Which Advertising Methods are Most Effective ?

Everybody wants new profitable customers and it doesn't matter what industry you're in, you need customers.

OK, that's not such a profound statement but it's really obvious. But not any old customer, you need a) customers who want your product and b) customers who are going to provide you with profits.

Below are some ideas to help you communicate your business to the right customers through advertising.

Advertise to the Right Customers

You know, really, the people you are targeting are just like you and me. We live our daily lives being targeted by other companies and buying their products. So we are the right customers for them.

But who are the right customers for you?.

Everything you undertake is around your customers. Every product, and every investment. You need to understand who your customers are and where they go!.

Think about when they are thinking about making a decision for your product. What time of year, where they physically are, who is influencing them and who is going to pay.

Who Are Your Customers ?

One of the wonderful things we learn when studying for MBAs and other marketing qualifications is to hone in on your customers' main attributes. Most advertising undertaken will affect people you don't really want to do business with but so long as it's targeting the bulk of the market you are interested in then that's good.

So before you undertaken any spend, such as local newspaper adverts or even radio, you need an understanding of the demographics of who is going to buy from you.

Once you have that data then you'll need to understand what media is best used to target them. Not all media is right and could be wasting your marketing budget. But get it right and the return on investment can be huge.

Types Advertising Media to Use

Advertising does not need to be expensive. It is very cost effective IF you understand what we have described above.

The splatter-gun effect where you just target everyone and hope some of the messages stick is not going to work at all

So, now you know your customers and where they are when they are thinking about looking for your product, how are you going to communicate with them?

You have many options available such as the following :

• Television advertising both main stream and the satellite channels (just look at the day time TV adverts to see who they are targeting - it's not the same as evening TV)
• Local radio - specific local advertising for your area
• Local free and paid newspapers - generally not a good use of funds but it may work for you
• Email marketing - using your existing customer database to get repeat business or for customers to recommend others - also useful for special offers and discounts
• Piggyback marketing - using an associated company to market your message either by email or other means
• Billboards - either in bus shelters or stand alone
• Public relations - provides an excellent ROI if used correctly - this gets your message into journalists who write for magazines, national/ local newspapers as well as television
• Online advertising - takes many forms from banner ads on other websites to search engine marketing
• Social media - a big thing now where people recommend your products to others via social networks online
• Direct mail - often called junk mail but can often produce excellent results

As you can see you have many options available. Many of these require specialist knowledge so it's best to find an organisation that can undertake this work for you. It's always best to seek recommendations rather than replying to a mail shot or a cold call.

Example Campaigns

Once you have your media outlined then it's time to undertaken some actual campaigns. There are many simple and cost-effective solutions you can use, and here are a few of them:

• member get member - if you already have excited customers then why not use them as a sales force and get them to recruit more customers for you. The best campaigns work where there's an incentive for both parties. One to encourage your customer to recommend then a special offer for the new client
• Internet advertising - pay per click on the search engines is a great way to get customers to your website if it hasn't got good natural rankings - but you need to know what you are doing - My colleague Perry Marshall has written a 5-day email tutorial on Google AdWords and it covers some of the most important things you need to know. The Google Adwords course is free and I think you'll find it very helpful:
• Your industry's promotion partners - there are a lot of companies that are supporting your industry to promote how wonderful it is - for example, tourist boards. If you have a restaurant, hotel or B&B you must be in these guides.
• Local businesses and consumers - one of the easiest and cheapest methods of advertising is to your local community. You can either get the Post Office to put things through people's letterboxes or print a flyer and do it yourself. (Don't forget to put a call to action on this though)

Those were 4 easy advertising methods and here are another 25 ideas you can use right away on to promote your business and attract new customers.