ADVERTISING YOUR ADVERTISING IDEA

Any advertising idea, great or otherwise, needs a good advertising plan to get it implemented.

Advertising is the second leg of your marketing plan and because it can be expensive, it will pay you to understand the basics of advertising before deciding on the methods that will suit you and your business.

All businesses need advertising to let the customer know what you do, where you do it and to get more and more of them to do it with you.

Before you even start looking at the many different types of advertising available you will need to pin point the customer you are hoping to attract with your advertising idea.From your marketing plans where you will have defined your target customers, you can now decide what advertising media will work best for you.

Let your imagination and common sense guide you here as follows:-

• Who is your customer?
• How do you intend to sell your product?
• Are you in a broad or a narrow niche market? Good merchandising will help here.
• If you were a customer where would you expect to find your business advertised?For example, are your customers hobbyists; if so they probably subscribe to hobby magazines, so that would be where to advertise.
• Are you hoping to sell locally or nationally, different advertising is need for each.

Basically decide the type of media you think would be best, giving it some thought! At start up your cash resources will be very limited so you need to spend your advertising dollar wisely.

Here we will discuss some of the many types of advertising available to you.

Before implementing your advertising idea.

All good effective advertising is based on a campaign. No one-off advertisement can ever succeed except in a very limited and short lived way. Advertisements only work if they are repeated often enough and are powerful enough to get your message across to potential customers.

This is a very important point to remember, you cannot spend your entire advertising budget on one or two big advertisements and then stop! If you have limited resources spread them out over smaller, less expensive, advertisements that are repeated enough times to get your message across.

Creating good advertising copy is difficulty so, unless you have experience in advertising and marketing, hire a professional. This need not be expensive as there are many small one person advertising businesses with good people available. You might even try your local art college for help. They will often be only too happy to get practical experience in advertising 101!

The type of advertising media you choose can have a large impact on getting your advertising idea across. For example if you advertise in the print media, newspapers and the yellow pages, you will only attract the attention of buyers who are actually looking for a product. No one ideally leafs through the yellow pages for fun! Print adverts are non-intrusive and have a very short shelf life.

On the other hand, radio and TV advertising is intrusive and a campaign of such advertising can mean that customers are aware of you and your products long before they actually want or need to buy.

Print advertising has always been considered the basis, the foundation, of all forms of advertising so not to be too reactionary, I will start with:-

Advertising in print

Well thought out print advertisements containing the right message will out perform many of the advertisements in print today? Getting a print advertisement right is not difficult if you follow some basic rules.

1. Get people to notice the ad. Make it stand out from all the other ads. Do this via color, headline or design, but make it noticeable.
2. There are only two things a print ad can be used for. Decide if you want to announce some news that will attract people to your product or tell them what’s in it for them. What will they get from using your service or product?
3. Show why people should elect to buy from you! Why will that be a wiser choice than buying from your competitor? You must sell your advertising idea!
4. Have a really good headline that not only attracts, but gets readers motivated to do something.
5. And remember the aim of your advertisement is to get people to know you and your products. All your ads must get this message across or they will not produce results.
6. Don’t be shortsighted and promise what you can’t deliver. Advertising ethics are just as important as a quality service.

Where to place your print advertising

You have the choice of advertising in newspapers or magazines

Newspapers

A quick and relatively inexpensive way to get your advertising idea out to the public. This will allow you to take quick advantage of events that could lead to sales. The disadvantages however are that newspaper advertisements are a one day wonder, yesterdays newspaper advertisements are stale news!

To overcome this, you need to continue your advertising daily for weeks or months to build credibility.

Don’t forget local community newspapers. They can often give excellent results and are often very cheap.

Magazines

There are magazines to suit all tastes and interests so you can advertise to a more focused market. Your advertisements can also still be attracting attention weeks or even months after publication. An advertising idea, well placed in a magazine can be very rewarding.

MORE ADVERTISING

Yellow Pages

One of the first advertisements that any start-up business needs to take advantage of is that of your advertisement in the yellow pages.

Virtually everyone who needs to look for something will use the Yellow Pages. Don’t neglect your advertisement here and make it stand out.

Radio and TV Advertising

Need not be expensive and can turn out to be your best form of advertising. Unless you have unlimited funds, don’t attempt to advertise on National TV or radio however.

Cable television and local radio stations give plenty of scope for getting across a good advertising idea at affordable rates.

Like all forms of advertising, a good advertising plan is essential if you are to succeed on radio and Television.

Start with radio, get your local radio representative to visit you and pick his or her brains. Decide on your target, budgets, production costs, audience cost per thousand and frequencies.

Learn your mistakes on radio advertising while you grow and then go TV.

Sounds too technical or time consuming, then think of help from an advertising agency, or consultant.

Internet

The Web is everywhere and as such can be a great means of advertising. Everyone nowadays seems to have their own Web page, you should too!

Web advertising is not as easy as placing an ad in the newspaper. Firstly you need equipment and secondly you require expertise. You need a computer, software, an I.P. address and a web name. You also need to design your site, write content, promote it and finally maintain it.

All this can be very time consuming so it will very likely pay you to hire a Web master to get your site up and running. Without visitors to your site you have nothing so it so important that you attract visitors using search engines, affiliates and links.

Doing this, unless you are very computer and Web literate, is difficult and again a professional could very well be the answer.

A good strong Web presence that pushes your image and brand can also be used for on-line sales, as a research tool and for the marketing of your advertising idea.

The Web is her to stay and as an advertising method continues to grow.

Based on your product or service and customers, you will want a variety of advertising methods to help catch their attention and buy. Here are some of the more common methods of getting out an advertising idea.

Direct Mail

Basically any advertising material that you send to your customer directly can be classified as direct mail advertising.

The number one problem with direct mail advertising is the need for up-to-date and accurate mailing lists. Whether you are sending out a newsletter by post or an e-mail message, you need a correct address.

Your mailing list is vital to success and you need to work on not only capturing names and addresses, but also keeping these up-to-date.

How to collect a list

• At every opportunity, get names and e-mail addresses.
• Collect names and address from checks, information cards, delivery addresses from purchasing customers.
• Hold a competition and require addresses on the entry card.
• Collect business cards.
• If appropriate, open a suggestion book.
• Let customers or potential customers e-mail you with suggestions or complaints. Make sure that you always answer these as well as collecting address information.
• Rent a mailing list. Not my favorite method, but it can work if you are careful in the list you buy. A list broker might be able to help you here. Check the Yellow Pages.

Now that you have your list, how do you use it in your direct mail advertising to sell your advertising idea?

Brochures

Use your own desktop publishing software to produce in house or have it printed up for you.

A good brochure is brief, full of interest information and always makes a good impression of your company. Spend some money on getting it right; make it feel good as well as read well.

Postcards

Cheap and can be highly effective in generating sales. Best used where you want to get a message across of some special offer or sale opening.

A postcard is more often read than all the other types of direct mail. Why, because it is addressed personally and you simply have to turn it over to read the message.

Fliers

The in between, advertising direct mail, method. Not as big or as expensive as a brochure, but has more advertising room than a postcard.

Stick them into mailboxes, under car wipers, or on notice boards.

Newsletters

Many a good advertising idea has been sold via newsletters.

Again do your own using desktop publishing. Once you have it designed and worked on the best layout to suit your type of business, there is no need of further changes.

Best for getting across to the buying public the nature of your business and services.

A good newsletter is looked forward to by its readers and is not considered junk mail, ready for the trash.

Not all businesses are right for a newsletter, but where they are, they can be very effective. If your business needs to keep customers informed and educated about your services or products, you will do well with a newsletter.

Keep it simple, tell people who you are, promote your services or product and be informational. Can be a great way for selling your advertising idea.

Sales letters

Believed to be a dying art! Not so! A good sales letter can still be very effective in generating sales so don’t write them off.

Keep them short and sweet, only just long enough to get the job done.

As you normally send them out in the mail, remember that you are “talking” to the customer, so make your letter inviting. As it comes out of the envelope it must generate an “Oh! This looks interesting.”

Draw them in, give them the benefits and then show them how it pays to respond.

Are catalogs for you?

All mail order businesses rely on catalogs for their business, without them even those on the Web, would be out of business. Many, many different businesses types would benefit from an in house catalog.

Catalogs can be huge, mail order, or a very simple four to six pages.

All good catalogs show your customers the advantages of buying from you, so select the right customers for your catalog.

Be ready for the potential sales increase when your catalog hits the streets. If you can’t supply what you promise and let people down, beware, your name will be mud.

That should see you through with getting your advertising idea out to the masses, but there is one more type of advertising that should not be forgotten.

The classified advertisement

Cheap and simple, but read by thousands each day in the newspapers.

It keeps your business in front of the public and can be changed regularly to create variety.

As long as the advertisement pays for itself, don’t change it.

I have known classifieds that have been run for years, still attracting business. If you have a good one, that gets your advertising idea across, leave it.

Any other advertisements?

Don’t forget all the other means of advertising your business and service.

• Using your stationery, receipts and invoices. Send your flier or sales letters out at the same time.
• The sides of your business vehicles.
• When someone phones your business after hours does it just ring and ring or do you use an answering machine to provide them with information? If not, why not?
• A “good morning,” a smile and “can I help you?” costs nothing, but can make a customer out of a “just looking.”
• Your business cards must market your business as well as identify it. Do yours?
• Making your product branding advertise for you.

A final word, advertise only to attract, retain or bring back a customer, and measure your results. Does your advertisement increase sales? If not change it or drop it.

An advertising idea is only as good as the sales it generates.

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