Advertising For All

Talk to almost any advertising agency, or Fortune 500 company exec about advertising and promotion, and you will almost certainly hear the buzz words “fragmented advertising” and “consumer-centric campaigns” and long discussions about the many pitfalls and difficulties of creating effective advertising campaigns today.

What is fragmentation exactly? It’s the increase in the number of available methods for getting your message to your audience.

One of the main difficulties faced by any entrepreneur is that advertising has changed and evolved over the last few years. It now includes visual, audio and electronic media.

In fact, if you do a Google search for advertising, you may feel overwhelmed by all the options available to you now — if you just look at the options for your Website you’ll find popups, popovers, audio messages, flash video, RSS, even animated “sales people” that can be programmed to appear right on your Website and interact with your customers. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg!

So is traditional advertising — which includes billboards, radio, television, newspaper and magazine — dead?

Not by a long shot. According to one top advertising mogul, traditional advertising methods are still around because they still work.

The trick is to figure out who your target market is, what they want, and how they look for that information.

Mark Twain said, “Many a small thing has been made large by the right kind of advertising.”

If you know customers, you can spend your advertising dollars on the mediums they use to look for answers.

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 listening to.

If your target market are working parents, you need to know how, when and where they get their information. Is it on the Internet? What radio stations do they listen to? What magazines are they reading? Do they watch television? When? Why?

So what are your best options for creating an effective advertising campaign?

Here are some simple steps:

1. Know your audience. What do they want? Where do they shop? What do they read? How old are they? Where do they hang out? Do they need your product or services? Can they afford your product or services?

2. Know your competition. Be prepared to do a little detective work. What are your three main competitors doing to advertise? Where are they advertising? How often? What types of advertising methods are they using? How long have they been running? Are you reaching the same audience? Is your message different?

Look at what they’re doing right, and figure out creative ways that you can make your advertising just a little bit better, or differentiate yourself from the crowd.

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 audience and your budget.

4. Know your message. What exactly are you trying to say? What do your customers want to hear? Why should they buy from you, and not someone else? Make every word count.

Chances are, your customers are much more tech-savvy than they were five years ago, or even one year ago. The Internet has made unbelievable amounts of information accessible, but it also has contributed to the “information overload” consumers complain of.

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. Are you giving your customers what they want, when they want it?

If you want to have an effective 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.

Traditional advertising is not dead and you can use it to your advantage if you pay attention to who your customers are, and what they want.

If you are just starting out as a web developer or have a small budget for advertising, there are plenty of ways to advertise your web site for free.  Here are a few tips.

There are many ways to advertise your web site for free such as reciprocal links, direct links, banner exchanges and posting on blogs. No matter what your site topic is, you can find free advertising easily on the web.  You can easily create articles and distribute them for other sites to post as long as they contain your author name and web site link.  You can find banner exchanges that will allow you to create a banner and place it on dozens of other web sites as long as you reciprocate and do the same for other advertisers.

For people that like to write, you can find plenty of popular blogs and write your opinion or give information.  You can then place your web site link onto the blog.  Many blog developers are extremely against spam blogs, but if you add valuable information, most blog developers don’t mind at all a free plug.  So if you are looking for great ways to advertise, follow the above tips and get your web site.

The truth is that there is no magic secret to online advertising. No one method will generate the largest amount of income/exposure for every website or business imaginable – it’s all a matter of trial and error, time and talent.

That’s a pretty weak answer, I know. It would have been much cooler for me to tell you that buying tiny classified ads in your local paper was the key to success and riches. Well, I’m sorry. For the few of you that have been down this road before and are starting to get it, you’ll hear a ring of truth in my words. The sooner you stop looking for a quick fix to make your message stick, the better.

For what it’s worth, these are my thoughts.

1) The internet has only been alive for a few short years, and in that time it has changed dramatically many times over. Remember in 1995 when everyone first discovered the cool little animated envelope .gif that you would click on to send them email? Where was your online bill-pay, instant messaging, and dynamically generated page content then? And only a few short years later you can see how far we’ve come and use that as a measure for how far we can go.

The point is that the internet, like other forms of media, is a rapidly evolving monster. What works for online advertisers today might be completely ineffectual only a few months from now. That’s why the best advertisers are constantly researching and creating their own unique marketing strategies. The trick is to find out what works for you, and to make sure that you revisit it from time to time to tune it up as the market changes.

2) You Have to Spend Money to Make Money.  It’s a tired line, but it’s that way because everyone says it. Don’t be afraid to add fuel to your advertising fire and take it to another level. Try investing (note that I said investing and not spending) five, ten, or fifty thousand dollars in advertising. If you don’t jump out a window the first time you do it, you may walk away with a big smile and a little pocket money!

The hard part about investing a big chunk of money is coming up with it in the first place. If you already have $50,000 laying around for advertising and are just looking for a place to put it, give me a call. If you’re not that lucky, try looking at the Small Business Administration for ideas on how to get a small business loan.

If you don’t want to go farther than your mailbox, examine some of those credit checks your bank keeps sending you in the mail. A lot of people take advantage of their fairly reasonable interest rates to fund projects.

3) Presentation is Key. You’ll find that excellent writing skills and good marketing go hand in hand. As you improve on one, the other is bound to follow. Knowing how to write, and how to write well will give you an extraordinary advantage of the majority of individuals vying for your customers’ attention. I don’t know about you, but I get a lot of spam for people wanting to sell me their “good, cheap, A+ #1 $$$ rolex watch, discount Viagra, H0t s1utz, etc.”

Needless to say, I have never purchased anything from them and most likely, neither have you. If you have, please drop me a line and let me know how it worked out. I’m always wondering how many of those are a scam.

The emails and circulars that I do purchase from come from GoDaddy, buy.com, Google and a host of other professional companies that take a few minutes to earn my trust with good punctuation, grammar, and quality content.

If you don’t have a talent for writing (and you know who you are) you have two choices:

Get better – easier said than done. Like most things, writing is one part talent and nine parts hard work. Take some classes, do peer editing suggestions, or send it to me look over (first ten-thousand submissions only).

Or, get someone else to do it – leaving more time for you at the helm. I like this option not only because it’s a time saver for me, but also because the work generally comes out better than anything I could have done. This article is an excellent example. I provided a detailed outline, some good anecdotes, and the strategies above and the copywriters at danifer.com did the rest. I made a deal with them to write the article for $149 and we share the syndication rights. Not bad for half an hour’s work.

If you can’t afford to hire a pro, be courteous to yourself and your audience by simply re-reading your work, running a spell check, and letting your wife/husband/friend/co-worker look it over. You’d be surprised at how many things invisible to you will stand out to a fresh set of eyes.

Entrepreneurs these days work hard to take their business to the next level. Now, they are frequently using Internet as an important medium for advertising. To create brand awareness and to reach universal markets, online advertising is now excessively used. In India alone, over 41,000 advertisers have advertised on Internet, which means around 46 million advertisers. This makes India a sizeable target market for Internet advertisers.
Due to rise in competition, online advertisement agency or online advertising companies are hired. They help in promotion and well planned advertising. This also proves that advertising is the major part of promotional blend and also is crucial for achieving success. It is always a good idea to start the advertising campaign with best planning and proper coordination of advertising agency and advertising company.

It is acknowledgeable that online advertising is valuable since it reaches out more and is best for the advertisers. Any person of any social segment can view online advertisements. Another main positive feature of online advertising is that this type of advertising is not restricted by time zones or geographical boundaries.
To create an impact on potential customer and to ensure good returns, advertisers don’t hesitate on ad spends. They are assured that returns would be considerably good. A successful advertising campaign becomes obvious only when ads are placed right and are targeted perfectly.

The many search engines on Internet have drawn attention towards advertising through information technology. This helps common buyer also deeply as a person always tries to find out more about the product before buying the needful product of service.
If a person wants to go for banner advertising, then a lot of aspects those have to be managed intentionally. A professional Internet advertising agency or an Internet advertising company can be appointed for it.
Internet advertising comes under new media. Online advertising or Internet advertising is a whole new world of potential. It is not just cheaper but a very fast medium also. Youngsters spend a lot of time online; therefore to get money, tricks like ‘click through’ on advertisements are uses. In some collages, companies give free Internet access. For any company; youngsters are a major market, therefore most feasible to create brand familiarity. For this purpose companies provide free games, chat rooms, free downloads, etc. By doing this, the advertiser tends to create a positive notion for the product in youngsters mind.

What is Interactive Marketing?

We’re all familiar with the popular pay per click advertisements that many eBiz owners employ a very effective tool for driving traffic to your website. But according to Jackie Peters, Chief Creative Officer of HeavyBagMedia, the real question is, “once they get [to your site] what is their experience going to be like?”

Peters’ company helps many of its clients launch campaigns designed to pull, not push, customers in through a process known as interactive marketing. By engaging your audience with relevant content they can actually experience, you give them a reason to stay once they’re there—and a reason to come back. Online gaming, message boards, short videos, mobile content, email and SMS are just a few examples of interactive marketing.

Be Relevant to Your Market

You need to know your customer base and design your interactive marketing campaign to fit their needs. If you sell Metamucil to a target audience that’s over fifty, online gaming and SMS are probably not your best advertising bets. On the other hand, if your niche market is teens and ‘tweens, those could both be very enticing features. There are basically three keys to interactive marketing: relevance, relevance, and relevance. The following are just some practical examples of using interactive marketing to connect with your audience.

•If you send out an e-newsletter, give your customers a reason to read it—don’t just tell them what you’re selling. Talk about something they’ll care about. If you sell shot glasses, your customers would probably like to know how to play the new drinking game you learned over the holidays. And while they’re reading, they’ll just happen to see the new products you’re offering as well.
•Get creative: find some popular blogs that pertain to what you’re selling and send them samples. Ask them to review it on their blogs.

•With mobile content, you’re sending interesting and relevant messages to opt-in customers’ mobile phones and saying, “Hey, we brought this to you.” The Mobile Marketing Association can provide you with both information on the way mobile content is being used and resources for getting set up if you choose to use that option in your advertising campaign.

Branding

States Peters, “A brand is a lot more than a company and a logo… It’s a relationship between the brand and the audience.” Interactive marketing can really give you a leg up on making that connection to your audience and engaging them. That’s how you differentiate yourself from every other web store out there. The goal is for your brand to become a part of your customers’ lives—you’re on their phones, their computers and in their inboxes. When they think of the type of goods you sell, they think of you!

During a email campaign address to your clients, members or mailing list subscribers it is also necessary to monitor it and know when your emails are actually read.
The “Email Marketing Use and Trends Report: H1 2004″ created upon the information collected from the MailerMailer’s 70 million clients, proved the following :

1. Email checking
The same day you send the email – This is when most of your targeted audience ( 80% ) will receive and read your email. 95% of your target audience will receive and read your email after 6 days of delivery.

2. Failed Email
Sending out a email can fail  : when one of your subscribers changed his/her’s email address without letting you know, if the email is marked as spam or if the email server of one of your subscriber(s) is not responding or it’s offline.
A recent study proved that the failure rate when sending the first 5 emails to your subscribers is 6,6%, after you delete the invalid email addresses from your mailing list the failure rate when down to 3,9%.
Sending an email to goverment institutions will have a smaller failure rate ( 2,41% ), e-commerce companies ( 3,8%) and real estate agencies ( 4,19%).

3. Opening and viewing the email
It is already know and proved that sending an email to goverment institutions, telecommunication companies, ecommerce companies, real estate agencies, have the highest receving and reading rate. Most of them receive and read your email within the first 48 hours.
Also, emails sent on Monday’s have a bigger receving & reading rate compared to the other days of the week.

4. Link clicking
Emails containing links were accessed in a proportion of 4,27%.

Even if a small number of emails are send during the weekend, the ones that were sent on Saturday( 5,11%) and the ones sent on Sunday(5,54%) were received and read often then thouse sent during the week. In the same time, emails with a personalized subject were opened and read by more people than thouse that just had personalized content or thouse that were not personalized at all.

Be smart when sending out emails. Creating and maintaining a mailing list can be a very effective tool that you can use when running a web site or a online business.

Successful businesses know the importance of building and maintaining good working relationships, whether it is with partners, employees, business or trade organizations, the government, media representatives, vendors, consumers, or the community at large.  A business must carefully balance the benefits of these interpersonal relationships and should never allow these relationships to blind their judgment especially when it relates to what is in the best interest of the business’s continued success and growth

Buying advertising media based on interpersonal relationships is a common mistake made by many small businesses.  This strategy throws the business’s strategic marketing plan into the winds of chance in exchange for the warm and fuzzy feelings that come with doing business among friends.  However, when the smoke clears the business has made costly advertising expenditures with little or no results and the long term negative effects may not readily be seen.  Simply, the marketing / advertising expenditures have been made, the budget may or may not be busted, and the results may be none to little measurable penetration into the business’s target demographic market segment.

Is buying media from a friend in the business always bad?  No, however in order to choose the most effective media channels a business must first consider the audience or customer it is trying to reach.  Developing a strong sense of the target demographics’ buying and shopping patterns, interests and hobbies, entertainment and media choices for example will lend itself a tremendous benefit to making informed media buying choices.  Once the advertising business has developed a strong sense of what media channels may prove to be the most effective it should try each a little at a time carefully tracking the results of each.  Once this is complete the business will be able to make an educated decision on where to invest its marketing dollars, prioritizing expenditures into the mediums that have proven results for the business.

It is true that strong interpersonal relationships skills and the ability to develop and maintain good working relationships with a variety of people, businesses, and other organizations are imperative in today’s business environments.  However, the importance of a well designed and implemented strategic marketing plan can not be understated and is paramount to the business’s development and longevity never taking second seat to friendship.

In most promotional material, aside from the attractive colors and images, the content serves as the primary enticing factor that lures customers to visit your store or give you a call.

Words are important in expressing your ideas. The shortest words are the best and the briefest sentences are best. You should remember that in creating ads a distinct and clear-cut impression is best expressed by short words and short sentences. A good ad and a good salesman both show appreciation of words and their effect. Neither says too little and both are interesting and business-like in their remarks. Take a look at the most successful business man. Analyze his style of dealing his customers. You would note that the great charm of spontaneity and off handedness accompanies his remarks. He is intelligent, satisfactory and specific.

Now, note that the language of your advertisement should be like the successful business man. It should be specific to the degree that it gives necessary information in a business-like style. Keep in mind that a good ad is original because it tells the tale of your values in a manner peculiar to itself. If you have real interest in your products and can write exactly what you feel regarding their qualities, you will find no difficulty in investing your ads with sufficient originality to make them interesting. But originality for originality’s sake does not amount to so much in advertising. It is second to genuineness, brevity and clearness.

So let’s say you want to produce that winning poster or brochure. Your focus should not only be the design but the content as well. You must carefully choose the words that you will use. It does not really matter if you only have a few words as long as you are able to effectively carry your message across to your customers. With a good headline and content, chances are you will encourage your prospects to take a second look at your goods. Understand that a good headline possesses a distinct financial value. Its commercial importance is proven by the increased business it influences as compared with the trade brought by the ordinary advertisement capped with the ordinary headline.

Remember also that there is a very slim line between knowing too much and knowing too little about the products to be advertised. The right kind of an advertising writer sees the goods through the eyes of the public. Seeing the goods thus, he speaks the arguments best designed to influence the public. Hence, most of the time a good headline and content is not enough. You have to also make sure that the content can effectively influence your prospects.

The 19th century was the year of trade catalogs. This era saw a revolution in the business and industrial history as reflected in these trade catalogs. The Industrial Revolution evident in this century was a major force in the modernization of the business industry. Aside from new methods of producing goods that brought down its prices, even making luxury items available to ordinary people, this period as evident in the catalogs began offering goods and services to customers in addition to traders. The growth of trade catalogs in this period has provided a distinct way of life for all people both at home and at work. These catalogs even brought traces of development that changed the life of all Americans and brought in a modern lifestyle.

But what are these trade catalogs? Trade catalogs are generally similar to the retail catalogs existing today. They describe and illustrate business products and services. With trade catalogs, it is possible to understand clearly the market for goods and what is actually available for sale at a given period. But just like the catalogs that are produced today, trade catalogs were also intended to be used and thrown out eventually. But some businesses and manufacturers produce catalogs with hard covers so customers can keep them for a long time. And if ever there are price changes and additional products, they just send out an updated price lists for the items in the catalog rather than printing and issuing a new catalog.

Trade catalogs were also a major force in advances in printing technology. Advances in machine presses and lithography significantly reduced the cost of producing informative and captivating catalogs and enhanced the quality of printed marketing materials. Recently though researchers have used trade catalogs as a tool for historical research. These catalogs used for research covers a wide range of subject areas such as manufacturing, textile, household and consumer products and leisure goods among others. Hence, trade catalogs have certainly illustrated a broader context of the 19th century American advertising history. They have chronicled the development of different styles and tastes of the people and have been a valuable and useful source of information for those interested in trends in the business industry.

Your online business will likely require more advertising than a contemporary business downtown, yet some new to the world of online business do not spend the time and money to advertise their business appropriately and are, in turn, loosing money. Your online business is crammed into the world wide web along with thousands of others selling the same product or service as yourself. Consider this scenario: In your hometown you want to open an art supply store. In that same town there are thousands of art supply stores. In order for your business to be successful, it will have to stand out in some way from the others. This is exactly what is happening when a business is opened online. There is so much competition, that you must take drastic measures to ensure that you are getting noticed. Advertising can be done in so many ways online. These are some of the most successful ways that you can promote your online business.

Advertising in e-zines is a popular way to promote your online business. Ezines are the magazines of the internet; they written on a particular subject and read by those interested in that subject. Therefore, ezine readers are already potential customers and advertising your site in ezines that are related to your business is almost guaranteed to help drive traffic to your site and increase sales for your product. You should be sure when advertising in ezines that you are not advertising along side competitors. Ask the ezine producer if there is a policy concerning posting competing ads. It is also a good idea to subscribe to the ezine before making a decision about whether or not to advertise in it. An ezine that runs fewer ads is a better choice than one that runs many ads. You can look at the online Directory of Ezines to find publications that are relevant to your company.

Pay-per-click programs are an excellent way to advertise your business without taking a risk that you have advertised in the wrong place. With pay-per-click, you can advertise you site and only pay for those who click the link and go to your site. Another popular pay-per program is the pay-per-lead program that allows you to only pay for leads. Usually this means that you pay for only those who download a trail, fill out a form or enter a sweepstakes; whatever you choose. Lastly you can display pay-per-click banner ads in which your company would be allowed to place a banner on their site and you will be charged for every click that your banner receives.

Opt-In email is a great way to advertise your business, however it is expensive and it can be misused very easily. Using opt-in emails, you would
submit your sales copy to the company that will in turn email it to those on their mailing list. You should be very careful since some of the companies that advertise their mailing lists as opt-in email service is sometimes really SPAM. It is essential that you have a perfect and effective sales letter when using opt-in mailing lists. Without and effective sales copy your money and time have been wasted.