Featured image c/o BuffaloveBirds, a local WNY influencer duo

When it comes to getting more customers, advertising can be a gamechanger for your business. But if you don’t want to waste money on ineffective efforts, you need to be strategic.

Traditional media, like TV, radio, newspaper, magazine, and billboard ads, used to be the only form of advertising, but in today’s day and age it’s considered outdated and ineffective for many types of businesses.

In its place, online advertising has emerged as a much more effective option, offering targeted, measurable, and cost-effective advertising for businesses looking to utilize search engines, social media, and other digital methods to reach their target audiences.

Both traditional and online advertising involve businesses selecting where to run ads , creating ads, setting up ads, tracking ads, making necessary adjustments to ads, and recording ad results. It also involves understanding the platforms your ads are running on, how to work them, who is on them, and making sure your business is actively monitoring them.

If it sounds like a lot of work, there are advertising options available where someone else does most of these steps for you. In this article we’ll discuss Digital Media Companies and influencer-Style advertising.

Digital Media Companies & Influencer-Style Advertising: The New Frontier Of Online Advertising

While businesses can set up and run online advertisements themselves, digital media companies offer the option to run digital, data-driven campaigns for your business to their defined audiences.

Digital Media Companies

A digital media company is a business that creates or distributes content using digital technologies. This can include websites, blogs, social media platforms, and mobile apps. Digital media companies often use interactive and engaging content to attract and retain users. They may also use data analytics to track user behavior and improve their content offerings.

Here are some of the characteristics of digital media companies:

• Digital: Digital media companies use digital technologies to create and distribute content.
• Interactive: Digital media companies often use interactive content to engage users.
• Data-driven: Digital media companies use data analytics to track user behavior and improve their content offerings.
• Global: Digital media companies often have a large reach, with the ability to reach people not only locally, regionally, and nationally but also globally thanks to the utilization of the internet.

Step Out Buffalo is an example of a local digital media company based in Western New York. Founded by a father-daughter duo from Hamburg, NY, we utilize all aspects of digital media companies (websites, social media, email newsletters, and digital ads) to distribute information both editorial and advertorial. We then use data and analytics to understand our audience and how our content performs, then create informed, strategic decisions based on that data for both our own brand and our advertising clients.

Digital media companies are still a relatively new phenomenon, but they are growing rapidly. The rise of the internet and mobile devices has created new opportunities for businesses to reach and engage audiences, and as a result digital media companies are playing an increasingly important role in the media landscape. These digital media companies are also changing the way that people consume media by providing new ways for people to connect with each other and to access information and entertainment – and they’re providing exciting new ways for businesses to advertise on them.

Influencer-Style Advertising

Influencer-style advertising is a type of online advertising that involves partnering with influencers or influencer-style digital media companies to create organic promotions of your business that feel less “advertise-y” and more like recommendations or informative content from a third party.

Oftentimes digital media companies employ “influencer-style advertising”, which involves creative advertising that feels more organic than traditional advertising or when a business uses online advertising to promote themselves. These influencer-style advertisements can be done in the form of website or blog articles, short form videos on TikTok or Instagram Reels, social media posts, email-newsletter blasts, and more.

Influencer-style content is unique compared to standard online advertising because it involves other people/businesses talking about your business versus your own business talking about itself. As a type of word-of-mouth marketing, when businesses partner with influencers and digital media companies to do influencer-style advertising they’re able to be part of advertising campaigns that feel more organic and less self-promoting – something that online consumers value.

There are many benefits of influencer-style advertising over traditional advertising and self-promoting online advertising, including:

• Reach a new and engaged audience: Typically influencers and digital media companies have engaged followings, which means that you can reach interested audiences with your advertising messages on a deeper level.
• Build trust and credibility: Influencers and digital media companies are trusted by their followers, so when they promote your products or services, it can help you build trust and credibility with potential customers.
• Be more authentic: Influencer-style advertising is seen as more authentic than traditional advertising and online advertising done by businesses themselves, which can provide actually valuable content to your target audience and help you connect with potential customers on a more personal level.
• Be more cost-effective: This style of advertising can also be more cost-effective than traditional marketing, especially when you consider the reach and engagement that you can get.
• Be more measurable: Influencer-style advertising is more measurable than traditional advertising, which means that you can track the results of your campaigns and see how they are performing.

Of course, each of these benefits can have a ripple effect of other benefits, including:

• Increased brand awareness: When influencers or digital media companies promote your products or services, it can help to increase brand awareness among their followers. This can lead to more people being aware of your brand and what you offer in a more organic way than your business could accomplish on its own.
• Increased sales: Influencer-style advertising can also lead to increased sales. When influencers promote your products or services, it can lead to more people being interested in buying them. This can lead to an increase in sales for your business.
• Improved customer engagement: Influencer-style advertising can also improve customer engagement. When influencers promote your products or services, it can lead to more people interacting with your brand on social media. This can lead to more people visiting your website, signing up for your email list, or following you on social media.

Read more about the overall benefits of advertising and how it can help catapult your business ahead of its competitors!

Choosing The Right Digital Media Company To Advertise With

Influencer-style advertising from both influencers and digital media companies offers a number of benefits over traditional advertising and self-promoting online advertising. If you are looking for a way to reach a wider audience, build trust and credibility, and be even more cost-effective, then influencer-style advertising is a great option.

When choosing which digital media company to advertise with, make sure to do your research and understand your target audience in order to create campaigns that are relevant and targeted. It’s also important to set clear goals related to what you want to achieve with your campaign (increase brand awareness, generate leads, drive sales), etc. and track your results so you can see what is working and what is not.

Here are 6 things to consider when choosing an advertising partner:

1. Your target audience: The first thing you need to consider is your target audience. Who are you trying to reach with your advertising? What are their interests? What platforms do they use? Once you know your target audience, you can start to look for an advertising partner that has a good reach among them.
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2. Your budget: How much are you willing to spend on advertising? This will help you narrow down your options and focus on partners that are within your budget.
   
3. Your goals: What do you hope to achieve with your advertising campaign? Are you looking to increase brand awareness, generate leads, or drive sales? Once you know your goals, you can start to look for an advertising partner that can help you achieve them.
   
4. The partner’s experience: How much experience does the partner have in advertising? Do they have a good track record of success? You want to make sure that you’re partnering with someone who knows what they’re doing and can help you achieve your goals.
   
5. The partner’s brand: It’s important to consider the partner’s brand – their personality and values. Do they align with your brand? Do you trust them to represent your brand in a positive way? This is important because you’ll be working closely with the partner, so you want to make sure that you’re on the same wavelength.
   
6. The partner’s approach to the process: The size of the company you are partnering with to advertise your business, their working style, and processes could vary dramatically – so based on your experience and expertise in this matter you may want to look for a partner who compliments that well. For example, if you’re new to influencer-style advertising or want to be as hands off as possible, look for a partner who takes a hands-on approach to managing the advertising campaign and helps move you along to a successful end result.

Once you understand these components, you’ll be able to better choose the best digital media company to advertise with based on how well they fit your brand, your audience, and your goals so that you can get the most out of your investment.

At Step Out Buffalo we thoughtfully work with your business to generate creative, organic campaigns that drive results. Learn more about our advertising, our audience, and our offerings.

TL;DR

Online advertising allows businesses to reach their target audience with relevant ads, and it is also easier to track the results of these campaigns – which means businesses are getting more bang for their buck when they invest in online advertising.

As people continue to consume more and more content online, digital ways of advertising offer more cost-effective and successful advertising methods for businesses to use compared to outdated traditional advertising. Online advertising can be done in a variety of ways on a variety of platforms, depending on your business goals.

Digital media companies and influencer-style advertising are two newer modes of online advertising that give businesses the reach and accessibility that online advertising provides plus the ease of not having to set up and track the ads themselves and the benefit of reaching more defined audiences.

When considering using influencer marketing, it’s important to choose the right influencers. You want to partner with influencers who have a large and engaged following that is relevant to your target audience. You also need to make sure that the influencers you choose are authentic and trustworthy.

In today’s digital age, businesses of all sizes should consider investing in online advertising and specifically digital media-based and influencer-style advertising in order to reach their target audiences and grow their businesses.

At Step Out Buffalo, we help connect businesses with locals and visitors who want to support them. We’re a hyper-local media company that highlights the best things to do in Buffalo and Western New York with a large and engaged audience of people who are interested in local businesses, events, and activities. 

Want to learn more about how Step Out Buffalo leverages online advertising and our large, Western New York-based audience to help promote businesses across all industries? Tap here!