your offerings.

Modern businesses must engage customers and potential customers in an interactive dialogue, rather than just push information at them. The most successful advertising encourages the audience to help develop and promote the content. When people find something useful or entertaining online, they share it. This participation can sharpen brand awareness and raise credibility. Have you created material so “cool” or useful that your target audience readily shares it?

2. Meet your customers where they gather online.

Online communities provide valuable information. Community members frequently answer one another’s questions and comment on the quality of products and services they have purchased. To keep pace, businesses must maintain a solid presence where people interested in their offerings meet. That means more than just placing a banner on the corresponding sites. It means listening to – and responding to – the questions, comments and frustrations voiced in relevant forums.

3. Find out which key words your customers search for.

Search engines drive huge volumes of Internet traffic, and many decision makers begin their purchasing activities with a standard web search. Google and Yahoo, for example, are now able to let us know the precise terms that people are actually typing in. Determine which key words people associate with your products and services and then take two steps: First, optimise the content of your website to ensure that potential purchasers will find solid information related to the key terms that they are looking for. Second, consider paying for advertising that grabs the attention of users searching for your products and services. 

4. Measure your success.

From the first click-through rates onward, the ability to measure customer response has been one of the greatest benefits offered by digital advertising. In the online world, it is possible to track consumer behaviour in real time, and the best advertisers rapidly feed insights gained from these statistics into new campaigns.

5. Ask how your customers prefer to receive information.

Some are addicted to RSS feeds, others don’t even know what RSS is. Some would love to read a company blog or listen to a podcast with the latest insights, others may eagerly download a white paper. Still others can only be reached with a fun game. Penny pinchers might want to receive information on special deals, but nothing else. What do your customers want?

6. Divide your target audience into subgroups.

Technology now enables companies to create content (such as electronic mailings) to present tailored information offerings that perfectly match the needs of a highly defined target audience. Companies can begin gathering this information by encouraging customers and website visitors – perhaps by offering a free resource – to answer a few questions about their preferences and sign up for a free newsletter or for occasional special offers.

7. Test new campaigns.

In this highly dynamic environment, staying on top requires experimentation. Effectiveness is not an exact science. You need to try things out to see how they work. To ensure success, advertisers need to set aside a certain amount of their budget for trying out innovative approaches and for testing a variety of potential approaches.

What’s the guiding principle behind these tips? Online advertising is not a one-way street. Savvy advertisers learn how to meet customer expectations by interacting frequently and meaningfully with a digitally empowered audience.