Advertising STRATEGY – the foundation of getting results

By Duane Christensen

Strategy is one of those words in advertising that is rarely understood.  I’m attempting to give you an easy-to-understand explanation.  Hope it helps.  Let me know if it does. 

An advertising strategy is formed by evaluating your current market situation.  You must know your competitors.  You should know who in your industry is #1 and #2.  Maybe you’re one of them.  If you are…rock on!  You always need to defend your position on the rung of the market share ladder.  There’s always someone farther down the ladder that is trying to take over your position.  And for most businesses, they’d like to be a position or two higher…but they don’t know how to get there.

In order to gain market share and a consistent flow of new customers you need to position yourself as “something” people will find favorable.  Something that makes them think, “Hmm, that’s important to me.”  Usually, it shouldn’t be something that another business already claims.  Unless it’s someone farther down the “ladder” and you can do it much better.

I’m going to clarify with some examples.  If you are an auto dealer…with a behemoth competitor that claims and SHOUTS the “best price” because of the volume they do…you want to stay away from Price as your main strategy.  You can talk some “price” so people know you’re competitive (which you are) and they’re not making a huge financial blunder if they do business with you…but it’s not how you want people to remember you.  You can’t win that battle.  The Big Guys have too much money and pound PRICE into everyone’s head.

So WHO should you be?  Well, you have to go above and beyond in other areas.  Like service and “non-pressure” sales tactics on your lot, for example.  Not everyone wants to do business with the puky price pushers and pressure sales dudes.  Take me for example.  I wanted to buy a Nissan quite a few years back.  And the Big Guy was the only Nissan dealer in town.  I talked to a rude sales jerk for about 10 minutes and decided I wasn’t buying from him or his company.  I drove 180 miles and bought the same exact Nissan.

Maybe you’re in the floral business.  There seems to be a floral shop on almost every street in my town.  You have to know your competitors.  Buy flowers from every one of them.  Rate them on flower quality, design, helpfulness, etc.  When you know as much as possible about your competitors, then you can begin to create a strategy for your ad campaign.  If nobody is toting that their flowers will last an average of one day longer, why not BE that florist?  All you have to do is figure out how to make your flowers last an average of a day longer.  Piece of cake, right?  J  Why is that a good strategy?  Because flowers tend to be a short-lived investment that makes people question the purchase anyway.  But if you honestly and creatively tell people that your flowers will last an average of a day longer than most other floral shops’ flowers…now you’ve got their attention.  Especially, if your pricing is close to the average.  Florists will probably say phphphtttt! to me about that.  Ok…if that’s not possible…come up with something else.  Think out of the box, think like Einstein, think like a true entrepreneur, whatever it takes to give yourself a true edge up on your competition.

PRICE is a bad strategy.  Very few businesses can get away with it.  Like Wal-Mart.  Their business model is based on low price.  But it couldn’t have been done without a lot of thinking, strategizing, and hard work by Sam Walton.  Take ME again as an example.  I rarely shop at Wal-Mart.  I’d rather do business with the local biz if possible.  But sometimes the local store falters and gives me a very bad customer service experience.  That makes me sad because I do not want to be a Wal-Mart shopper.

Small business owners have to be on their toes at all times.  All your customers are gold.  Your customers are doing business with you because you have convinced them that you’re BETTER.  And they’re willing to pay a little extra for that.  Do NOT take your customer for granted.

You can have a much more intelligent and profitable advertising strategy than Wal-Mart.  You just need to THINK about what your customer wants.  Trust me it’s not just about price.  It’s about VALUE.  You can add value to a sale that doesn’t cost you anything at all.  Or very little anyway.  Here’s a cheap value adding tip…make your customer feel special.  C’mon…you can do better than just having a “greeter” at the front door, can’t you?  Think about how you can add value and make your customer feel special…then do it.  Or train your employees to recognize and take advantage of circumstances to make a customer feel like they matter.  A lot of times that might cost a little bit too.  But it’s way worth it in the long-run with the positive word-of-mouth.

What if you’re a siding company?  Who are your competitors?  Vinyl siders.  Cement board siders.  Cut-it-on-site siders.  Cheap-ass siders.  Which one are you?  What’s the benefit of what you offer?  Maybe your strategy could encompass what you are NOT.  If you’re NOT the cheap-ass sider…tell people you’re not.  Here’s a couple of samples of ad copy that might get people’s attention…  “Hey, if you want your siding to last longer than 7 to 10 years, you’ll probably like what we have to offer.”  OR… “When you go to sell your house in 8 years…is your potential buyer going to be warned by her inspector or realtor that she may have to think about re-siding within the next year or two?  Probably.”  

There are lots of strategies you could use.  The main thing is to be a business of value…but don’t try to copycat the “#1” in town.  Find a strategy that fits you and only you.  Then, start pounding “who you are” into people’s brains.  If it’s a strategy that people care about (if it hits “hot buttons”), then you’ll start grabbing a bigger piece of the pie and moving up the ladder a bit.  Slowly at first…but surely.  Be patient.

Remember that your strategy can’t be a lie.  You’ll go out of business faster than you thought possible if your ad messages and STRATEGY doesn’t match your “in-store” reality.  In my experience, bad word of mouth travels eleventeen times faster than good word of mouth.

Start doing your research on your competitors.  The more you know, the faster you can start taking a few customers from them here and there.

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A commercial created for John Durham’s Advertising Strategy class at the University of San Francisco. Cinematopgrapher/Editor- Joshua Clark-Collier Screen writer- Alix Khoury Director- Sally Yee Crew- AJ Zollar, Edward Mesa, Jeanette Gunawan, & Yuliya Shapiro Actors- Astro Araujo, Emi Hashisaki, Chevigny Brady, Kerina Hayashi, & Chloe Dickson Voice over- Pierre Le Bourdonnec

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About Author

Duane Christensen is a radio ad/campaign writer and strategist for a unique radio group. His passion is helping each one of his customers’ businesses thrive.

Many small business owners and managers approach marketing in a shotgun approach. They throw money at different marketing activities and hope that something hits their target. In most of these cases, the results are poor. Owners and managers start blaming the radio stations, the ad agency, or even the marketing consultant who told them marketing was the most important activity of their business. They don’t understand the need to plan and map out their marketing efforts. Planning is key to reduce marketing costs and increase effectiveness.

Why create a marketing plan?

When an entrepreneur starts a business, they decide on the product or service, determine where they are going to get it, and plan on how they will sell it. Most owners and managers don’t realize that this planning actually coincides with marketing planning, but in order to be successful a conscious effort has to be applied to planning marketing activities that correlate to creating the product or service and selling it.

As we discussed in the marketing concept of consistency, marketing must be consistent. In order for marketing to be consistent, it must be planned. You must plan each step of your marketing just as you do a business plan. Most businesses have realized the need for a business plan. It helps to guide where the company is going, what is expected, and what they will do when they fail or succeed. These are the same reasons for creating a marketing plan. You must know what the goal of your marketing is, how much you are budgeting, the expected results, what to do if you exceed or fall short of your goals and expectations, and how to relate your marketing to the rest of your company.

What is the difference between planning and strategy?

Planning consists of your marketing roadmap. It tells you where you are starting, what’s your end point, and what the path is to get there. Your organization’s goals are included in planning. Budgets, analyses, and forecasts go into your planning.

Strategies are how you accomplish your goals and forecasts. In fact, strategies are part of the plan. Strategies tell you how you will get from the starting point to the end point and the specific way you will take your planned path. Strategies consist of the action steps that you will implement to obtain the forecasted results. To sum it up, planning creates the big picture and strategies make up the individual parts of the big picture.

What goes into marketing planning?

Marketing planning is typically conducted by your executive staff. The top-level managers usually provide input and feedback for the necessary goals and objectives to make your company successful and maintain a high level of growth. If you have a dedicated marketing department, they will ultimately be responsible for the marketing plan and its contained strategies, but the entire company must be involved in creating the basic outline of your marketing plan.

The marketing planning should begin with an overview of your business and what you intend on selling. When starting here, you should define your business specifically and break down your products and services so that everyone involved understands the basis for all of your marketing planning. Your marketing planning should consist of goals and objectives that relate to the goals and objectives of your business plan. From there, you should analyze your target market, competition, strengths, weaknesses, threats, and opportunities (SWOT). You should also include what you are budgeting for this marketing plan so you can plan strategies correctly. Forecasting your expectations will give you benchmarks to evaluate your marketing planning, which leads to the need to determine how you will assess your results and what types of metrics need to be installed to successfully review your progress and success or failure.

Creating a roadmap is vital to being successful in business and marketing. Marketing can be expensive, wasteful, and ineffective if not properly planned. The old adage, “Failure to plan is planning to fail,” is very true in the realm of marketing. Even though many of today’s marketing activities include free and low-cost tools such as social networking, engaging marketing activities without planning can become expensive in regards to time spent.

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Marketing Strategy – Product Life Cycle

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So if anyone can help that would be great.

About Author

Nate Stockard offers free consulting at freemarketinganswers.com, created by Stockard & Associates, Inc, a marketing and design firm in Houston, TX specializing in small business solutions.

His 13 years of marketing experience is also put on display at The Market Seedling, an informative source of information, articles, tips, and advice for small business owners and marketers.

An old school marketing tenet says that you have to spend money to make money. Sure, when putting up a new business or expanding an established one, you have to spend on additional capital as well as advertising. But in the current state of economy, you have to think a lot before spending. So, when it comes to advertising in this technology- driven but sagging economy, it is best to put your bet on online marketing than traditional advertising types- and here are ten reasons why:

1. “Branding” is out, and measurable return of investment is in. Traditional marketing is great for building brand exposure, that is, if you have a large budget for marketing. But for the small- to mid-sized businesses, online marketing is the smart way to go. When you put an ad on TV, radio and newspaper, you have to wait for certain period of time before you can tell whether your product or service is doing well. With online marketing, you can have a daily reading of how much of the traffic you get is actually converting to sales or not. With that, you can make immediate business decisions for your company.

2. Information in a flash. One major benefit of online advertising over traditional advertising is that you don’t have to wait for months before you launch your product or service. In fact, you can publish any information and content immediately and not limited by neither geography nor time.

3. Quality exposure. When a person passes by a billboard or sees an ad on TV, you cannot tell whether he or she is interested in what you are selling at that time or whether they will be interested in the future or whether they even noticed the campaign. However, a person clicks on an ad in the web when he or she is interested. With online marketing, you actually get your target market.

4. Cost-effective exposure. How much does a TV spot cost these days? Running a small ad in a paper for a day can already cost you a couple hundreds dollars – more if the paper has a wider circulation. However, not all of those who read the papers even read your ad. Some people just click to some other channel on TV when the commercials come on. However, you still have to pay for their viewing your advertisement. Even with pay-per-click (PPC) and other forms of paid online marketing you only pay for the views of people who are interested in your service/products. SEO is even more cost-effective in the long run because it could give you quality exposure for a relatively small financial investment.

5. Prime position. With traditional advertising you pay more to have your ads displayed in a place where it can be seen by the most number of people (Prime time on TV, for example or a billboard on a busy highway, etc). With successful online marketing your position is always prime position. Good SEO will help you rise in the search engine results pages for relevant searches, making sure you’re right there when people want you.

6. Long-term exposure. You can only place a certain amount of advertisement on TV for a few weeks, on the papers, for a day – but with good SEO, you can maintain the same site for years. However, online marketing can complement traditional media by providing directories towards previously made advertisements or those of other brands.

7. Online marketing is best for brand engagement. Studies reveal that among customers, particularly non-techie female internet users with children under 16, the Internet has a greater effect on brand engagement than print media, TV and outdoor advertisement. Brand engagement is one of the factors that ensure brand loyalty among customers. And in this time of recession, it is important to maintain buyers.

8. Online marketing provides insight and other interactive mediums. Studies also show that the internet also has a crucial role in the propagation of indirect experiences of brands through customer reviews. Online video directories for brands are a good example of interactive advertising. Customers can also choose to visit the brand’s website, or interact with the advertiser through other channels such as email, chat or phone. Response to brand communication is instantaneous, and conversion to business is very high.

9. Website users buy more online than average newspaper users. In Germany, Internet users are enthusiastic online shoppers, as well. Before making a purchase, either online or in a store, many German consumers research the product on the Internet. By 2005, online buyers rose by 7%, taking the total number of online shoppers to 27.4 million.

10. Product information. Almost as important for consumers was the search for product information. Research online was particularly popular wherein it came to slow moving consumer goods such as cars, domestic appliances, consumer electronics, mobile phone contracts and furniture. During this time of recession, people think a lot before they spend their money. With free and rich information online, people don’t mind doing a little research and reading some reviews and recommendations before they go and buy certain products.

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2015 scenario: Future by 2020. www.globalchange.com communications, marketing, management, leadership, virtual teams and virtual organisations. Customer focus in product design, advertising, brand development, software and hardware. Mobile marketing and positional advertising trends. Consumer use of personal organisers and mobile devices, mobile phones and other technology. Virtual switchboards, virtual meetings and distance learning. Future bandwidth, video streaming demand, convergence …

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Dr. Keith Webb, of Assassin Marketing, a Dallas marketing company which created the Online Domination System, an online marketing system which allows businesses to dominate the front page of the search engines. Visit http://assassinmarketing.com or contact us at 866-998-8641

Recent survey numbers highlight how Internet traffic is growing exponentially and is poised for a 600% increase by 2012. The huge increase in Internet traffic comes at a time when the convergence of mobile search technologies and local search capabilities will drive the growth of online marketing, local search and mobile search to similar heights – while driving foot traffic to businesses large and small that have a “digital footprint” in today’s surging digital economy.

Staggering numbers from worldwide networking leader Cisco Systems predict a six-fold increase in global traffic on the Internet, highlighting the increasingly important role online marketing and internet advertising will play for businesses large and small as consumers increasingly move online to do both shopping and “Windows shopping”. Cisco released its Visual Networking Index (VNI) Forecast for 2007-2012 on June 16th, which predicts that we will see a 600% increase in Internet traffic by 2012. Cisco’s VNI projections predicts that Internet traffic will double roughly every two years as a result of “a combined annual growth rate of 46 p[er cent form 2007 to 2012.

The key component in this surge of Internet traffic will be video streaming. Cisco predicts that by 2012, “video traffic alone will be 400 times the traffic carried over the U.S. portion of the Internet in 2000. Increasingly, marketing agencies and advertisers are moving off traditional media and moving online to exploit the consumer movement to the Internet. Significantly, much of this consumer movement online will result from the increasing tendency of consumers to access the Internet from handheld mobile devices – a trend that will only increase as RIM, Nokia and other cellular phone and mobile device manufacturers move to keep pace with Apple that just recently released its next-generation 3G iPhone.

Cisco is predicting that mobile data will roughly double each year from 2008 to 2012, highlighting the importance that mobile search will play in an emerging digital economy. Jupiter Research, a leader in online research analysis, has projected that annual revenue from mobile search revenues are expected to hit $US4.8 billion dollars annually by 2013.

As technologies converge, the driver behind these anticipated huge jumps in online advertising and mobile search numbers is – not surprisingly for those who have been tracking the emerging technologies of Web 2.0 – local search. Jupiter predicts that in the emerging digital economy, local search will be the most popular service amongst all advertisers and will attract 40% of all mobile search ad spending between 2008 and 2013.

The convergence of technologies that is fostering the growth in mobile search, and particularly local search, was illustrated by Google CEO, Eric Schmidt. Sitting down for a much-publicized interview with CNBC’s Maria Bartiromo earlier this spring, the head of the search engine giant touted how improvements in mobile search capabilities on advanced mobile handhelds (such as the BlackBerry or Apple’s iPhone) combined with advances in Google Maps and Google’s local search capabilities are making real time, and precise geopraphic local search a reality.

“(W)henever I fly somewhere,” Schmidt told CNBC, “I open up … my iPhone or my BlackBerry, and, boom, there’s everything in my world as I’ve landed in a country I’ve never been in. It’s a remarkable achievement.” Schmidt notes that Google has been tracking the huge increase in use of Google Maps local search technology. “(T)here’s been a huge increase in maps, Google Maps, hugely successful,” Dr. Schmidt reports. “(W)hen I want to go to the equivalent of a Starbucks, I just type “Starbucks,” it says it’s over there. For me, that’s just a huge–a huge improvement. And that service is available almost everywhere in the world.”

What is common practice for Google’s high-flying and technologically enriched CEO is increasingly becoming commonplace for the digital consumer on the street. The predicted growth in internet traffic, together with the radical shift of advertising dollars to online marketing and the growing tendency of Internet-savvy consumers to take up mobile search, clearly forecast where commerce and e-commerce is headed. While there may still be local niche markets that depend on foot traffic to drive their business, increasingly it is a company’s digital footprint that drives customer traffic to its online site or storefront. And the vehicle driving that electronic traffic is mobile search. As online traffic balloons between now and 2012, the importance on local search, mobile search and online marketing will also balloon.

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Welcome to Online Marketing Simplified from Taylor Garland, the Make It Happen Guy for online marketing. I’ll show you how to get your small business up and running online quickly, easily and without spending a ton of money! The patented, award-winning Nirvana Swing Chair — check it out at www.NirvanaSwing.com

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For more information on Toronto online marketing and mobile search marketing contact http://www.Wolf21.com

How much should I spend on marketing?

This is a common question that marketing consultants gets asked on a regular basis.

The simple answer is that there is no hard a fast rule – it depends on the competitive environment, the stage of business development, the product or service category and the balance of advertising designed to promote the brand vs advertising designed to generate a specific response.

As a result of these factors, marketing budgets are best set based on careful analysis of a number of factors as part of a Marketing Strategy not via the often used % of sales method.

If you are looking to develop a deeper understanding of your marketing budget then there are two good places to start.

1. Brand Awareness- Analysing the level of advertising that is appropriate to reach your target markets with appropriate levels of frequency and credibility

1. Specific Response – Analysing the response and conversion rates you are achieving from various forms of advertising

Brand awareness is a direct product of the  Marketing Strategy – by identifying the key target markets and having an understanding of the competitive environment it is possible to establish a picture of the level and types of “brand” advertising required to generate awareness of the brand for new customers and reinforce the message with existing consumers.

Planning the elements of the campaign designed to generate a specific response is more closely aligned with the sales budgets and requires analysis of the response and conversion rates you are achieving from various forms of advertising.

Using response and conversion rates as a starting point allows MJH Group to determine the expected result for a particular level of spend in a particular area and plan the marketing strategy accordingly. This is correlated to the sales budget to help plan the necessary mix of advertising required to drive the response to deliver the sales result.

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The Perfect Marketing Strategy System shown by Darren Spain. You will be able to get more leads by using this perfect marketing strategy or strategies for your mlm or internet business activity.

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MJH Group Marketing supports companies who want to be more innovative and effective in their marketing by providing marketing tips and expertise to develop strategic and tactical marketing programs.

“Customer is the king”. Yes it is true. It is because of “Customers”, why we are in business. In the B2B business, lead generation and sales management are keys to ensure your sales pipeline always full. But, many big and small companies are not giving heat to it. Not having or knowing how many leads you have in your sales pipeline and at what stage they are in the sales-cycle can have huge impact on your bottom line. So how do you find new customers? Where should you spend your marketing dollars? How do you measure your ROI?

So I am discussing herewith 5 things you can do to generate more and better quality leads.

1. Branding – Does it matter?

This is an ongoing argument. Some will say YES branding does matter and others will say NO it does not matter. So, the question arises, does it matter? Yes it does. Ask a group of your clients how they came to be your clients?
Maximum responses will say by “referrals”, followed by: by reading about your company or learned about you through seminar, in other words your reputation or “brand” influenced their buying behavior and ultimately their buying decision.

2. Target Markets – Who are your prospects?

How well do you know your target markets?  Jus answer these questions:
1. Do you know the profile of your target prospect? (Industry, No. of employees, revenue, etc.)
2. Do you know the title of the decision maker you should be targeting?
3. Do you know the names of the actual companies you should be targeting?
4. Do you know the actual names of the decisions makers in those companies?

If your score is 100%, it means you know your target prospects. 80% or less then there is scope for improvement. This is important because: to be successful in lead generation and sales, you need to know, who your best potential customers are. So, I can say knowing your prospects better and ROI on lead generation is directly proportional to each other.

3. Contacting Prospects -What works?

A refined prospect list is the starting point, but what is the most effective way to contact them? Recent Researches shows that two most effective ways to contact prospects is through:

1). Referrals:
Referrals can come from clients, partners or suppliers and represent your best way to contact your prospects. This is best method to contacting your prospect because the person making the referral already has a trusted relationship with the contact and has prequalified them to some level. You are granted the same level of trust as a result of the referral.

2). Telephone Prospecting.
Telephone Prospecting can be as effective as referrals if implemented correctly. The purpose of the telemarketing is what determines its effectiveness. What you should do is use the telemarketing as a way to introduce your company and learn more about the prospect, not sell them on the phone.
It is very unlikely that you are going to call someone when they happen to be “sales ready”, but you need a starting point and this is it.

4. Nurturing – Is your bucket leaking?

Lead management is the key to long-term profitability. Sales teams are usually highly motivated to find “sales ready” leads. Industry researches show that only 10% of the total leads are in the “sales ready” bucket. The remaining 90% are not ready or able to make a purchase decision and require a nurturing plan…but do you have one?
Lead nurturing: It is about managing qualified leads throughout the sales-cycle. It’s not about weekly calls asking them to buy, but about demonstrating value, keeping top of mind and positioning your company as a resource so when the lead is sales ready, you are the one they contact. A nurturing plan requires strategy, tactics and systems. For strategy, your company will likely have some level of thought leadership where insight and innovation can be harvested. These are key starting points from which tactics will be developed. You will also need a highly automated system that can manage the lead nurturing process using various marketing tactics and then qualify leads as they become sales ready.  

5. ROI – How do I get there?

You are investing in Branding, creating refined Prospect Lists, Contacting Prospects, Lead Management Systems and Nurturing Strategies all in the name of creating sales and profit. But how are you going to measure your return on that investment? The only way to do this with accuracy is by having a well defined closed-loop marketing system. This is where you can manage and measure throughout the entire sales-cycle process from initial contact to completed sale. You need to be able to manage and measure your

•    Branding Activities
•    Target Lists
•    Contacting
•    Nurturing

Having a closed-loop marketing system that you can control and adjust to fit your specific business needs will allow you to clearly define your costs for lead generation. Managing and measuring the lead generation and sales-cycle processes will also allow you to keep track what sales actually closed. Once you are able to match up the lead generation processes and costs with the specific sales that closed, your ROI becomes a whole lot easier to determine.

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www.thinkseer.com – Video focuses on how B2B Marketers can use Google Insights to find trending keywords for SEO campaigns.

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The author is an Online Media Consultant who has been consulting various businesses including Small and Medium B2B Businesses on how to use the power of internet to increase the ROI. This will be a series of articles targeted specifically for B2B businesses through the world. To know more about B2B Wholesale Suppliers and Buyers Marketplace please visit: http://eurotradenet.com

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This article was brought to you by http://freeadvertisinginternet.com If You would like to know more about how to advertise online for free visit http://freeadvertisinginternet.com for more information.

Orange County, CA Album Creative Studios, Inc. a full-service brand marketing firm, launches a new program offering big brand marketing for small businesses.

“We have taken the large, expensive ad agency process and services, and tailored them to small businesses with a very hands-on approach,” says Matt Parker, Creative Director. Album Creative, founded in 2002, combines experience and proven brand-building techniques to build “Rockstar Brands.”

Album markets a range of businesses including Too Faced Cosmetics, Ben & Jerry’s and Western National Group, but primarily helps small businesses in the industries of consumer products, health & beauty, hospitality, and health care.

“Whether you are a startup or have been in business for years, the process is the same. We fine-tune your brand message and distribute it in a way that really resonates with your audience,” Parker said.

Posh Party Box is an example of Album’s brand-building process in action. Launched by Album in 2006, Posh Party Box sells all-inclusive party packages that make it effortless to host a stylish celebration.

As a startup, Posh Party Box needed help defining their brand strategy and establishing a logo and brand identity. After establishing a strategic and visual foundation, Album provided the marketing and sales tools needed to launch their brand, including catalogs, collateral, offline and online advertising, and more. Album then designed and developed a custom e-commerce website, which won an award from iParenting Magazine.

On-going brand strategy and online marketing tactics have ensured that Posh Party Box’s marketing message remains consistent and creative. Whether it is search engine optimization, online advertising, or email blasts, Album has delivered creative results that resonate with customers and prospects, and as a result, have grown the business.

Sue Pierce, Founder and CEO, has found great value in a reliable, innovative marketing partner. “I have business associates who outsource their marketing and they’re always complaining about the service and quality. My advice is always the same – call Album. Album’s response, customer service, and dedication to their clients are far more superior to any other organization I have worked with.”

Visit www.AlbumCreative.com or call 949.373.1140 for information on our unique branding process. For more news from Album, please visit News.AlbumCreative.com.

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Visit BusinessEnglishPod.com to view and download more videos on Business English for ESL. This episode of Video Vocab introduces 10 commonly used English vocabulary related to the marketing Marketing, Advertising, Brand, Launch, Consumer, Market research, Brand Identity, Public Relations or PR, Position and Campaign.

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Album Creative Studios, Inc. is a full service branding and marketing agency located in San Clemente, Ca. Providing affordable brand strategy and online marketing services for small business owners in Orange County.

Article marketing campaign should be done In professional way to achieve maximum results when it comes to generating traffic and making sales. If you still believe that article marketing is not as effective as PPC advertising then read this article to find out how to write intriguing articles to get maximum results from article marketing. </p>

Article Marketing Campaign: How to Write Intriguing Articles

Here are 3 useful tips to apply to write practical and interesting articles: 

1.    Put a question in your article title.  

Put a intriguing question frequently asked by people in certain niche and then try to answer it in your article. The more attractive the title, the more readers will read your article to solution to their problem. The more reader, the more clicks in resource box.

 2.    Give practical tips and hints to solve readers’ problem.   

Start your article with important reasons why a reader should worry about certain issue or problem. Then give some practical tips for solving this problem. These tips really should be useful and valuable for visitors. In this way, you will gain an expert reputation in the eyes of your readers. 

3.    Convince your readers that you know and suggest the best solution to their problem. 

In your last tip, convince visitors that the most effective way to solve the problem is to apply the affiliate product or service you are promoting. Try to prove it by noting about top features of the product.  

Conclusion: 

Article Marketing Campaign can be more profitable than you might think, if you try to squeeze maximum results from article marketing on a daily basis.

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This was a month or so into the “Herb” campaign, where Burger King publicly scorned a man named Herb who supposedly was the only person in the world who had never eaten a Whopper. If you went in and told them you’re not Herb, or at least not the Herb they were looking for, you could get a Whopper for 99 cents. This is the only commercial I have in this series; I thought the final one kind of ruined it because they actually showed Herb on camera.

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15 Article Marketing Strategies You Should Certainly Use, Otherwise You will be leaving thousands of dollars on the table



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Advertising – and its association to other concepts

Introduction:

An advertisement as an object and an advertising as a process has lots of contents and players to bring that concept. As an object it is the Ad designer or the agent who has the role to play, while as a process it is the beholder who has the responsibility to accomplish the objective. In between these two there are other players also to play their separate roles. While the whole issue is to manage and explore the benefits, the role of advertising, being used as a marketing tool can’t be ignored. This is an attempt to define what an advertisement is, and how it is related to other objectives.

Definition

Advertising is a process to communicate the desired message of the producer to the customers. In other words it is the process by which the message is being passed to the consumers by proper means of communication. In a well versed form it is one of the marketing mix to promote goods, services, companies and ideas through an identified sponsor. One of the 4P’s of marketing is the promotion strategy. Advertising being a part of promotional mix helps a lot to the marketers to promote their products.

Elements of advertising Process

There are different elements of advertising. Their relevancy depends upon the demand of a particular situation and so can easily move in the priority list to fulfill the need of the situation. As enlisted and shown in the figure depicted above “an advertisement as a product has several elements to be judged (in the process starting from concept to reality) to come as a product to meet the objective of the company”.

The importance of advertising depends upon various factors such as nature of the product, Industry to which it belongs, competition in the market, market intensity, stage of the product or the brand in its life cycle, effect on per capita consumption, customer loyalty, brand credibility and media.

Advertising is a component of marketing mix has a lot to do in the market to meet an objective of the beholder. Being a communication process to put the information about the intended “idea or thought” to the target audience or defined customers in a manner to satisfy the intended need is not an easy task. In a very subjective way it is all to bring the concept into reality to work and meet the intended need. Through advertisement, the beholder tries to put their information into the market for their ready acceptance. The intensity of competition has led a lot of pressure on promoters and advertisers to make a creative, responding and effective advertisement.

The need of the market has created a different role for advertising to play in the area of marketing. For a well established product or brand, advertisement has to just communicate its relevance by transferring the information to the market. But, for a product or an idea which is either in an initiation stage or just to move, advertising has a lot to do in the market for that product. Nature of the product and its stage in its life cycle is also a great determinant of advertising, to be designed and to get figured in the market.

Four P’s of marketing and advertising

Product and Advertisement: There are three kinds of products shown in an advertisement. They are General Products, Esteemed or logical products and Competitive Products. To advertise a general product information used in an ad is all the benefits of the product and its appeal to the target audience. For logical products the information to be conveyed through the advertisement is the need or satisfaction level to which the product is designed. For competitive product the comparative appeal is used in an advertisement to promote the product.

Place and Advertisement: To convey information through advertisement place strategy covers culture, age, gender, emotion, demography, geography, society, class of people, Income class to be shown in the advertisement and through that to target the desired audience. By this an advertisement helps to promote the product and to reach the targeted audience.

Price and Advertisement: In an advertisement pricing strategy usually designed to convey the comparative benefits and price structure with the competitive products and to target the desired customers to meet the objective.

Promotion and Advertisement: An advertisement is usually defined as a promotion strategy to promote the intended idea and meet objective. When all the other 3 Ps gets compiled in an advertisement it is the advertisement (a part of the promotional mix) which has to serve the intended need.

Advertising budget and cost

There are different categories of advertising media to be used for advertisement. A company has to go through a thorough search of different available options, budget for advertisement, mass effect of the media and analysis of cost and benefit of the available media to meet the objective. The choice of the option depends upon available options, different objectives subject to the restriction of resources to be used. For example to meet the objective in terms of its effectiveness television advertising is used, for others such as for great branding and reach a large audience magazines are used, while to assist in cornering the market mail order and leaflets are used. By advertising one’s business with internet marketing strategies one can save on his advertising budget and one can run his advertising budget into arrears if he starts up his internet marketing with the wrong advertising company. To opt certain media one has to thoroughly evaluate the objectives, resource constraints, target reach, accessibility and per capita effect.

There are different types of advertising. It covers Television, Newspaper, Magazine, Mailorder, Banners, Cost per click, Google SEO, Weblinx etc. While their effect is respectively, mass effect, budgetary effect, cost justification effect , an easy lead access effect, brand development effect, easy access and lesser cost effect, website promotion effect and in budget advertising effect. The criterion to select an option to advertise is restricted with the purpose, the obligation, the resource constraints and the earlier outcomes of those options.

All the efforts for advertising are to put the information in the market and get the desired objective fulfilled. Though the definition is very subjective the outcomes are a mix of qualitative and quantitative one. Examples of subjective outcome is supporting the branding process, place the informations at the right place, stimulating intention and motivation to buy etc while the measurable outcome is sales growth, increase in per capita consumption etc. The measurement of an outcome of a selected option becomes a base for evaluating the decision of the company or the organization moved up with that decision. While the same outcome, becomes an evaluating parameter for others to use, as to evaluate that available option.

An ad campaign has different issues to meet the target. Its content covers, message, appeal, slogan, words, celebrities, media, kind of satisfaction etc. An ad is a complete justification of the need and the requirement. Though the justification has several grounds to get a trade off among different available options, the need to serve and manage that trade off cant be ignored. It is the resource capacity, which ultimately talks about the whole of the advertisement. The other factors which affects the decision is available options and the need.

Advertisement has an important role in marketing to meet the objective of the beholder. For an organization or the beholder for whom it is designed, for the ad designer, for the sponsors, and for the customers as a whole advertising has different meaning. For the sponsor it is the communication, for the beholder it is the objective, for a customer it the rationale to decide. To serve different needs of the society it is designed and used differently. The significance of advertising cant be ignored as it is the mean to communicate and get the desired result. As a mean to inform and to add to the credibility the strategy behind designing an advertisement and its content, there is a lot of factors to be judged and to comply with. Being an effective marketing tool advertisement is used to meet several needs and hence to fill the gap in the market.

Advertising : Different players their association and role :

Manufacturer/Initiator

1. What?

2. How?

3. Where?

4. To Whom?

5. By Whom?

6. How much?

Ad designer/ Ad agencies

1. What?

2. How?

3. By whom?

4. Where?

Sponsor

1. Where?

2. To whom?

3. When?

4. How?

Customers

1. What?

2. How?

3. Who?

Evaluator

1. Shift in per capita consumption

There are five main players playing with an ad concept to come as a product. They are manufacturer, Ad designer, Sponsor, Customers and the Evaluator. These different persons have different roles in formulating the purpose. As shown in the above picture they are concerned with different parts as to play in this process. Though the start and end point is not restricted but it all depends upon the requirement and available options. To enrich their role they have different role criteria either to be put to initiate the concept or to evaluate the same on different grounds, in an advertisement process, as shown in the below mentioned diagram. The terminology and the contents that have been used to define the roles of each head have the effect of their responsibility, the stage where they have to play or contribute and their part in the whole communication process to lead the concept of advertisement into reality.

After fulfilling the initial criteria these all have to stick towards different parts of their role within a predefined set to bring advertisement concept to work. The role of these players and the requirement of their role gets judged with the whole issues as defined in the below mentioned figure.

Ad designer/ Ad agencies

1.Message

2.Content

3.Language

4.Media

5.Target audience

6.Slogan

7.Methods

8.Brand association

9.Customer loyalty

10.Brand acceptance

Manufacturer/Initiator

1.Product/Idea

2.Concept

3.Budget

4.Segments

5.Gender

6.Value addition

7.Associated benefits

8.Celebrities

9.Media

10.Language

Sponsor

1.Budget

2.Cost/benefits

3.Media

4.Timimng

5.Target audience

6.Brand loyalty

Customers

1.Brand value

2.Valueaddition

3.Offerings

4.Ad association

5.Need satisfaction

6.Ad message

7. Earlier experience.

Evaluator

1.increase in per capita consumption

2.Customer acceptance

3.Market credibility

Advertising: Evaluation

Now about the product or the theme which get informed through the advertisement has to take the market acceptance. If the requirement of all meets properly the intention of the message gets served with proper acceptance in the market. Being a challenging and required issue of the market all parts of the process have to meet effectively. Based upon the results in terms of sales growth, market acceptance, and credibility as desired initially the advertisement also required to be evaluated in terms of its effectiveness. There are different methods of evaluating advertisement effectiveness. Few of them are rating point (rp) and target rating point (trp). It tries to show the percentage of the universe of the existing base of users/customers that can be reached by the use of each media outlet in a particular moment of time. The difference in these methods is because of the size of the sample and their dimensions. Hence we can put that these methods could be used to make an advertisement to fulfill the segmentation strategy with the more refined method i.e. trp.

To sum up

Advertising has a critical role in marketing. It helps in promoting the product, improves sales growth, puts the information into the market, effects people to initiate the action. Apart from its role for a beholder for whom it is designed it has a great contribution in generating a sector with employment opportunity and by that creating its contribution to the society. The affect, credibility, and the requirement all could be easily measured by its current role in the market and the economy. From both as a need and as a competitive requirement, advertising serves a lot in the market. Being an important marketing tool it servers the need of all the players and by that proves its credibility to contribute towards the needs and objective.

Watch the video related to advertising

Dr. Robert Cialdini discusses sales principles – It`s all about changing your social reality. (Excerpt from a psychology documentary about “Social Reality” with Philip Zimbardo) en.wikipedia.org

Help answer the question about advertising

Print advertising? Online Advertising? How much does it cost?

Can you also give any ideas on special events or promotions to get customers in?

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About Author

ICWA, 5years Industrial experience in Auditing,Marketing,Accounting, Research,Publication,Teaching and Finance.
A passion towards learning and getting knowledge and very keen towards any knowledge.