Advertising is a commonly used strategy in brand marketing and promotion. However, not all advertising campaigns deliver the desired results.
For an ad campaign to be successful, you must consider the essentials of effective advertising and the guidelines for effective advertisements.
Essentials of effective advertising
An effective advertisement should contain the following essentials:
i. Provides educational value.
ii. Provides suggestive value.
iii. Attracts the attention of consumers.
iv. Leaves a lasting impression.
Provides educational value
Effective advertising informs consumers by providing knowledge on how to correctly use the brand’s products, post-purchase services, and any necessary precautions when using the products.
Provides suggestive value
A good advertisement should suggest to the customers the benefits of the product being marketed. By emphasizing to consumers why they need the product and why the product is better than other alternatives, prospective customers are more likely to gain interest in the product. Consumers are more likely to be interested in a product if you can convince them that it solves their needs or satisfies their wants.
Attracts the attention of consumers
The ability to attract the target audience’s attention is probably the hallmark of a good advertisement. In today’s world, people are busy, and most have a decidedly indifferent opinion of advertisements the first time they come across them. It’s, therefore, essential that your advertisement can draw their attention.
To attract the attention of consumers in advertising, consider adopting the following tips and techniques:
- Use catchy but concise advert headlines.
- Include images/graphics of the product that’s being promoted in the advert.
- Include a question to include the likelihood of attracting consumers’ attention. For instance, if you sell solar energy solutions, you could ask, ‘Are you in need of renewable energy solutions?
- If you’re banking on lower prices to stand out from your competition, quote the prices in your advertisements.
- Use graphic techniques to bring the ad’s message into focus. These include artistic borders, vivid colors, and blank spaces.
It leaves a lasting impression
Ensure your advert is engrained in the minds of those who come across it. To do this, ensure the advert’s design and layout have memorizing value. You can also make your adverts memorable by always sticking to the brand.
This entails consistently including the brand name, logo, and trademarks in all of your advertisements. Consumers are more likely to remember a certain brand product if they can associate it with a certain image, symbol, or sketch.
Guideline for effective advertising
For advertising strategies to be successful, they should be:
i. Persuasive
ii. Tailored to a specific audience
iii. Original
iv. Ethical
v. Monitored and evaluated
Make it persuasive
The main purpose of advertising is to boost sales revenue for a given product or service. As such, effective advertisements should be able to drive sales numbers by persuading prospective buyers that the product being promoted will solve their problems or help to improve their lifestyles. To convince consumers to make a purchase, effective ad campaigns leverage various strategies such as appealing to the consumers’ emotions, positioning the brand as a trustworthy business, or arguing the product’s benefits from a logical viewpoint.
Make it targeted
For advertising to be effective, it should be focused on reaching out to a particular audience. By targeting segmented audiences, businesses can attract the ideal customer profile, unlike generic advertising, where most of the audience isn’t even slightly interested in the brand’s products. In targeted advertising, the message should be tailored to cater to the feelings and needs of the target audience.
Be original
Consumers usually come across several advertisements every day, and they can only remember a few of these. It’s, therefore, important for brands, especially those in saturated markets, to come up with original advertisement content if they want to stand out from the competition and grab consumers’ attention.
There are several ways to create original advertisement content. You could highlight the superiority of your products/services, use outstanding design formats, or even offer deals within your adverts.
Be ethical
Effective advertising not only drives sales numbers up but is also mindful of the welfare of consumers. As it’s such a persuasive marketing platform, advertisements shouldn’t contain misleading information that could lead consumers to purchase products that don’t solve their problems or are below their expectations in terms of quality.
Ethical advertising entails presenting honest and clear information that reflects the company’s values regarding honesty and trustworthiness. In the long run, consumers are more likely to purchase from a brand if they deem it trustworthy and honest.
Keep tracking
Tracking your advertisement campaigns helps you know which are effective and which aren’t and need to be tossed or replaced. There are many ways to monitor the success of your advertising campaigns, but the most useful metrics are those that are specific and measurable. Here’s a brief outline of some of the metrics you can use to track the effectiveness of your ad campaign:
- Traffic sources- measures which advertising platform is reeling in more prospective customers/leads to your website.
- Click-through rate- this metric measures the ratio of clicks to impressions, thereby determining the efficiency of the ad campaign.
- Conversion rate- this metric shows how many leads completed a certain call to action on your advertisement. The action could be making a purchase, filling out a form, or even signing up for a free product trial period.
- Retention rate- this metric shows how many customers your brand has retained over a given period.
- Social metrics- social media indicators such as likes, comments, retweets, and shares can help gauge your ad campaign’s engagement.
Are advertisements aimed at teenagers effective?
Most advertisements targeted at teenagers are usually effective since they get more of the target market to purchase the products being marketed. However, they often breach ethical principles of business and marketing.
The most effective way to advertise to teenagers is via digital and mobile platforms because that’s where they spend most of their time. However, to remain ethical, these adverts should not target the insecurities of teenagers and claim that their products will help to solve these insecurities.
References
Library of Congress Research Guides: Regulations and Ethics
