 Introduction When your business advertises, does it do so effectively? Are you encouraging customers and sales, or are you throwing money away? A huge number of businesses spend money on placing adverts that are ineffective or prepared without any thought to the aims or target audience. This article looks at what advertising can do for your business, as well as what you can do to produce and monitor effective adverts; including help on whether you should create an advert yourself, or pay someone else to do it. What are the Aims of Your Advertising?Contrary to popular belief, advertising is not always just about increasing sales (although that is usually the long term goal!); the following are the key aims that your adverts can try to achieve. Some businesses run different adverts with different aims over a period of time.
These aims should be in place even if you pay an external company to do your adverts; by knowing what your aims are, you will help them to produce better work.
Encouraging Sales
One of the most important aspects of advertising is encouraging sales; after all, without sales you wouldn’t be able to afford to place them. When you want to encourage sales, you need to give customers a reason to visit you; that could be cheap prices, good service, or even the fact that you are the only such business in the local area. Increase Knowledge of Company
A large number of adverts are designed simply to increase potential customer’s knowledge or awareness of the company. I.e.: Advertising to help brand your business.
This kind of advertising often takes place when a business starts up; to help establish the name and identity with its targeted market. It can also be useful if you change the business name or move into a new location where you are unknown.
When you want to increase the knowledge of your company, you need to inform customers of who you are and what you do. You may also want to inform them of where you are located. A key part of this is ensuring that potential customers are aware of your name; otherwise how will they be able to find you?
Increase Interest in a Product
This type of advertising is designed to make customers want to find out more about a particular product; hopefully leading to a sale in the near future. This type of advertising is commonly used for new products or for large items where the customer will want to take their time over the purchase.
For example: If you and your competitors both launch a near identical new product at the same time, this type of advertising will help to encourage customers to view your product first.
When you want to increase interest in a product, you need to inform customers of what the product is, and give basic information as to its benefits. These adverts usually include some kind of encouragement for the customer to act; “Try it now!”, “Take a test drive!”, “Find out more here…”
Create a Different Image
This type of advert is less common than the others; it is designed to give customers a different view of your company. For example: You may have an incorrect image as an expensive company; so you advertise that you are in fact reasonably priced; or that your better service or other features are worth the extra cost.
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