Many small businesses don’t get success they want from
advertising due to availability of very little resources. The results are
simply flat due to lack of good ideas for improvements. Whether the ads are put
in a local newspaper or are printed in the famous periodical or posted on a
website, the money invested should gain the desired outcome. There are some
common mistakes small businesses and professional service providers do when
designing and posting the advertisement, which leads to the failure of the
advertisement.
Bigger is better is believed in by many. That’s
exactly what some of the small firms think when they want to advertise their
product. They think bigger and select a medium where they need to invest a lot
of money, but do not reach the targeted market. Like if a company specializes
in designing diet plans and want to help out people who had disappointing
results from their individual diet plans, and the company chooses to advertise
a full page in the local paper instead of running advertisement in a health
magazine, obviously not many of the dieters will notice the advertisement and
the advertisement doesn’t get the desired attention.
So the point is to come up with the best campaign,
which will increase the probability of the ad getting viewed and the right
customers trying to buy the product or sign up for the service. Studies and
research can be carried out on the market and targeted audience can be narrowed
down. Once getting the list of newspapers, magazines and magazines meant for
the customers in mind, find out how many readers they have and the cost they
ask for posting the ad. Special deals are offered by them from time to time and
can only be found by watchful eye.
It is estimated that everyday people are subjected to
around three thousand commercials. That is a huge number and if someone desires
to be noticed, he should certainly be different. Not only the services and
product sold should be unique in the market, so should be the advertisement. For example, if a business selling mattresses
says, “We sell mattresses”, it will not make a statement and will be passed off
as any other mattress advertisement. But if they say, “Our mattresses are of
the finest quality”, it will make the advertisement stand out in the crowd.
Other catch lines are “Are you suffering from back pain? Probably you must try
our mattresses ”, are more specific and will catch the fancy of the people who
are suffering from back pains since a long time. The advertisement should also
focus on the uniqueness of the product and how it is better compared to the
competitors’ product.
Focusing on the problems of the customers and giving a
solution for them, is what a customer demands. A customer does not buy a
product; he buys benefits in the form of a product. The real value of the
product should be realized and a clear picture of it should be presented to the
customer so he will be able to relate with the product. If the advertisement
doesn’t specify the solution it can provide, the customers will never know of
it. So focusing on the customers problem is what some ads miss.
The last thing missing in most of the advertisement is
motivation for the customers. If the advertiser has designed the advertisement
and the customer had read the advertisement, all efforts and money invested
will be wasted if he doesn’t get up and do something about it. It shouldn’t be
assumed that the customer knows what to do; instead the advertisement should
influence the mind of the customer and should tell him what to do. Call of
action is the final job of the advertisement. It should call for information,
or visiting the store or even visiting the online store. The message should
sound confident and clear.
