|
 "You can have the most
wonderful product in the world, but if people don't
know about it, it's not going to be worth much.
There are singers in the world with voices as good
as Frank Sinatra's, but they're singing in their
garages because no one has ever heard of them. You
need to generate interest, and you need to create
excitement." Donald Trump, American
real-estate tycoon
Advertising doesn't cost, it pays! And good
advertising can pay you well. Bad advertising, or no
advertising at all, invites disaster.
You have to advertise if people are to be made aware
of your business and the benefits it offers them.
Without advertising you rely on word of mouth
recommendation or press editorial, both extremely
effective, but slow and generally unpredictable.
Advertising takes many different forms, from
painting your name on the side of a van to
delivering leaflets door-to-door or posting printed
cards in shop and post office windows. More often
the term applies to classified and display
promotions in appropriate media, usually newspapers
and magazines, and it is with this definition we
concern ourselves here.
Advertising by itself does not sell. It will not
sell a bad product (customers will ask for refunds)
and it won't open up new markets. It is not a
miracle cure that can generate sales for a dying
product. Conversely, advertising will not sell your
must successful products to people who simply don't
want them.
Main Points About Effective Advertising
* It reduces the entire population to your target
audience and reaches as many of those people as
possible at least available cost.
* It must always have an objective. This means
having a clear idea about what you want to
accomplish in your advertisement. Reasons for
advertising include:
* To invite orders or enquiries
* To launch new products
* To publicize price changes.
* The message must attract your target audience, it
must interest them, create a desire for your product
and prompt people to act (order or ask for further
information). This acronym AIDA is one you will
encounter many times in advertising.
* It must be truthful and straightforward. The
nearer your advertisement is to reality, the more
effective it is.
* Sufficient resources must be allocated to
accomplish your advertising objectives.
* Testing is crucial to effective advertising,
allowing good promotions to be repeated and bad ones
to be eliminated.
* Every aspect of your advertisement must be
prepared from the customer's point of view. That
person wants to know how you and your product can
benefit him. The most important feature of any
advertisement is the benefits it contains.
* It must be placed in the appropriate media.
Newcomers to business tend to confuse the real
benefits of advertising, frequently considering it a
necessary, and expensive, evil, not the long-term
investment it really is. In short, effective
advertising is the lifeblood of your business.
Without it you will surely fail!
Deciding When and How
Advertising can be a major headache for many firms,
not just new businesses or those without specialist
advertising departments.
But it isn't always costs that are to blame as much
as making that vital choice between classified or
generally more costly display advertising.
Returning to basics, all advertisements must follow
the general AIDA principle. They must attract
attention, generate and retain interest, create
desire, and stimulate action.
But what will best achieve this objective:
classified or display?
The answer depends on a number of things, not least
of all an understanding of what these two methods
involve, how they differ and what similarities, even
overlap, might exist.
Classified advertising, sometimes called 'lineage',
generally employs just words, without embellishment,
other than perhaps a few words emboldened, and
sometimes impact lines or boxes around the
advertisement. Where these minor forms of decoration
are included, the format is frequently referred to
as 'semi-display'.
Display advertisements, on the other hand, are
designed to stand out from the crowd, using a
variety of techniques including: occupying a set
position on the page, taking up a specified amount
of space, including graphics and illustrations,
adopting a variety of fonts, and so on. The argument
is that display advertisements are more noticeable,
more profitable than their counterparts buried
amongst countless others in the classified columns.
Hence the far higher cost of display advertising.
The following main points will help you decide:
* Classified ads are usually cheap and are excellent
for generating enquiries. Many successful classified
advertisers use the two-stage enquiry method,
allowing the customer to obtain further information
before placing an order. A major benefit for dealers
is the chance to build a useful mailing list for
future offers.
* Display advertising is best for selling straight
from the page. Readers are more likely to trust
their money to someone who has paid for a larger
advertisement than someone whose advertisement
occupies a tiny space among so many competing
entries. Classified advertising is rarely effective
for selling off-the-page except for very low cost
items, commonly Ј10 or less.
* Classified advertising can be used to test
interest in your product before venturing into more
costly display advertising.
* Classifieds can be used to test and compare
advertising sources.
* Classified advertising is generally unsuitable for
anything that requires a lot of 'telling' to
accomplish the task of selling. Too much grey
matters in classifieds is boring and readers can
easily lose interest halfway. If it can't be said in
a few words, try display advertising.
* For classified advertisements, the words
themselves must do the job of selling. Sometimes a
maximum wordcount is set and every word must pay its
way. Conversely, display advertising allows a
variety of other techniques to be used to attract
and retain reader interest. Based on what they say
about a picture being worth ten thousand words, it
follows that, if the design, style or appearance of
your product is important to the potential customer,
display advertising is usually best. If the product
markets well 'sight unseen', classified ads might be
appropriate.
* Classified ads usually focus on a single offer.
Display advertisements can include several products,
or an invitation to send for further information,
obtain a catalogue, send for samples, and so on.
|
