Advertising options. What works best?

Advertising options. What works best?

Are you confused about which advertising medium to put your brand and business on? If you are then you are not alone, and I can totally understand that. Here is why.

Recently when doing some consulting work for a client I decided to dig deeper into the options available to business owners. It had been a while since I had done this, so I was looking forward to understanding what had changed in the advertising landscape. It turns out quite a lot has changed, and the results were quite overwhelming (even for someone who is in branding and advertising). This is what I found.

What took me by surprise was the sheer number of options that business owners are now faced with when deciding what medium to invest their money into. In a nutshell there are over 30 different ways a business owner could invest in to create brand awareness and connect with customers.

The first thing that came to my mind was that I now understood why so many business owners were confused on what works best, because, well where do you start?

Secondly with so many options available, the advertising and branding market has become incredibly fragmented and many of the options available are very niche market, and all these different options are competing for the same business owner’s investment. This makes it hard for most business owners to make a confident decision on what medium to use to grow their brand and grow their business, or which one has the best return on investment.

What do business owners want from their advertising?

Most of the business owners I work with, want the same thing as you. They want their brand and business to be frequently seen (preferably on a daily basis and by as many people as possible, which means they are connecting with consumers and gaining trust, and ultimately through that connection get new business. They also want to do that for a realistic cost that will give them a return on their investment.

So what are some of the different options and which one is best for my brand and business?

Let’s have a look because understanding what your options are allows you to make a more informed decision.

These are in no particular order.

• Websites (they must be built so they are effective at highlighting your brand and business)
• Sign written vehicle (with the business brand)
• Signs (usually somewhere on the business premises for foot traffic or drivers passing by)
• Out of Home media
  o These are electronic billboards that you might see at the airport or in the shopping malls.
  o Buses
  o Giggle Entertainment Network (all the screens across Nelson Tasman)
• Cinema (technically its part of Out of Home media, but its more niche and a destination sector)
• Local Newspapers – There are a huge array of options here and they all achieve different things and have different costs. Here are some of them.
  o Business ad (placed somewhere within the paper)
  o Those post it notes you sometimes see on the paper cover)
  o Those false covers on the papers which are just the one brand and then the actual paper starts inside)
  o Editorial style business profile articles.
• Radio
  o Approx. 10 + radio stations to choose from all targeting different demographics, such as:
  – Elderly sector
  – Trade sector
  – Gender specific
• Local Magazines
  o These also have many different options and costs associated. Typically these are similar to the local papers options but with a higher cost.
• Industry Specific Magazines
  o Building, Weddings, Real Estate etc
• Online websites – The number of options online are vast and quite overwhelming.
  o You have the big news sites (Stuff and Newshub etc) who have a lot of options like:
  o Home page take overs. You might have seen these. When you go on a website and on some days it has lot of branding around the edges of the website (for example it might be a Mitre 10 promotion so you will see the orange Mitre 10 logos and branding all over the website you are visiting).
  o Pre video ads. You know when you click on a video of a topic you clicked on, and before you get to the actual story a video ad comes up.
  o Editorial style ads that don’t actually look like ads but instead are created in a way which looks more like an article.
  o You also have sites like Neighbourly who offer featured posts.
• Flyers (printed and mail dropped into homes).
• Promotional marketing material (flags, banners, sign written pens, clothing etc)
• Social Media
  o Facebook ads, posts, and boosted posts.
  o Instagram
  o YouTube
• Google Ads
  o And retargeting ads
  o Google business profiles
• Focused campaign video content created by specialists and launched via social media platforms (FB, Instagram and Youtube).
• Email campaigns
  o Mail chimp and other database driven platforms

I could add a few new ones as well but for the sake of keeping it as short as possible these make up most advertising options.

All of the above options have pro’s and cons and some work a lot better than others, a lot better. Some of these have been disrupted by online services such as Spotify, YouTube etc. Also the cost is quite high for some mediums with ranges of $1000 to $2000 a month, which is fine and shouldn’t be discounted if there is a return on your investment.

5 years ago, you could just throw and ad up on the radio or put it in the local newspaper and you would probably do quite well, and you could just get on with business, because they were the dominant mediums to use.

This is not the case anymore, because as you can see the options available have exploded. But more importantly the other thing that has changed is consumers habits. Technology has changed the way we act and in many cases some mediums don’t have the same reach or brand awareness they once had and may not work for some sectors. When we look at the NZ Business Ad spend trends, it is very clear that businesses are shifting their advertising dollars to mediums which have a higher reach across all demographics. Which is why it is so important to be very selective about where you invest your advertising dollars.

Marketing is an investment not a cost, and there are plenty of studies which show us that those who invest in good marketing are dramatically better off than those businesses and brands that don’t. Marketing should also be affordable and effective, and when you choose the right one, it always pays off.

If you want to find out which mediums will work best for your brand or business, please get in touch.

I would love to sit down and share some strategies with you on which mediums will work for you, and which ones will give you the best return on your investment, oh and it should also save you time so you can do the things you love.

I would love to share with you the secrets to growing your brand, and create a strategy that guarantees you results. Let us do the hard work for you, so you can do the things you love doing. It’s free to talk, and I’ll bring the coffees. Let’s chat.

Phone Mark: 021 742 774    Email: [email protected]