subject: Getting The Most From Advertising [print this page] Ive seen a lot of common mistakes when it comes to advertising, branding your business and the roadmap to growing your business but getting the most from your advertising is really very simple. Evaluating what you are doing and how you are doing it is very important. If you need to make changes get on with it and get it done. It is always too easy to let months pass by without making changes to your Marketing plan because you feel you dont have enough time in the day to get it all done - do it or get someone to do it for you, it is just too damn important.
Everyone has heard of the KISS approach (Keep It Simple Stupid) and it certainly applies to advertising. Many creative people, website developers, graphic designers and marketing specialists will try to give you the latest and greatest and dazzle you with the cool things they can do. Keep it simple. Simple is clean, clear and precise and gets to the point. The first question you should ask yourself is what is your advertising supposed to do for you? In the case of online advertising, you most often want to drive people to your website where the real pitch begins. So dont waste time with all of the information that you want people to know, theyll get that with a single click. Instead, keep it simple and give them what they need to get them to make that single click. Interest them, grab their attention, use colour, use movement, use contrast and make them see your message. If it isnt read, its dead meaning, if it doesnt stand out enough to grab their attention and interest them in reading it it was a waste of your valuable marketing dollar.
I dont know how many times Ive been to hockey arenas where local advertisers support the junior teams by purchasing arena boards but have no idea what to use for a message. They add their business name, slogan, address, telephone number, photos of their people and even some bullet points covering their products and services. I went to a hockey game to watch hockey not read the arena boards all night I dont care about your message. Keep it simple. Go to an NHL hockey game and learn from what you see on the arena boards. Youll see logos: Zerox, Canon, Coca-Cola, Budweiser, Ford, McDonalds, Reebok, Bridgestone, Subway and more but just logos, no phone numbers or addresses. Keep it simple if it isnt read, its dead!
Before you do anymore advertising, get online and start spending the small dollars to see exactly how effective you can make your advertising - learn from your mistakes, design new ads and put them online in an instant, try different approaches, colors, fonts and headlines. Online advertising is effective, inexpensive and immediate. The big secret I'll pass along today is to stop wasting money in telephone directories and spend the same money online driving people to your website
