Through the years, brands small and large have used advertising of all kinds to grow their customer base and edge out their competition. So you may be asking yourself: “What’s the best way to advertise my products and services?” or “How can I engage my desired audience as effectively as possible?” If you’re looking to shed some light on these ideas and find out which kinds of advertising will generate the most bang for your buck, read on.
The Ways Brands Advertise Today
There are more methods of advertising available today than ever before: TV/paid programming, radio, print ads, direct mail campaigns, product placement, outdoor advertising, ads through sponsored events, ads through public service announcements; and of course all the forms of digital marketing, like search engine optimization (SEO), pay-per-click ads and social media marketing.
So what methods will work the best for your brand? What methods will have the most immediate impact? With all these options, figuring that out is tricky, and the answer is almost never a simple one–there is no one-size-fits-all solution.
In truth, any and/or all of the methods above can be effective, and keeping an open mind is important. The way forward is to define a comprehensive advertising strategy and to begin viewing these different methods as specific tactics that can all play a role in that overarching strategy.
Questions to Ask Yourself
The right advertising strategy for your business depends on your unique situation:
- Who are you trying to reach? You need to know your buyer persona, where they are located physically and digitally, and what kinds of advertising they are most likely to respond to.
- What message do you want to deliver? You should have a unique selling proposition (USP) with a strong call to action (CTA) that will capture the audience and attention you’re looking for.
- When should I deliver my campaign? Timing is also key–you need to make impressions when they are most likely to reach the largest portion of your audience possible, and at a time when that audience is most likely to take up your call to action.
- How will I know if my campaign is working? It’s vital to have end goals in mind before you begin. You should know specifically what you’re trying to achieve, and what campaign metrics you need to track to determine how effective your efforts are. If not, it will be very difficult to tell what parts of the campaign you need to tweak to get the results you need.
Your Return on Investment
Arguably the most important factor in making your advertising choices is how well you’ve accounted for your campaign budget. The more thoroughly you’ve nailed down your strategy and tied it into what you can afford, the more likely you are to see a return on your investment–and all successful campaigns generate an ROI.
Ad placement, cost per conversion, message timing, and target audience are all key to any successful advertising campaign. If you don’t use the right type of ad or get in front of the right audience at the right time, your ad budget will be wasted, resulting in lost ROI and a failed ad campaign.
As we mentioned before, figuring out the best advertising methods for your brand is rarely simple. Luckily, marketing agencies with decades of experience can offer their skills in several areas to make that process much easier.
- Media Buying – full-service media strategy, planning, and buying solutions along with partnerships with media channels in dozens of cities across the country to make sure your message is accessible and far-reaching.
- Advertising Creative – full-service creative solutions, such as copywriting, graphic design, photography & videography to generate the highest quality content for the greatest impact on your audience.
- Digital Strategies – sound digital marketing tactics to help you make sense of the seemingly endless options for advertising online, as well as tracking every relevant customer engagement metric to figure out what works.
- Events & Promotions – tour and event marketing with planning promotions at live events such as creative signage and brand engagement activations, as well as strategic product placement that allows you to engage meaningfully and directly with potential consumers.
There are more options for advertising today than ever before, and rest assured the competition is trying their very best to have a handle on all of them. Nailing down the right tactics and finding which direction makes the most sense for your business can be tough, but with the right support and expertise at your side, any advertising method can make the difference for sustained growth in today’s climate.
For any questions, please feel free to contact us here at any time. Cheers!
