Important Tips For Offline Advertising

Last Updated: August 22, 2009

Remember!

Know Your Limitations!

If you do not have the experience or knowledge to create a professional quality advert, then pay for someone else to do it. It is much better to pay for someone with direct professional experience in advertising than throw money away on placing a bad advert.

£2000 on creating a good advert and £2000 using it is better than £4000 spent using a bad advert!

Recall

It is common knowledge that it takes around three to five viewings for consumers to remember the details of an average advert.

With this in mind, you should not expect to get maximum results from running an advert one or twice, but should plan how you can get the best exposure in the places you wish to advertise.

For example: You m ay anticipate getting the best results by running a medium sized advert four times instead of a large one run twice.

Don’t forget that your advert must communicate effectively who the advert is for; if people cannot remember what business the advert refers to then they are not able to respond. Many popular and otherwise good adverts (for both small and large businesses) have come unstuck because they do not communicate the business or brand name well enough.

Basic Ad Service

If you are advertising in newspapers, many of them offer to create an advert for you. This involves you giving them the exact information you want in the advert; and they produce it on your behalf.

This is useful for small and local advertising; but the adverts are mostly basic, and will not be to the same standards as a professionally designed advert.

Work Together

If you pay for an external company to create your advert, then be sure to provide as much information as you can when asked. The key to good results is combining your knowledge of your business and market with their knowledge of advertising and consumers.

The company may ask for (or help you construct) a ‘brief’ (I.e.: What do you want the advert to do…), this should be a slightly more detailed version of your aims for the advert as discussed previously; and allows them to work towards what you want.

For example: “A magazine advert that emphasises the quality of our service whilst keeping in mind our reasonable prices. It should be aimed at our key customers, 18-35 year olds; and match our image as a friendly local business.”