How to get massively better results from your advertising

Let’s dive right in!

Here are 3 tips to help you get massively better results from your advertising.

1: Discover the media your customers consume

You need to uncover what your prospective customers read, listen to or watch. This will be easier for some of you than others. If, for example, you sell exclusively to a certain industry, it’s easy to identify the most popular media aimed at that industry. The same is true if you sell to a particular community, such as those interested in cycling, cars, boats, cooking, etc. 

For those who sell to a less well defined group, you’ll need to talk with your customers. A simple survey will help. Then look for common threads within the survey answers. For example, they may be interested in a wide spread of things, yet a high percentage may be within a certain age group. This would help you find radio, podcasts, blogs, magazines or TV aimed at them… or at least a useful subset of them.

The more targeted you get your advertising, the better. No matter how great your product, service or offer is, people can’t buy from your ad if they don’t see it.

2: Learn how your customers consume media

Next, you need to know how your prospective customers consume their media. This will help you reach the right people, correctly.

For example, radio advertising can be very effective if you want to build brand awareness. However, it will be far less effective if you want to get people to take direct action and call you or visit your website. Many radio consumers listen whilst they drive, are at the gym or are in the shower, etc. In each example, they can’t easily write down a phone number, URL or social media handle.

So, you need to make sure you use the correct form of media, for the kind of ad you want to run. If you choose radio or podcasts for advertising, it’s worth investing in an easy to remember phone number and web address.

3: Do they pay attention to the ads?

Finally, you need to know if people are engaging with the ads.

The Game Informer magazine is read each month by over 7 million people. It’s an American video game publication and it contains lots of advertisements. Here’s the thing: The ads in the magazine actually add to its value. It would be less valuable to the readers if the ads weren’t there. That’s because video game enthusiasts WANT to know about the games, events and hardware being advertised.

Now compare that to websites that pre-run video ads, when you’re trying to read an article. Do these intrusive ads make the site more valuable to the user?

The point I’m making here is that there’s a difference between advertising where people want to hear what you have to say, and advertising where your message is seen as an annoying intrusion.

In closing

Be where your prospective customer’s attention is. If they are paying attention to what you have to say, and your advertisement is well produced, advertising can make you a fortune. So choose wisely.

I’ll finish today, with an insight from the father of modern advertising. David Ogilvy.

“Much of the messy advertising you see on television today is the product of committees. Committees can criticise advertisements, but they should never be allowed to create them.”