Advertising Tips
Specific, practical advertising tips from advertising industry experts about what works and what doesn't work in advertising to help you get a better return on your advertising investments for your business.
Advertising Tips: what works for advertising
1. Advertising works because of a combination of things:
-
Relevancy of the message
-
Reaching the right target audience(s)
-
Repetition
-
Timing
2. Appeal to the underlying reasons why people buy (most are emotional)
People want...
-
To make money or more money; to save money
-
To protect family
-
To have or hold beautiful possessions
-
To avoid effort; to satisfy appetite; to gain more comfort
-
To emulate others; to avoid trouble; to be safe
-
To be individual; to attain fuller health
-
To protect reputation; gain praise; be popular
-
To escape physical pain
-
To take advantage of opportunities
-
To make work easier; to increase enjoyment
3. Make ads with both an emotional and rational appeal
Your ad must address both the customer's right and left brains.
Start with the emotional appeal first and follow up with rational reasons to buy/try.
4. Develop ads within an overall campaign that are coordinated with your other marketing
Integrated marketing works much harder and better for you than "one off" (or solo) ads and campaigns that don't tie to your other marketing look, tone and brand personality.
5. Aim for ads that have a positive "buzz factor"
The very best ads make it into the popular culture and are talked about in a positive way in conversation among people, in the press, on TV programs and social media sites like Facebook.
The very best ads get thousands of free viewers on YouTube or people singing the ad jingle (song) because people love the ad!
6. Ads are most often interruptions
What will cause someone to stop to pay attention to the ad? And keep their attention?
It's easy to have high stopping power. It's hard to get people to stay on for the message you want to deliver.
A lot of ads are lazy. They stop people by using a gimmick, comedy or something that catches attention but it's not linked to or relevant to the advertising sales message. Advertising needs to relate to sales.
7. Where ads are placed is as critical as the ad creative
There are thousands of places to run ads but not enough money to advertise everywhere. Because of this, advertising media planning is now more critical (and creative) than ever.
Many companies plan the media first and then create the ads that will be relevant in those types of shows, magazines, radio programs.
8. The media multiplier effect
This is based on advertising research showing that people who see ads from a company within the same campaign (same message/offer) on different types of media (TV, magazines, online, radio, outdoor), remember the ads more than the same ad media budget spent in just one type of media.
9. Companies that are advertising need to spend enough money for the average person in the target audience group to see the ad at least three times in one month
That's called frequency in media buying. It is the rule of thumb based on advertising recall and tracking research that a company needs to spend enough money so their ad is seen or heard by the intended target audience at least three times a month.
This is because ads are interruptions and generally don't have important "news".
If you have a small ad budget, narrow your target audience. For instance, instead of targeting all women, target moms with young children.
Ads placed at low frequency levels generally don't work so if you don't have enough money to buy with enough media "weight" (an industry term for reach/frequency levels), then choose another type of marketing.
10. For product ads, turn features into benefits for the prospect
Features are specifications which are helpful to experienced buyers, but not to prospects. See for yourself in the following example, which is more convincing? This is a 300 dpi printer (specification/feature) or this printer enables you to print lab-quality photos at home (benefit.)
12. Whenever possible, use facts and specific numbers to support the benefits
For example, this printer enables you to print lab-quality photos at home because of it’s 300 dots per inch printing capability.
13. Don't use jargon in ads to attract prospects
Use everyday language that everyone understands, not words that are known only in your business or industry.
Have someone in junior high read your copy and ask them to circle all the words they don't understand. Then change the words and try again until they understand what you are saying
Next page - more advertising tips
Advertising Tips on How to Save Time, Money and Get Better Results
Researching marketing products or services to buy?
-
Top Marketing Suppliers
- Reviews are written and continuously updated by editors.
- We don't accept advertising and we don't participate in affiliate deals so our subscribers can rely on us for credible, honest reviews.
-
How to Find, Select and Pay Agencies and Freelancers
- Best Sources to Find Marketing Freelancers to Hire
Copyright © 2009 - 2012 by MarketingZone™ Inc. All rights reserved.
No part of this work, including design, content, and underlying technology on all pages, may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, screen capture, and recording or by an information storage or retrieval system, without the prior written consent of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations referenced with full attribution. Pages may be printed for the sole use of the person printing them. MarketingZone content is available via content license. Address inquiries to licensing@marketingzone.com.
MarketingZone™ is a trademark of MarketingZone, Inc.
Comment on This Article