Advertising: Everybody Does it but Does That Make it Right?
Advertising is a normal, everyday part of life in the mass consumer society we live in. We are bombarded with advertising messages every day. But does it still work? Should you still be advertising? Many small businesses rely of word-of-mouth marketing alone to grow their businesses. Is there still a place for traditional advertising techniques?
For most large-scale businesses, advertising is an essential component to promoting their corporate image and marketing message. They often spend millions of dollars advertising and tracking the results of advertising. This suggests traditional advertising techniques still work. Does that make it right for your business? Can you run successful advertising if you have a limited budget? In most cases I believe you can, however you need to be focused on a niche. That might be location based or a particular type of customer. It’s all about focus.
Advertising influences people opinions about brands. This can be hard to measure and track for any business let alone the small business with limited resources. While large organisations have the time and money to invest in advertising that is primarily there to strengthen brand awareness, this strategy would kill most small businesses. For the small business owner looking to advertise, always include a ‘call to action’. You must tell the viewer of your advertising what they should do next. If your product or service is not an ‘impulse buy’ or you are not wanting to compete on price alone, two step advertising strategies could be your best option. Your advertising goal could be to build an army of followers in social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook and subscribers to an eNewsletter or RSS feed. That way you can regularly update them on product and services they may be interested in and the best thing is it’s free from that point on.
Two-step advertising is done, simply by asking for permission from your target market for further communication. You could give away an information pack which would be of value to your target market and then follow them up with further advertising material. This is a great way to start building a business relationship for people just researching what it is you do and are not ready to purchase. This strategy will put you in the prime position when they are ready to purchase, since you have positioned yourself as the expert in your field.
There are many advertising avenues today such as print media, newspapers, magazines, radio, television, posters, billboards, direct mail and sponsorship. The web has created a new breed of advertising strategies such as YouTube videos, blogs, email marketing, banner ads and pay-per-click. While tactics may vary from medium to medium, your overall strategy should remain focused. By creating an advertising strategy, you ensure all your advertising works together to communicate a consistent message about your brand.
You must be selective where you advertise and when you advertise. A magazine ad may cost $5000 for a full page and the local paper, just $500 for a similar size and circulation. What you must remember is a magazine has a targeted audience. The target audience of a magazine that matches your business is more likely to be interested by your advertisement while the ad in the local paper will be seen more as an interruption to the local news the reader was interested in.
A well-designed advertising campaign communicates a message successful that connects with the target market. It may be designed to persuade or stir up passion. Good advertising will stimulate an emotion within the target market. To ensure your advertising creates the emotional connection you are looking for make sure you start out with the end in mind and count the cost before you begin. By doing so, you will discover if advertising is right for you.
Got a questions or an example? Feel free to add it to the comments section below.
