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Is Traditional Advertising Dead?
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 is 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.
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