Forthcoming Events
all held at:
Henley-
Golf & Country Club
Thursday 16th September 2010 Networking Event & Lunch
12.00 o’clock to 2.15pm
Presented by: Richard Suthons -
Richard Suthons Associates
MEMBERSHIP
With effect from 1 September 2009, membership of the Warwickshire Business Club is FREE. The individual annual membership fee of £50 and the corporate annual membership fee of £150 have been scrapped! To become a member, all you have to do is attend just one networking event and this entitles you to free membership of the club.
proud to be networking since 1982
The Secrets of Advertising: Making Advertising Effective and Low Cost
by Stefan Drew of Stefan Drew Associates
Advertising is the first thing most people think of when tasked with marketing anything.
Although advertising can be very effective if used correctly, unfortunately, most advertising doesn’t work. The reasons are many, not least badly worded adverts, poor advert design, using the wrong advertising media and missing, or poorly designed, “calls to action”.
An advert can be a useful device to inform people locally about a school or college Open Day, but it is not likely to be cost effective if used to encourage people to buy a product or service on a one off basis. In fact using advertising to sell is one of the major mistakes most advertisers make. Advertising is far more effective when used to build a relationship with a prospect.
An example of relationship building might include a school offering a booklet on “Helping your child spell” or “Helping your grandchild with basic maths”. The advert would be designed to show how good spelling (or numeracy) benefits a child, how the booklet will help and how to obtain it (call at the school, by post, or online). In each case the recipient’s details can be collected and the opportunity to build a relationship is established. More help can be offered, invites to carol services and other events given and over time a reputation is established as a helpful caring school where children are happy and thrive.
A business example of the above might be the garage wishing to sell cars. Rather than advertise cars for sale the garage can offer advice in a booklet about “Greener motoring”, “Obtaining fuel economy” or similar. Details can again be gathered and might include the type of car already owned and when it might be replaced. From this a relationship is built and a database of people intending to purchase cars is established.
In both examples the advert has made no attempt to sell a product or service but to build a relationship and experience shows that these are far more productive adverts than selling adverts.
Traditional advertising includes adverts placed in newspapers, on radio and TV and
is normally very expensive. Advertising sales staff frequently explain that it is
necessary to run a series of adverts to get the best return on investment; and this
of course may attract a discount but will ultimately cost more. The reality is that
a single relationship-
The question that potential advertisers should ask themselves is can I negotiate a better price. If so what will the likely cost per response be and is there a more cost effective advertising or marketing stream I could use? In hard economic times there is always room to negotiate on price as fewer organisations are advertising and sales staff have targets to meet. In this situation the advertising list price can be totally disregarded and offers for space made.
The question of putting your money to better use might include alternative advertising media. For example instead of advertising a school or college Open Day in the press I have frequently used the money to much greater effect by investing it in official roadside signs. In the UK motoring organisations such as the AA and RAC can provide this service. Ten strategically placed directional signs to the event in the AA’s distinctive black text on bright yellow backgrounds are eyecatching and very effective. Clearly local roadside signs cannot replace advertising a national event in the national press. However for a local event such as a school Open Day they can be very cost effective.
Other alternatives to traditional advertising include Google Adwords. Adwords have revolutionised advertising as they are only paid for when someone responds to the advert, can be targeted very precisely and are low cost. Perhaps the greatest attraction is the fact that whereas an advert in the press is directed at every reader, irrespective of their interest in a product or service, Adword adverts can only be seen by those people searching for information on a given subject.
The whole subject of advertising is very complex. For example many people don’t understand why you should never advertise on a left hand page (unless you pay a fraction of the price for a right hand page). More information can be seen at:
Free advertising is possible in some cases. One such method is featured here:
Stefan Drew is an experienced management and marketing consultant and is well known for delivering outstanding marketing strategies for his clients.
Resource -
Articles written by members of Warwickshire Business Club
Copyright (C) 2009 Warwickshire Business Club. All rights reserved.
Shakespeare Memorial Theatre