Even the most successful companies have a limited number advertising dollars to spend. Given these restrictions, it doesn’t pay to just pour money into every conceivable marketing medium there is and hope for optimal results. Instead, it makes sense to consider the actual outcome of your marketing efforts, and think about how the customer perceives different types of advertising. Below we explore crucial differences between several popular methods of marketing.
Search Marketing
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Though much newer than some of the other traditional forms of advertising, search marketing is actually one of the most effective ways to reach your target market and earn a strong return on investment (ROI) there is. Never before has it been possible to target people who are searching for exactly what you’re selling, at the precise moment that they are thinking about it. By selecting keywords (or search terms, as they are sometimes called), businesses can show different messages to different people who are interested in your product, while at the same time restricting irrelevant searches from seeing the ad at all.
Another aspect of search marketing that makes it such a strong investment is that you only pay for performance. That is, you can display ads to searchers all you want, and are only charged when one of them likes your ad and clicks it to check out your website. This is a totally different investment than paying to blast the same message out out to everyone (as with TV advertising and similar channels) and hoping that it entices some people enough to call in.
Email List Marketing
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Email list marketing is the ultimate in low cost-high return marketing. This strategy involves gathering the e-mail addresses of willing customers, and providing them with free content along with some intermixed sales pitches. The only cost required is some quality auto responder software, and of course the cost of time required to type the emails.
If it is done correctly though, email list marketing is an extremely responsive way to move products. When you build an email list, what you are doing is collecting a group of people who are interested in your field, and who like reading your blog or have enjoyed the products you have already sold them. These are people who are literally asking you to contact them, which means that as long as your free content is valuable and the products you sell are relevant to the discussions you present, the campaign will be a likely success.
Media Buying
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Media buying refers to the approach of purchasing advertising space on websites that are (usually) related to your product. Though this approach can be effective, there is a different philosophy attached to this type of marketing that makes it slightly riskier than the two discussed above. The measure of effectiveness for any kind of marketing is how strongly the message speaks to the prospects needs and concerns, and how recently were they thinking about these things before they heard your ad. Media buying attempts to target readers of websites with ads related to what they are reading, and depending on the subject matter, this is often an solid strategy.
The problem comes when readers are simply killing time on a pleasure read (such as entertainment news, or opinion columns) and have no interest in whatever you’re selling. This is especially harmful when you are paying per impression (CPM) and must cough up money every time your ad is merely displayed. Other sites use a cost per click (CPC) approach, in which case you don’t pay unless someone was interested enough to click.
Magazine Advertising
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Magazine advertising is rather like the media buying of print marketing. The great thing about this channel is that it doesn’t matter how broad or niched your product is because there are so many different magazines in circulation. National fishing suppliers can go to any number of broad sporting magazines, or they can narrow it down even further and select saltwater fishing or freshwater sport.
Entrepreneur.com comments that it can get even more specific than that, because some magazines are specific to certain cultures in small geographical areas. “If you’re looking to sell pre-paid phone cards to Indian immigrants in Queens or Mexican-Americans in L.A.,” the explain, “local ethnic newspapers can be a low-cost way to reach the entire community in one shot.”
Newspaper Advertising
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Newspaper advertising is a medium most effective for local businesses who need to reach people in their area. People read newspapers not only to learn about the news, but also to check out the local happenings. Restaurant reviews, nightlife events, big sales, coupons to local stores – these things matter to residents of a city. Using the newspaper, your local business can advertise itself right where people are looking to find local hotspots and hidden gems.
Television Advertising
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Since it is infamously known as one of the most expensive advertising channels there is, it should follow that it is the most effective resturn on your large investment, right? Actually, television commercials are not a worthwhile strategy for most businesses, largely because of their high cost and broad target. If your brand has a market that is any more specific than “everyone,” you need to seriously reconsider buying a TV spot. As ad agency veteran Jerry Shereshewsky told Entrepreneuer, “If a general demographic description is all you need, then TV can be great. But as soon as you need to get narrower, you’re out of luck.”
Corporate Sponsorships
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When companies sponsor competitive athletes, they are more or less gambling on the outcome of the event. Take the Worldwide Series of Poker, for example. Players are often sponsored by poker training websites and casinos, because if their player wins it sends a message to everyone at home – “Want to learn how to play like him? Just go to the company on his shirt.” The same is true of Nascar sponsors – “Want a super fast car? Use this motor oil.”
The problem is that companies cannot predict the winners of such events any more than the average gambling man can. This means that while one company gets to shine as their pick takes home the trophy and represents their brand, all the losing brands are swept to the side and all but forgotten about.
Billboard Advertising
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Billboard advertising is only worthwhile if you are either advertising an broad mass commodity, or a local establishment that is very close to the billboard. Directing someone off the highway to grab a coffee if they’re thirsty could effective, but if your product is any more specific than that a billboard simply won’t cut the mustard. Remember the measure of an effective marketing strategy discussed above – one can hardly imagine a less personal, less targeted way to send a sales message than a large poster on the side of a highway. Aside from the fact that most people are speeding by the board at 70 mph with their eyes fixed on the road, the effort is totally unmeasurable in terms of effectiveness.
The sad fact is, many businesses pour a substantial amount of money into plastering billboards all across America’s highways, and have no way to empirically determine whether the investment ever produces a single new customer. Peter Koeppel, founder of a Texas based advertising firm that sells billboard advertising, echoes this concern, saying, “You can’t actually determine how well the advertising works like other direct-response mediums can.”
Bus Wraps
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The same problem associated with billboards is just as true of bus wraps, taxi ads, and marketing of this sort. It is so broad and unmeasurable that it only makes sense if you are attempting to to target everyone and anyone. A new restaurant that just opened up in town could make sense, as your goal is simply to let everyone know its there, but a niche product intended for a specific audience will never take hold this way. A person is rarely as removed from the buying process as they are when they are stopped at a red light and your ad comes screaming by them plastered to the side of public transportation. More often then not, they will have forgotten it by the time the light turns green.
Strange Marketing
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Lastly, some companies follow the Marilyn Manson approach to marketing and opt for shock value. Advertising approaches such as paying customers to tattoo a logo onto their body smacks of a company that has far too much money to spend on advertising, and executives who have all but forgotten the whole point of an advertisement – to sell something. Somehow, this odd approach to spreading a brand name happens every day, and is facilitated by services like “LeaseYourBody.com” that seeks to connect willing skin with paying companies.
MSNBC reports that for a while, Michelin tires was offering a free set of tires to anyone with the “Flying D” company logo tattooed to their body. Interestingly, there was no clause for how visible the logo was, and many of the people who claimed their tires could have the body ad covered by clothing whenever they’re in public. Such publicity stunts are funny to hear about, but they cost companies real money for a gimmick with no discernible ROI.
