Advertising: How To Choose The Right Strategy
Advertising is essential for getting your business the exposure it needs. But there are so many different types of advertising – which strategy is right for you? To help you narrow down the best strategy, here are some of the important factors that you should consider.
Intention: Brand Awareness vs Direct Leads
The majority of advertising today is designed to make people aware of your brand and not necessarily encourage direct leads. The goal is often to make people familiar with your brand name and logo so that when they do need your product or service, they choose you over less familiar brands. This is particularly the case with luxury products.
That said, there are times when advertising can be used to generate direct leads. This could include advertising essential services like a taxi service on a poster outside a bar or advertising a low cost novelty gift in the lead up to Xmas on social media to encourage impulse purchases. Make sure to include clear calls to action.
Channel: Online vs Offline
Online advertising has become the most popular form of advertising. It’s easier to precisely target and you can often measure results more clearly with analytics. If you want to target specific people and see how well your ads are doing, choose online advertising.
Offline advertising includes TV, radio, newspapers and billboards. It’s generally higher cost, but it can build more trust and you can more precisely target certain regions and locations where you consumers may be found (especially with posters and billboards).
Format: Visual vs Audial
A lot of companies focus on visual advertising. This is typically the best approach with many physical products like food, clothes and furniture. Static visual adverts cost less, while videos can bring stories to life.
The power of audio is sometimes overlooked, but can be very effective. Many people still listen to the radio and audio tricks like jingles used in radio advertising can be great for helping people to remember your brand. Audio can also be used within videos, but be careful relying too heavily on audio when posting video ads on social media as many people have videos automatically muted.
Reach: Niche vs Broad
It’s very important to consider who you are targeting. Is it a general audience or a very specific group of people? Most companies have a certain key demographic within their audience. Important demographic factors to consider include:
- Location: If you’re targeting a local audience, you might want to work with a local advertising agency that understands the area. When targeting a specific overseas country, think about using a marketing agency from that country to help you.
- Age: Younger audiences and older audiences will respond better to different vocabulary, imagery and music.
- Gender: Is your product or service more likely to be used by a certain gender? If so, it could be important to use the right imagery and tone.
- Interests/industry: Certain products and services may appeal to people with certain industries or to businesses within a certain industry. Think about how to precisely target the interests or industries (this could include adverts in niche magazines or using interest labels on Facebook).
Budget: Small vs Large
Don’t have much money to spend on advertising? Some advertising strategies are better for a smaller budget such as short PPC ad campaigns.
If you’ve got a much larger budget, you may be able to consider more elaborate advertising such as billboards, video adverts and radio adverts. You may even be able to target high-visibility locations like airports or even get a video advert on TV. Typically, such strategies are better for large companies or high value products – you need to make sure that the ad spend is worth the return in revenue.