Renée's Blog

Advertising works

Greetings to all,
Now that we are in August it is only a month away and it is officially spring, yay I say! Bring on longer day light hours and warmer weather.
This month I am going to talk about: ‘Things to consider when planning advertising.’

(A) Where should you place your message?

Obviously you fish where the fish are, therefore you need to look at where your business is or where you want it to be, by researching which medium is the best vehicle to use to reach your audience, i.e. print, television, radio, online, etc.
This is where it is wise to look at Target Marketing. The basic idea behind customer segmentation is that communications are most effective when highly targeted: minimise wastage by using media with higher levels of concentration of target audiences.
Who do you want to reach? Describe your target audience’s demographics, be precise.

(B) How often should advertising run? And how long should it run for?

Do you need full pages in print or can you use smaller units and run them more frequently? 

For a new product you might want to do a larger launch and then tailor it to smaller more regular adverts until you have captured your audience’s attention and communicated to them about your new products and/or services.

Products that have been around for a while need to be marketed regularly to refresh the reader’s memory as to why they should buy your product; this builds credibility and creates customer confidence in your products.  

You might promote a product once or twice a year for awareness. Remember you can’t sell a secret; people must see your product and feel good about it.

When do you want to reach them, be specific what percentage of messages should be allocated by quarter, monthly, bio-monthly.

Next month we will look at: ‘How much should you spend on advertising?’

Well that’s all for this month, don’t forget our September issue will be the FoodTech/PackTech Show issue and we will be printing an extra 3,000 copies, so if you are looking at reaching a bigger audience our September issue will give you “more bang for bucks”, as we say in media language.

Don’t forget to enter the draw to win a copy of August Healthy Food guide. August has some excellent articles and do try the creamed silver beet recipe.

Renee

From last month's blog:

Over the next couple of months I want to talk about advertising as so many people tell me that their adverts don’t work. Adverts do work, and  we need to have a good look at the reasons to advertise, how to plan advertising, cost of advertising and how much should you spend on advertising.

If  advertising doesn’t work, then why are companies like MacDonald’s, Michael Hill and The Mad Butcher, where they are today? It’s only because of their advertising; it’s certainly not their superior products, I know much better butchers than the Mad Butcher, but I couldn’t tell you their names off hand, because they don’t advertise in the newspaper or radio like The Mad Butcher does. Would you go to MacDonald’s for a burger if you hadn’t heard or seen an advertisement of theirs?  What about Michael Hill Jewellers, I bet most Kiwi’s know the name and when you need to buy that great big Diamond I am sure a lot of people would visit Michael Hill because they feel they are a reputable company, thanks to advertising.

So firstly what we need to do is look at why we advertise? 
The main reason and most common are to gain coverage and to generate awareness to a large audience. 
Fundamental reasons why to advertise are:

• To improve long term profits generally by increasing sales
• To improve the image of the company and to persuade people that the company is trustworthy and has credibility.
• To try and affect behaviour
• To promote business or services by making people aware of your services/products
• To launch a new product or change a brand image.
  

Another reason to launch an ad campaign is to reassure consumers that they have made the right decision by using your products or services.

Next month I am going to talk about ‘Things to consider when planning advertising’.

ft@hayleymedia.com
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