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How to Start an Advertising Campaign

By Selena McIntyre

A great product will fail unless the public is aware of its existence. So it is our job as advertisers to inform the public of our products. The best way we can do this is to create an effective advertising campaign. 

Here are seven step by step instructions that will tell you how to start an advertising campaign and keep it effective.

1. What is your objective?

What do you want your advertising campaign to accomplish? Do you want to gain more sales, website traffic, or build product awareness?

Once you can determine what you want to get out of your ads, then you can figure out how to make this goal a reality.

2. Identify your target market.

As much as we hate to admit it, your product or service will not appeal to everyone and neither will your ads. In order to get the most success out of your ads, you must make them appeal to the people who are most likely to use your product (your target market.)

Learn more about your target market and find out:

basic demographics (age, sex, income, interests, marital status, employment, and hobbies)

shopping behavior patterns (are they impulse buyers or do they put a lot of thought into major purchases, how tight are they with their money)

how do they feel about your brand & or product?

how do they behave?

what are their needs, desires, and fears?

The more you know about your target market, the easier it will be to design effective ads.

3. Relate your product to your target market.

This is when you tell your audience how your product will benefit them and how it will fulfill their needs. The most effective ads will focus on just one benefit per ad.

In order to relate your product to your target market, you should find out:

What they want your product to do

How they are going to use your product

How much they are willing to pay for your product

What kind of emotions can you use to catch the attention of your target audience and relate it to your product?

Then make your ads reveal these needs / benefits.

4. Implement a Creative Strategy.

This is the message you want your ad to give your target market. Keep in mind that the message will vary depending on types of media. However, it is a good idea to keep the creative as similar as possible so you can start to build product recognition.

When designing ads, be sure your ads answer the following questions: Why should your target market buy your product? What's in it for your target market? Why are you better than your competition?

Here are some design tips to help your ads appeal to your target market.

Choose the correct tone or mood. For example, professional service ads look thoughtful, conservative, and neat; whereas, ads for night clubs are wild, wacky, and colorful.

Use appealing colors.

Make sure your ads are legible from your audience's point of view.

Creditability is also important after all, if none believes your ad than they won't buy your product.

For more design tips, please visit http://www.bpsoutdoor.com/articles/perfectad.htm.

5. Create or Review your Budget.

There are several different ways to create an advertising budget. For example your budget could be a certain percentage of your projected sales, or it could be the previous year's profit multiplied by the industry's average profit ratio. The most effective ad campaigns will consider all factors before determining a budget.

6. Choose the correct types of advertising.

Now that you know who your target market is and what they want from your product it's time to decide which types of advertising you will use. Thanks to the World Wide Web, this task is now a lot easier. Now you can get on-line and search for magazines, newsletters, websites, newspapers, radio stations, billboard companies, and television stations that your target market will view.

Get as much information about each type of advertising. Then decide what ads will get the most results from your target market and which ads will fit into your budget.

7. Implement your plans

Start placing ads and track their results. You may want to place each ad at different times so you can tell which ones are most effective. You can also ask your customers how they heard of your company and where they seen your ads.

Wait at least six months before re-evaluating / removing your ads. During this time you should be monitoring your results and re-evaluating steps 1 through 6 to get ready for your next campaign.

Conclusion

Advertising campaigns can not be done once and set aside. You have to keep working on them so you can keep up with (and maybe get ahead of) your competition.

It is also important for advertisers to stay updated with the current trends. Since fashion and entertainment trends are constantly changing, our job is never finished.

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Selena McIntyre has been a Creative Designer for BPS Outdoor Media since 1999. She has a Marketing Degree and several years of customer service experience. Selena has studied art most of her life and continues to do so now. She designs most of BPS’s billboards and has written several articles about the outdoor advertising industry. To see some of her work please visit http://www.bpsoutdoor.com/blog/

This article is provided as a courtesy from www.OutdoorBillboard.com