8.1Introduction
This
module will teach you about the different elements of advertising and how each
of these elements can be used to create a rock solid advertising campaign.
It will also
teach business owners how to choose which elements may work best for them and
their products. By learning more about the elements of advertising and how to
apply them, you can raise your chances of success.
8.2 The Different Elements
of Advertising
Advertising is a must for any business that is looking to earn
better sales and grab the attention of a great chunk of their target audience.
Without an advertising plan, companies will fail to influence their
customers to buy their products and services or to even make them aware of
their brand.
Advertising is the most important part of marketing in most opinions, and in
truth, it is massive and includes a variety of factors. So, in order for an
advertising strategy to work, marketers need to keep in mind the different
elements of advertising. To follow, is a list of the most important elements
that you must use as you design an advertising plan:
Target Audience
Just like all the other aspects of a brand's marketing plan, advertising also
includes thorough research on the target audience. The target audience is of
prime interest for the marketers because these are the people who they will be
targeting with their advertising campaigns. Therefore, to come up with a plan
that works for them, it is important for marketers to get to know the
target audience, their psychology, behaviours, and attitudes.
The first thing to do is to find out the target audience's interests, needs,
and wants. Once you get to know a target audience completely, you can design
strategies that make them want to purchase your products and services. If a
marketer is designing an advertising plan for a tea brand, for instance, they
need to know how tea drinkers make purchase decisions and what they are looking
for in the tea they drink. As with other marketing information, this can be
found out through research, surveys, focus groups, and questionnaires.
Advertising Message
When designing an advertising plan, a marketer or an advertiser needs to give
out the right message to their audience. For example, if a marketer is trying
to promote shoes, then they need to deliver the right advertising message to
the audience. This message is the one that ultimately makes them buy the shoes.
Marketers can only get to know about this by conducting research on the target
audience. A good advertising plan will tell the audience that your shoes will
keep them comfortable for hours, that they are waterproof, or other feature of
the product that will encourage the customer to buy this product over others.
The best messages are either emotional or rational, and it
entices the target audience into buying the product or service.
A good advertising message will increase the sales of any product or service,
but to do so, you must create the right one. Marketers also need to make sure
that every message they send to the audience is targeting the benefits of the
product or service instead of its features. Consumers of recent times are not
interested in how many ingredients a bag of crisps contain, but they do want to
know what benefits it will provide to them. Therefore, whenever a marketer
wants to make something sell through advertising, they need to choose the most
effective message. Remember, the message that the advertiser chooses should
also be in line with the thing that they are trying to sell.
Call to Action
Without a solid call to action, your advertising efforts will go
to waste. A call to action, or CTA, is an important part of advertising, as it
gives the audience a direction and tells them to take an action. Without an
attractive call to action, your audience will not take your desired actions. If
an advertiser is promoting a new product in the ads, then they need to tell the
audience to buy it from the store. If the advertiser does not give a call to
action, there will be no action. Hence the purpose of advertising will fail.
When it comes to print or digital advertising, advertisers need to
emphasise the CTA by using graphic elements, colours, and typefaces. The CTA
button or text should always be bold and easily noticeable. It should also be
creatively written so that the audience takes an action.
Copy
Advertising copy should always be concise, clear and highly targeted. An advertiser needs to write a copy that entices the audience to read, and an
attention grabbing copy is the one that is most effective. The copy of any ad
must also be easy for everyone to understand and should convey the right
message to the audience.
A very complicated copy never gets understood and leaves no
impact on the audience.
Additionally, the length of the copy is important. Every advertiser should
remember that their audience will not have the entire day to read the copy, which
is why they need to write a copy that is short and sweet, yet highly
noticeable. This is especially the case when it comes to billboard ads, as
readers may only have a couple of seconds to read the ad and get the message.
Having long and detailed copy in ads also becomes a nuisance, and many readers
scan through it because there is no reason for them to read it. Therefore, in
order for advertisements to be effective, advertisers need to ensure that the
copy is short and meaningful.
Graphic Elements
Graphic elements are great for enhancing the look of any
advertising campaign. These graphic elements include logo, illustration, and
photography. By integrating these elements into the campaign, advertisers can
rest assure that their ads will work well.
By using more pictures and illustrations in ads, advertisers can attract more
customers. Graphic elements are more powerful than plain text, so advertisers
should make use of them to grab more attention. However, the illustrations that
the advertiser uses in the ads should connect with the copy and headline. If
the advertiser adds an image that has nothing to do with the headline or is
inconsistent, then the audience cannot interpret the message. This would
certainly be a wasted opportunity for any company.
The font is also a part of the graphic elements of an advertising campaign, and
there must be cohesion if you really want to make an impact on the audience.
If, for instance, there is a particular font that is used by your company, make
sure you use it for the copy. The font used in the ads should always be clear
and easily readable. If it is not readable, then the ad will become useless.
The font should also complement the artwork to remain pleasing to the eyes.
Another important consideration is the headline. Without a catchy and prominent
headline, the ad will not make the impact that advertisers are looking for. The
headline acts as bait that grabs the audience's interest. Therefore, an
advertiser must ensure that the headline is enticing and written using a larger
and bold font.
FACT
As of 2017, online shoppers in the UK spend more per household than consumers
in any other country, amid a shift from stores to the internet.
Source: bbc.com
8.3 The Key to Designing a Successful
Advertising Campaign
A
successful advertising campaign is the one that ultimately turns into an
investment and not an expense.
You already know
that advertising is the key component of a brand's marketing efforts, and
without a solid advertising campaign, no brand can educate its customers and
make its products sell. A truly
successful ad campaign is the one that increases your customer base. If your ad
campaign does not meet your advertising goals, then it is a total waste of
money. So, an advertising campaign that only makes a brand lose money is the
one that is considered a failure. Fortunately, you can avoid this by designing
a perfect advertising campaign from the start. Here are a few key elements that
make any ad campaign a huge hit:
State and Highlight the Benefits
A successful ad
campaign is the one that is beneficial to the customers. The advertiser must
look into the target audience and then come up with appropriate strategies to
sell the product/service.
In this ever
growing global market, it is important for businesses to grab their customers'
attention by providing them with benefits or solutions to their problems
through their adverts. Advertisers need to highlight the benefits of the
product or service that they are selling because the audience is only
interested in the things that help solve their problems.
They are not
interested in the various features of the product at this point in the game,
but they do want to hear about the benefits that the product offers. Therefore,
when designing an ad campaign, advertisers need to ensure that they are putting
more focus on the product's benefits.
Consider this example:
You are an
advertiser who is designing a campaign for a pain reliever medication. To
ensure success, you must make sure that your customers know that your product
will get rid of their headache, and to further ensure success, you must ensure
that you are giving more information.
For instance, that your medication can
stop headaches within a set period of time. This advert will not be successful,
however, if you tell your audience that your medication is made of this
chemical or that one, as there is nothing to attract a customer based on that
information.
So, in order to
design a successful ad campaign, an advertiser must focus on the product's
benefits instead of its features. Remember, no one is going to be interested in
hearing your message if it is not solving their problem.
Here is
another example of how to present benefits:
If a brand is selling sugar-free brownies, the advertiser can entice the
audience by telling them that their brownies will make them lose x pounds in a
week. By learning about the impact of those brownies, people who are looking to
lose weight will be attracted towards them. Just make sure you are not falsely
making claims, and that any benefit you present can be backed up with facts.
Clearly Define Your Competitive Advantage
Unless an
advertiser tells the audience how their product is different from the rest, the
advertisements will have no impact on them. A company's competitive advantage
is their weapon to beat their competitors. Because the market is huge, there
are several products that are alike, which makes it difficult for customers to
settle on one over another. However, the products that get sold more are the
ones that are different to their competitors' products.
So, the
advertiser needs to look at the product and find its USP, or unique selling
proposition. Once they have found a unique selling proposition in the product,
they can sell the product based on that information. Competitive advantage can
also be established by highlighting the benefits of the products that other
similar products do not offer. By defining the competitive advantage, it will
become much easier for the customers to make a purchase decision.
Build a Recognisable Image for your Brand
If
a brand cannot establish its distinct image through its advertisements, then
the efforts go to waste. There are some ads that we see and easily recognise,
such as adverts for brands including McDonald's, Tesco, Victoria's Secret, and
Coca Cola. Why do we recognise these? Because these companies have a clear
brand image when it comes to advertisements. We do not even need to see their
logo to recognise the brand in most cases as their ads are perfectly in line
with their brand's image, which is so well settled in our minds.
This is exactly
what every brand needs to achieve with their ad campaign. Every brand needs to
keep their image consistent throughout their ads, and a consistent image leads
to better recognition, which is essential for maintaining a distinct image in
the market.
Advertise on the Right Channels
Spending
thousands of pounds on advertising will be useless if you choose the wrong
places to advertise it. Every advertiser needs to ensure that they are placing
the ads in the right places. If the target audience of the product does not
watch television, then it will be useless to play ads on this medium.
An advertiser
needs to think like the audience that they are targeting. When they do so, they
can understand what channels and media are most relevant to reach them. They
will also get to know the behaviours and attitudes of the audience, and the
channels and shows that they are most likely to watch. This information will
help advertisers pick the channels and media in which to reach them with
their advertisements. Without reaching out to the target audience, the ad
campaign will go to waste and will not provide the desired results.
Add Variety
Advertisers have
a crucial job to complete when creating an advertising campaign. They not only
have to design the ad campaign, but they also need to ensure that their ads
reach the right target audience at the right time and the right place. If there
is one medium that your audience is more likely to consume, many companies
think that spending the entire advertising budget on this medium is a good
decision. However, this is not the case.
Instead,
advertisers need to pick a couple of mediums to diversify their target channels
and mediums, and grab audiences' attention on a larger scale. Even if one of
the mediums proved to be the most beneficial in the past, do not stick to that
alone. A better option is to advertise on more than one medium that the target
audience will access, even if one is more popular among your audience than the
other. By targeting multiple mediums, advertisers will be able to grab the
attention of a greater number of customers.
Target a Specific Set of Audience
Advertisers
cannot target everyone in the market, which is why they need to create
strategies only for the target audience. For instance, a product that is
designed for kids should not target adults or teenagers. Therefore, advertisers
need to ensure that their advertising campaigns should only target those who
are most likely to buy the products. By targeting extra people from the
audience, advertisers will only waste the budget and get no results in return.
It is better for
advertisers to pick one highly targeted market segment and cater to their needs
only instead of spreading the campaign too thin. This is a great way to turn
fleeting customers into loyal consumers, and become the star brand in their
eyes. This strategy also helps businesses to stand out from their competitors
and form their own group of loyal customers.
Test, Test, and Repeat
How will you know
if your advertising campaign will work on the audience or not? A good way to
find out is to invest in testing through focus groups.
By testing ads on
focus groups, advertisers will get a complete idea of how their ads will do
once they are live. Advertisers should show their ads to selected customers and
ask them for comments. By testing ads in a focus group, advertisers can
learn whether their ad campaign will be successful or not. They will also find
out about the strengths and weaknesses of their ads, and devise new strategies
to make them more effective.
Make People Buy
Any advertising
campaign is useless if it does not make people buy. Whether the purpose of your
ad campaign is spreading awareness or promotion, in the end it is all about the
amount of money you make from sales. Therefore, if your ad campaign is not
enticing or attractive to the audience, then it will end up wasting all your
money and efforts.
Advertisers need
to design ads that convince the audience to take an action and make a purchase.
If the advertiser has designed a campaign that looks beautiful, but does not
make the audience take an action, then it is not a good campaign.
In order to make
customers buy, advertisers need to make an irresistible offer. They can create
a sense of urgency by giving the audience a limited time offer to sell the
products. When the audience has little time to take advantage of the deal, they
will automatically want to make the purchase immediately. This technique
instils fear in the audience, making them believe that if they do not buy
immediately, they will lose a great deal.
A successful ad
campaign is one that has a high impact and gets the desired results. Such
a campaign is meaningful, the one that touches everyone's heart or gets their
attention. It is a campaign that is designed to keep in mind each element.
A great ad
campaign is a blend of the brand's goal, creative elements, message, copy, and
the right media channels. Sometimes, the greatest of the ad campaigns also
fail. The reason for this failure is that these ads are placed in the
wrong places.
Module Summary
Creating a successful advertising campaign is essential to the success of your
company. This type of campaign is a part of the overall marketing plan for a
business, and when set up correctly, can bring more customer engagement, which
leads to more profit. Though the above information is a basic primer for an
advertising campaign, there are elements that work better than others depending
on your product or service.
Make sure when planning your advertising campaign, that you consider all
elements and test them before putting your advert out to the world. Consider working with a professional on any advertising campaign, but do not
forget to offer your own opinion as ultimately, this is your company and
product, and you know it best.
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