Whether you run a large corporation or a small family business, understanding advertising is key to your success. Even if your business offers a wonderful product or service, you will not be able to grow your customer base without promotion. Without new customers, you won’t be in business very long. Thankfully, good advertising doesn’t need to be complicated. Whether it is a simple email newsletter or a large ad in a popular magazine, here are some tips to make your advertising more effective.
1. Utilize What Makes You Stand Out
Consumers are saturated with advertisements every day for everything from Irish gift baskets to shampoo, which makes it critical that you stand out from the crowd. What makes your product or service different? What can you offer that the competition simply doesn’t have? Once you figure this out, it should be your main focus as you develop a new advertisement. Get your team together and brainstorm ideas. You may be able to come up with some truly unique concepts by asking your employees to help you with this. Don’t be afraid to think outside the box and embrace the quirky, unique side of your business.
2. Use Social Media
Most people check their social media profiles multiple times per day, sometimes for hours at a time. If you aren’t using social media to advertise, you are missing out on a very effective marketing channel. Think about your potential customers and consider which platforms they are most likely to use. Make sure you post advertisements to these websites. To stay fresh in the minds of consumers, make sure you are posting at least a few times per week.
3. Offer Testimonials
Trust is an important component of growing and keeping your customer base. A great way to get new customers is to show them that you are trusted by your current customers. Consider adding a few testimonials to your website or social media pages. These days, many people look to the internet for reviews of businesses, products and services. People are more likely to give you their business if they feel that other customers have been satisfied in the past. Choose testimonials that will give potential customers peace of mind.
4. Feature a Call to Action
An effective advertisement is about more than just telling consumers about your product or service. It should also feature a call to action, such as encouragement to join your newsletter for discounts or fill out a form to learn more about your product. Exciting phrases and appealing language can be very helpful in getting your customers to take action. Make it easy for them to follow through by ensuring that all web links are working and that your instructions are easy to understand.
5. Craft a Powerful Headline
Consumers are busy with family, work and recreational activities. They read quickly and probably don’t pay much attention to television commercials. Your job is to make them stop and take notice of your advertisement. If you can’t get their attention with your headline, you’ve lost them. Think about the customers you would like to attract and consider what would make them take notice. Try to use specific language when crafting your headline.
6. Create Exciting Visuals
People are attracted to strong, compelling visuals. Make sure your advertisement isn’t boring. An interesting graphic can make or break your advertisement. Whatever you do, avoid featuring paragraphs of text on a plain background. You may want to hire a graphic designer or professional photographer to help you. You also have the option to use one of the many no-cost images found online.
Investing time and money in advertising will pay dividends down the road. Without advertising, you simply won’t be able to grow your company in the way that is necessary to stay in business long-term. Follow just a few of these tips to help you increase the effectiveness of your advertising strategy.