One thing I truly enjoy about my job is my relationship with my clients. I get to speak with CEOs, Presidents from large corporations and small business owners from various industries, which keeps things interesting.
The biggest difference that I see between large and small business are resources. The one thing that tends to elude most small business owners is how they will bring in new customers, how to market or how they will advertise. Most tend to believe that “if you build it, they will come”. Nothing is further from the truth.
Today, you must be savvier than ever. There is more competition. Customers are bombarded with ads everywhere. You need to be able to target your audience, connect authentically and drive them to your business. So let’s start off with the basics.
Advertising is an activity or a profession of producing information for promoting the sale of products or services. This methodology has been around since Ancient Egypt, where business owners recognized the importance of advertising to consumers by utilizing papyrus to create flyers and posters. Fast forward to 2014, advertising continues to play a vital role in marketing goods and services, but consumers are given more options than ever before. Companies are now finding more effective ways to compete against each other, vying for the attention of potential buyers. The sudden and dramatic increase of traditional and new media usage such as print, digital, radio, TV, and out-of-home billboards, is mainly attributed to the competitive nature of advertising.
Promotion is the primary objective of advertising. It’s about getting the “word out” so that your target demographic is aware of your products or services, or any message that you are trying to communicate to the target audience. On top of that, advertising also serves an important function of creating a lasting impression for your brand with the goal of ensuring that your brand is always top-of-mind whenever the need for your product arises.
Yet, in order to yield results, it is important to advertise the right way. A lot of companies turn to advertising agencies to develop a tailor-made advertising campaign. With expertise in research and creativity, advertising agencies generate marketing plans, create ads that best fit the company and place them in appropriate media outlets.
The team that makes up an advertising agency often includes a copywriter who speaks the language of creativity and puts it in writing; a creative/art director whose expertise is in visual representation; and the media planner who is knowledgeable about which types of media reach the target market and can negotiate the best rates to fit the advertising budget.
Some directions of advertising include: unique selling proposition (emphasizing what benefit they will get if they buy the product), creating a brand image (developing a strong, memorable identity), finding an inherent drama (creating an interesting story), and positioning (determining what place the product will occupy in the given market).
The key to success in advertising is creativity and relevant communication. True creativity means being novel and appropriate. Ordinary ads are not memorable and connections are not made unless they are relatable. In short, a successful advertisement retains an impression of the product/company in consumers’ minds that overrides the brand images of your competitors.
In the next column, I will dive deeper into the ways of identifying the appropriate media and medium channels for advertising.
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Giancarlo Pacheco is the President of PCA, a full-service marketing and communications agency with offices in Los Angeles and New York. For over a decade, the agency has been a leader in providing integrated campaigns for Fortune 1000 companies. PCA has served a wide array of clients including Verizon, Gilead Life Sciences, Pernod Ricard USA, Jollibee Food Corporation, AARP, City National Bank, Philippine Airlines and Hard Rock Hotel and Casino. For more information, please visit www.plancagency.com.
Hello. My name is Joy aka J Betty Bee and I have written a book about a half Filipino man who struggles with a mental illness. He becomes homeless and a fugitive and has to deal with all of that and he loses his marriage. He hits rock bottom but his story has a happy ending. How do I advertise this. Please reply to [email protected].