Is Traditional Advertising Snuffed Out?
No Way! It's Still Breathing Steadily!
Ever hear these buzzwords? "Fragmented advertising" or "consumer-centric camp signs"? You will if you talk to just about any Fortune 500 company executive or advertising agency about promotions and advertising. You'll dive into long conversations about the dangers and difficulties of fashioning potent advertising campaigns today.
Fragmentation is an idea that makes apparent the increasing totality of avenues for one to get their message across to their customers.
One of the prime difficulties faced by any executive is that advertising has changed and evolved over the last few years.It now covers visual, audio and electronic media.
If fact, you might feel a tad astonished by all of the various advertising choices. Do a Google search for advertising and you will find possibilities like popups, popovers, RSS, flash video, audio messages and even animated "sales people" programmed to appear right on you website to interact with your customers... at that's only the tip of the iceberg!
So is traditional advertising -- which covers billboards, radio, television, newspaper and magazine -- dead?
Hell no! Traditional advertising methods still work, according to one advertising mogul, so they're still around.
Figuring out who your target market is, what they want and how they search for that info is the trick.
Mark Twain said, "Many a small thing has been made large by the right kind of advertising."
You can spend your advertising money on the proper mediums they your customers use if you understand your customers.
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 listneing to.
Whether your target market is working parents or divorced fathers, you really need to know how, when and where they get their information. What radio stations do they listen to? Is it on the Internet? Do they watch television? What magazines are they reading? When? How? Why?
When you set out to create a highly potent advertising campaign, you need to determine what your best possibilities are.
Here are a few simple ways:
1. Know your customer. What do they need? Where do they dine? What do they read? How old are they? Which places to they like to frequent? Your product or service... do they need it? Can they afford your product or service?
2. Know your competition. Be primed to do a bit of investigation. What are your three top competitors doing to advertise? What methods of promotion are they using? How often are they promoting their business? Are they trying to reach the same customers as you are? How long have they been promoting their business? What message are they sending to promote their business?
To differentiate and set yourself apart from the crowd, look at what your competition is doing right and then simply find potent ways to make your advertising slightly better.
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 customers and your budget.
4. Get your message across clearly. What exactly are you trying to say? What do your customers want to hear? Why should people buy from you rather than another company? You need to make every single word pay off.
It is highly likely that your customers are more tech-savy than they were just even one year ago. While the Internet has made it possible for your customers to uncover just about any piece of information that they need, the Internet has also created another massive problem... information overload.
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. Giving your customer what he wants, when he wants it is one of the top challenges that businesses face today. Can you meet that demand?
If you want to have an potent 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.
Pay attention to who your customers are and what they want and you will be at an advantage. Traditional advertising is not dead... far from it!
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