You’ve probably heard the old saying – I know that half of my advertising dollars are wasted, if I only knew which half! Although it’s not possible to know all the factors that go into effective advertising, there are a few elements that are crucial to an ad campaign that is profitable. If you strive to achieve as many of the following 7 factors as possible, you can be confident that you’ll have a winning campaign.
1) Choose an appropriate medium to convey your message. This is so obvious, but you’d be amazed at how many people don’t use common sense when buying media. If you’re trying to reach a 14 year old, don’t buy an ad in the daily paper – buy the radio station that plays hip hop music! Try to target your advertising as much as possible. Think about the person you’re trying to reach with your message. The more you know about that person, the easier this will be.
If you’re selling clothing to working women, buying TV is probably not a good idea. They’re probably so busy doing household chores and taking kids to various activities, they probably don’t have time to watch much TV. But billboards and radio are great because she’s probably on the road a lot and those media fit for that audience.
2) Don’t believe that everyone uses media the way you or your spouse does. Just because you don’t like a certain program on TV doesn’t mean that your potential customer doesn’t like it – they may be big fans and never miss an episode.
Don’t assume that everyone reads the newspaper because everyone you know does. Ask for information about the medium’s audience – let your rep show you exactly who is watching/reading/listening/driving by/surfing their medium.
3) Don’t judge the price of the ad by the dollar amount alone. Just because an ad is expensive doesn’t mean it isn’t a good buy – and the opposite is true also. If an ad is cheap, but no one reads or sees it, it’s worthless to you. If an ad is reaching tens of thousands of people for $1,000, it might be a good buy if those are the people who are in the market for your product.
Try to gauge the real value of an ad by the cost per thousand or cost per rating point (for TV, radio & cable). If you’re not familiar with those terms, ask your ad rep – they will be happy to fill you in. (And if they aren’t, find a new rep.)
4) Develop a relationship with your customers and prospects. This is another thing that should be obvious, but very few companies actually do this. Proctor and Gamble has found that this is what makes them money. And it makes sense. If people trust your brand and feel that they know your company, they’re far more likely to buy your products. This is actually easier to do as a smaller business than a large one – and many local businesses have done this for years.
It may be schmaltzy, but when the local furniture store owner is on camera for all his TV commercials, people develop a relationship of sorts with him or her. They feel like they know that business. Anytime you can link a personality – even if it’s not a celebrity – to a business, that makes that business stand out. This is an important element that there’s not nearly enough room to cover – so think this one through for your business and come up with ways (and they can be very simple) to develop a relationship with your customers and prospects. An email newsletter is a simple, cheap and very effective way to do this, by the way.
5) Have a hook. Give people something that makes them remember you. Big companies spend millions on this – and for a good reason – it sells stuff. Whatever you do, don’t say “for the best in service and quality” – no one will believe you! If you want to convey that message, have one of your customers give a testimonial on camera – have them describe how you provided them with great service and quality. Give details.
A hook needs to be simple, memorable and if possible, fun or heartwarming. The Taco Bell Chihuahua is a good example – the Pillsbury Doughboy is another one. Do something different and let people know about it. Give them a reason to choose your company over your competitors.
6) Be relevant. Talk to your prospects in your advertising – let them know that you feel their pain and are going to help them make it go away. If you’re talking about something they can’t relate to, they’ll ignore you. There are way too many advertising messages in the world today – and people have learned to tune them out unless they click with something that is important to them. You know how this works – you do the same thing.
If you’re sick of how your car is nickel & dimming you lately, you suddenly are much more aware of ads for cars. Find out why people buy your product and talk about how you will give that to them. It’s really pretty simple – but an overwhelming majority of businesses totally miss this.
7) Make sure you know what you’re trying to get your prospect to do. Do you want them to come to your store and buy a specific product? Or do you want them to call your business to get an estimate on a project so your sales person can close the sale in person? The more specific you are in your call to action (please make sure to include one!), the more likely your audience will do what you want them to do.
All of the elements that go into your advertising – the media, the creative, the copywriting, the call to action – create a synergistic result. The more focused you are with any of those elements, the better your results will be. It’s always crucial to measure your ad results. Determine what you want to achieve and include devices that will allow you to determine whether or not you achieved your goal. Then you can tweak results from there.
Kevin Sinclair
http://www.articlesbase.com/advertising-articles/7-factors-of-an-effective-advertising-campaign-140460.html
1. What have been the key success factors for Sony?
Sony Started as a radio repair shop, founded by Masuru Ikura and Akio Morita after Would War II. The company began its long history of producing compact consumer electronics in 1957, when it introduced the World’s first pocket-sized all-transistor radio. The company’s name, Sony, was taken from Sony, the Latin word for “sound” Sony went on to invest a series of transistor-based TVs and increasingly smaller audiocassette recorders. In 1979, the Sony Walkman introduced the World to a new, portable way of listening to music. Sony became a world leader in consumer electronics and was the first Japanese company to have its shares traded on the New York Stock Exchange.
In the late 1980s, Sony began expanding into media, purchasing a U.S. record company (CSB records for $22 billion in 1988). And a major Hollywood studio (Columbia Pictures for $4.9 billion in 1989). The purchases made Sony a major force in the entertainment industry.
The importance of marketing at Sony started with Akio Morita, who said that for a company to be successful, it must have three kinds of creativity: creativity to make inventions, creativity in planning and production, and creativity in marketing.
Creativity in marketing at Sony means not just cleaver ads, but deep insight into its customers. For example, Sony knows its playstation customers like to find clues and to decode things. So Sony’s ads for playstation 2, like “Signs,” feature a young man walking the streets of a city where he encounters various signs foreshadowing the events. Mannequins appear in a store window, arms outstretched, and point enigmatically to something that’s about to happen. “The lead character is almost in the midst of his own role-playing game. He needs to follows clues to save the heroine”, said Andrew House, Sony’s executive vice president of marketing. In the ads, “we were essentially trying to tap into a range of emotions that we think we deliver in the games – intrigue, forebonding, excitement, panic, relief and achievement at the end”.
Sony’s marketing also includes careful measurement of each campaign’s effectiveness. Foe example, Sony runs 30-second commercials for its Playstation as part of the previews in more than 1,800 theatres and on 8,000 movie screens. The ads appear before such films as “The Cat in the Hat”. Sony Computer Entertainment America has been running movie ads for six years.” Cinema advertising has been very effective for us”, said Amil Blaire, director of product marketing.” The reason why we have committed to cinema every year is the tremendous unaided recall shown by our own research and communicus – commissioned ad tracking”.
Another example of measurement is Sony’s GenY youth marketing efforts. “The online program promoting the NetMD ATRAC CD Walkman and Cybershot U30 ran July 1 through September 30, 2003, and we found that more than 70 percent static banners”, said Serge Del Grosso, Director of Media and Internet Strategy, Sony Electronics”.
In fact, Sony has even developed a direct-marketing solution which it sells to other companies who want to measure marketing effectiveness. The product, called eBridge[TM], allows marketers to use video, measure the effectiveness of the campaign, and gain insight into the target audience, all in one package.
Sony expects that the next big breakthrough will not come from a single new electronic device.Rather, Sony President Kunitake Ando says that the future lies in making a whole range of devices more usefully linking them in a networked home-entertainment system. The company believes that its clout in consumer electronics, combined with its media content, will allow it to steer that convergence in a way that suits it. Whether the future of convergence resides in TV’s or PC’s or devices , $62-billion Sony makes every one of them- with a strong brand name that gives them an extra push off retail shelves around the world.
1. What have been the key success factors for Sony?
2. What recommendations would you make to senior marketing executives going forward? What should they he sure to do with its marketing?
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