Advertising in a more technical light is actually called media consumption. This is the term used in marketing which deals with how people are consuming the different communication media which is available for them.
Advertising or media consumption has been part of our lives even way back when the only things available for advertising are newspapers. Then came a new media, radio, then television, then of course, the infamous internet. With the internet came various ways of advertising such as email marketing, video marketing, social media network marketing, banner ads and more.
With all these new developments and avenues for advertising, media consumption is now split in all these forms of media. When you think of it, you still have 24 hours in a day to use up but with these varied forms of media and communication, we face to struggle to conquer all these media in order to get the attention of our target market.
Okay, enough of the background. The main question is, what do all these mean to you, as an advertiser? This is would help you analyze and see which media you need to use in order to address or tap into the market that you wish to tap.
It cannot be denied that there are actually a lot of advertisers who are too lazy to study these before making advertising decisions that would ultimately affect their business. Most often, advertisers just pick the first thing that enters their minds.
There are also advertisers who focus too much on just how their ad will look like. This means that they think of a visual design before even thinking on how they can use this or where they can use this or if their visual design would actually appeal to their target market. I’m not telling you not to think of design. This is actually the fun part of advertising and this is also an important factor in your ads. However, if this is your only focus without even knowing what your target market wants, then, we have a serious problem here. So, how is effective advertising achieved?
1. Know your target market.
The first thing you need to think of is your target market or your audience. Which type of crowd is it that you want to talk to?
For example, you have an online business site that mainly sells various gadgets that are priced lower than other gadget sites. Then the first thing you do is create a massive high end ad that seemingly looks like the upscale ads of Apple. Since you’re business is addressing people who want lower priced gadgets, if they see that your ad is as expensive looking as that of Apple, their first impression is you are just as expensive as they are and therefore they would probably not look at your site at all, or even you ad itself.
Since the study of the target market and audience requires a little bit more work, advertisers often bypass this just to be able to release an ad immediately. Then the ads do not perform as they had hoped and then they wonder why?
2. Pick the most effective form of media.
Based on your target audience or market as discussed in no. 1, the next thing you need to know is which form of media your target market often uses.
Let’s go with the example we had earlier. A gadget online business would usually target what we call “techie people” which would often be either sitting in front of their computers or fiddling with their phones to browse the internet. Often, this type of market rarely reads the news paper because well, they can read about anything over the internet. Knowing this, would you still spend a huge time on print ad advertising? No. You should go to the media that they often use which is the internet. So spend your time doing internet marketing such as getting into blogs, video marketing, email marketing and the like.
3. Create a headline that grabs attention
A good headline is what grabs the attention of your audience. Keep it simple and understandable. This means choosing the right words that will appeal to your audience. Studies show that the headlines are the key to making your ads effective. Think of your ad headline as the door to your entire ad and business. If you headline is not appealing, it is most likely that your entire ad would not be read or looked at all.
4. Have images that are relevant.
Images are a good idea for an ad because this can attract your audience as well but make sure that you use images that are relevant to your ad and business. Like for our example above, use good images of a gadget that people would want not say, a photo frame which is totally unrelated to your business.
What you can do is actually create various ads using different images and see which one works best. Is it a mobile phone? A laptop? A desktop PC? Another thing that you can do is run a competitive check. This is just means, check what your competition is doing. Most often, especially the older companies, the only repeat what works well, so this can give you an idea on what to do.
Another thing, place your logo at the bottom. This is a general rule. However, one exception to this rule are established brand names. Since they are already established, having their logos on top of the ads creates credibility and also this is what attracts their market.
5. Write a body text or copy to further attract your audience.
Once you’ve got them through the headline, the next thing they would look for is information which must be in your body copy. You must continue to entice them to do something (which is no. 6) or keep them interested.
Using the same example, once you have the perfect image, that great headline, the next thing people would look for is what is this ad about? Your body should give them a clear picture of the message that you want to convey and to be embedded in their minds, the body copy should not just inform but appeal to their emotions as well.
For example, if you ad is about a laptop, tell them about how great the laptop is while appealing to their emotions by also telling them that this laptop would be a perfect gift for so and so.
6. The call-to-action.
This is the main purpose of your ad: to get your target audience to actually do something which is to purchase something from you. For small businesses, you must have a clear call-to-action statement. Big businesses can get away with this because they already have a loyal group of market which no matter what they put out there, be it just a photo of say their logo or their latest product, people are compelled to purchase it. However, for small business you must tell them what to do. You can either tell them to call this number, visit this site, email you and the like.
For example, again using our gadget ad, you can tell them to, “visit www.mybusiness.com to see the full specification and details” or “click here to purchase this item”.
There you have it! 6 simple tips to create effective advertising. Just follow these tips and continue to experiment with your ads and you’ll be reaping the rewards of effective advertising. Just remember that advertising is a continuous study so with every ad you release, check which ones work and which ones don’t and then check why it worked and why it did not. Doing this, you’ll get a clearer picture on how to make your ads more effective.
What ads have you created? Tell us about your experience!
Tue, Mar 29, 2011
Business Resources, Marketing