|
Home / Business / Advertising
Creating an Effective Advertising Campaign
By:Hans Hasselfors
Talk to almost any advertising agency, or Fortune 500 company exec about advertising and promotion, and you will almost certainly hear the buzz words "fragmented advertising" and "consumer-centric campaigns" and long discussions about the many pitfalls and difficulties of creating effective advertising campaigns today.
What is fragmentation exactly? It's the increase in the number of available methods for getting your message to your audience.
One of the main difficulties faced by any entrepreneur is that advertising has changed and evolved over the last few years. It now includes visual, audio and electronic media.
In fact, if you do a Google search for advertising, you may feel overwhelmed by all the options available to you now -- if you just look at the options for your Website you'll find popups, popovers, audio messages, flash video, RSS, even animated "sales people" that can be programmed to appear right on your Website and interact with your customers. And that's just the tip of the iceberg!
So is traditional advertising -- which includes billboards, radio, television, newspaper and magazine -- dead?
Not by a long shot. According to one top advertising mogul, traditional advertising methods are still around because they still work.
The trick is to figure out who your target market is, what they want, and how they look for that information.
Mark Twain said, "Many a small thing has been made large by the right kind of advertising."
If you know customers, you can spend your advertising dollars on the mediums they use to look for answers.
If your customers are senior citizens who are not online, then focus the majority of your advertising dollars on the newspapers, magazines, television, and radio that they are reading, watching or listening to.
If your target market are working parents, you need to know how, when and where they get their information. Is it on the Internet? What radio stations do they listen to? What magazines are they reading? Do they watch television? When? Why?
So what are your best options for creating an effective advertising campaign?
Here are some simple steps:
1. Know your audience. What do they want? Where do they shop? What do they read? How old are they? Where do they hang out? Do they need your product or services? Can they afford your product or services?
2. Know your competition. Be prepared to do a little detective work. What are your three main competitors doing to advertise? Where are they advertising? How often? What types of advertising methods are they using? How long have they been running? Are you reaching the same audience? Is your message different?
Look at what they're doing right, and figure out creative ways that you can make your advertising just a little bit better, or differentiate yourself from the crowd.
3. Next take a look at what the "big dogs" in your field are doing, and see if you can adapt some of their methods to your target audience and your budget.
4. Know your message. What exactly are you trying to say? What do your customers want to hear? Why should they buy from you, and not someone else? Make every word count.
Chances are, your customers are much more tech-savvy than they were five years ago, or even one year ago. The Internet has made unbelievable amounts of information accessible, but it also has contributed to the "information overload" consumers complain of.
Another side effect of the Internet is that your customers have probably become used to getting "instant gratification" when they are looking for information, products or services. They want it, and they want it now. Are you giving your customers what they want, when they want it?
If you want to have an effective advertising campaign, don't try to be everything to everyone. Think of your advertising as a conversation between you and your one "ideal" customer.
Remember, if you're giving your customers what they want, they don't perceive your ads as a nuisance, they see them as a service.
Traditional advertising is not dead and you can use it to your advantage if you pay attention to who your customers are, and what they want.
Digg
del.icio.us
Blink
Stumble
Spurl
Reddit
Netscape
Furl
Article keywords: advertising, campaign
Article Source: http://www.articles2k.com
Hans Hasselfors is a successful business entrepreneur and internet marketing consultant. Get the net working for you. Join a community of like-minded authors and publishers and make your living online. Become a member of our article directory. www.SubmitYourNewArticle.com
|
|
| Top Advertising Articles |
- 1). What Does Your Logo Color Say About Your Business? By : Debbie LaChusa
And not only your logo, but also your website, your brochure, your business cards and any of your marketing materials for that matter.
Yes, colors do matter
They communicate feelings and emotions. They represent ideas and thoughts. So before you create a logo or any other piece of marketing make sure you select the right colors to communicate a personality that accurately represents you and your business.
|
- 2). Smart Advertising In Affiliate Marketing By : Peter Garant
Affiliate marketing is all about the promotion of products of an online company. The affiliate sign-ups with the advertiser or marketing arm of the online company and the affiliate becomes an active searcher of potential clients. Such set-up of affiliate marketing can become easily successful if the affiliate is aware of the importance of advertising.
|
- 3). The four sins of advertising By : Florie Lyn Masarate
Advertising is a very precise science. It finds its bases in many different fields including copywriting, psychology and even math. In recent decades, we have observed a slow but steady beautification of advertising.
For marketing experts this can work. For less savvy advertisers, it is a huge pitfall that draws attention away from the much more important aspects of a successful selling proposition.
|
- 4). 66 Ways To Promote Your product or Services By : Joe Trevison MBA CPA
Some guru sells his program because he has 60 ways of marketing. One Dentist was asked about his marketing he said he had 100 ways and use them all. Well I came up with 66 so far. I will work on more sometime after tax season or you can email me with ones I might have missed.
The true is you can’t use them all. Some are too costly for many of us. Some won’t work.
|
- 5). What You Should Know About Postcards By : Maricon Williams
Here are some of the salient facts about postcard printing and mailing:
1. Repeat postcard mailing is not throwing cash. One big shot is not enough. It needs continuous boost, continuous mailings. The reason is – one big launch cannot make your business neither can it change it.
2. The best price may not be the best catch. The old maxim – ‘you get what you pay for’ is not always applicable.
|
- 6). Internet Marketing 101 By : Travis Werbelow
Curious on what internet marketing is? Read this very simplified article on what it is and how you can make money from it. This is geared towards sparking an internet newbie’s interest on making money online.
|
- 7). The World of Advertising By : Peter Finers
No one remembers the date or even a year of birth of industry. Maybe it takes its roots from the first rake or the wheel created by some fellow from the cave. Thousands of years has past after simple inventions, bringing us greater, more advanced technologies. In the twenty first century people are surrounded by numerous products and services created to make our lives comfortable and bring pleasure.
|
- 8). Illustration in Marketing Materials By : viojieley
Not so many years ago businesses used to grunt at using illustrations in their marketing materials. But today, the use and influence of illustrations is growing right along.
An illustration, image or picture that does not express a distinct idea is a poor illustration. It should be clearly drawn with an abundance of ideas to be conveyed in the fewest line possible.
|
|
|
- 10). Boost Website Visits using Google Adwords By : Phil M.
The Google Adwords program is a very popular new program. If you want to sell products, you can easily use the Google Adwords program to give your web site more exposure. It is not hard to learn and it can mean big profits for your business.
So how does Google Adwords work?
The Google Adwords program is a PPC, a pay per click program. It combines the use of an ad with a title and text for a product or your website.
|
| New Advertising Articles |
|
|
|
|
- 3). How To Create A Profit Pulling Ezine Ad By : Kurt Naulaerts
Ezines are an excellent and very powerful way to promote your online business. With the appropriate copywriting you could have super results on your bottom line. Here are some fundamental rules for succeeding in your ad campaigns.
|
|
|
- 5). Business Card Printing Services By : Thomas Morva
The simple black and white business card has metamorphosed into designer versions. Unusual business cards are made from wood, plastic, metal, magnets, glass, or handmade paper. And some are printed in four colors while others are made using embedding or imprint technology. The purpose is to be unique and different, and make a lasting impression.
Depending on your thoughts, budget, design, and needs, a business card service will tell you what kind of printing your card will need.
|
- 6). Word Of Mouth Advertising - Steps To Create Awareness By : Sherry Frewerd
Word of mouth advertising creates an awareness campaign where your business information travels from person to person, creating a world wind of awareness. For a new business start-up, word of mouth marketing is often the best and most effective advertising method.
Newspaper print and classified ads can get very expensive, and have lost much of their effectiveness with the popularity of the internet in the past decade.
|
- 7). 10 Ways To Ensure Your Flyer Avoids The Bin By : Chris Riley
Flyers are an excellent marketing tool to promote a club night or event. They are commonly used for student promotions throughout the country.
You want your flyers to travel all over town, only you'd probably prefer it wasn't in the dustcart or stuck to the bottom of someone's shoe. What steps can you take to avoid this?
Here's a few hints and tricks to help your flyers avoid the trash:
1.
|
- 8). Advertising and Promoting Using Articles By : Justin Brown
A very efficient method to advertise your professional services, the products you are selling or simply to show how educated you are in a particular niche is by using the highly beneficial method of article marketing.
These articles that enclose at the end a short presentation of you or your business can be about various solution to actual problems, about everyday life or any other topic that will interest and inform a reader about the subject.
|
- 9). Don't Get Caught With Google Adsense Click Fraud By : Kaval Patel
Many web site owners are getting their Google Adsense account terminated when they have done nothing wrong to deserve the punishment. Considering the money that they are getting from Adsense, they would certainly want to get back into it, and no wonder as the money that can be made over time is huge!
It is that same consideration why the Google Adsense click fraud is thought of and why many people are getting into it.
|
- 10). Classified Advertising in Local Markets By : Janet21
Even with the growth of online classifieds and the increase in popularity in sites such as Craigslist, newspaper classifieds are still the preferred method of advertising for many wishing to sell unwanted items. This is evident in the number of print classified ads listed daily in newspapers and magazines throughout the country and worldwide. These.
|
|
|
