Seven Secrets for Successful Advertising
We hate to break it to you, but just because you advertise doesn’t mean you’re automatically guaranteed a successful campaign. You can, however, take a few simple steps to ensure your advertising is as successful as possible.
1. Do your research
Advertising is all about knowing your audience. If you don’t know your audience, how are you supposed to craft your message? Before you even think about designing an ad, do your research. Who is your target audience? How old are they? Are they mostly men or women? If you can’t answer these questions about your audience, you’re not ready to advertise. The No. 1 secret to advertising success is to know your consumer. Once you know this, you can move on to figuring out the best way to connect with them.
2. Pick the perfect placement
Once you know your audience, you’re automatically set up for success. You know who is buying your products. Now you need to find out what they’re reading and where they’re searching. The best way to do this is to pull up media kits from a variety of publications. Then you can match your target audience’s demographics to the publications’ demographics.
For example, say your target audience is male business owners around the age of 40. If you took a look at Entrepreneur’s media kit, you’d realize this publication is a great fit for your product. See how important doing your research is? The more specific you can be with your audience, the more specific you can be with placement. This, in turn, leads to a lot more success than just printing your ad in the first magazine you see. This goes for digital advertising, as well.
3. Choose an eye-catching design
You’ve done your research, and you’ve finally chosen the perfect place to run. Now you need to capture your audience’s attention with a standout design. Just because you’re in front of your target audience doesn’t mean they’re going to stop and pay attention.
Choose an image that appeals to your target. Use colors that fit your product and brand. Make your design bright, crisp and clear. Additionally, don’t forget to add your logo somewhere in the design. Your ads should make it easy for potential customers to find and purchase your products.
4. Make it memorable
On average, Americans see between 4,000 to 10,000 ads each day. Yes, each day. Shoppers are bombarded with a multitude of products, deals and advertisements every day. In order to be successful, you need to create something memorable.
Your ad needs to make consumers stop and stare. Try making it funny, sad or heartfelt. Appealing to shoppers’ emotions is a great way to make them remember your product. They might not remember every aspect of your advertisement, but they’ll remember how it made them feel.
5. Make it unique
Making it unique isn’t much different than making it memorable, but it’s equally important. When designing an ad, you can’t just steal another company’s great idea and replace it with your logo and product. That’s not how advertising works. You can, however, use a great ad or campaign as inspiration. Just remember to make the advertisement your own in the end.
As mentioned above, consumers are bombarded with thousands of ads every day. Your success depends on how well you’re able to differentiate yourself from those other ads. When designing your advertising, you need to find your product’s or company’s unique selling proposition (USP). This is the one thing that sets your product apart from the rest. What does your product or company do that no one else on the market does? Focus your advertising on that.
6. Don’t be too promotional
Here’s the hard part: you need to sell without selling. What we mean by that is you need to offer your consumer something he/she wants without coming off like a cheesy sales pitch. Show shoppers what your product can do for them, how it can improve their lives, and why they can’t live without it.
Focus on your consumer and how your product solves his/her problems. Stay away from telling consumers why your business is the best or why you’re the best. Shoppers don’t care that you think your business is great; they care about how you can help them improve their lives.
7. Promote it
Okay, we know we just got through saying you shouldn’t be too promotional, but let us explain.
When designing your creative, it’s important to stay away from being super promotional. However, once your ad is published or live, and on newsstands or websites, it’s a totally different story. Now is a great time to be promotional. Show your followers and fans where they can find you, send out an email to customers telling them you’ve been featured in Magazine X, and possibly even give discounts or a special item to consumers who find your advertisements. Not only will this increase your reach, but it will also help your business gain credibility.
These seven tips will put your business on the path to advertising success. Keep in mind, success isn’t instant, but if you stay consistent with your campaign, you will absolutely see growth.