Dos And Don’ts For Effective Advertising

Advertising makes the world go around, or the world goes around advertising. Any which way you look at it, advertising plays an extremely important role in the decisions we make when buying products or services. Now, what is advertising? Advertising is basically any effort taken to communicate to or convince a target group to purchase a particular product or service. Advertising and the whole process of branding can actually help make or break a company. The success of the products and services a company sells depends on the efforts it takes to promote the same. In today’s day and age, everyone likes to make informed decisions when buying something. Informed decisions are made possible via advertising. A good advertisement should provide a prospective customer with information on the product it’s trying to sell. It should then go on to try to convince the customer to purchase the product or vice-versa. Successful ad campaigns strike a unique balance between information presented and the art of convincing people. Go for it; explore this article to gain knowledge on the dos and don’ts for effective advertising.

Effective Advertising Techniques

Do’s

Do make it a point to keep your ideas simple, interesting and original. Your idea should throw on the essence of your product and speak to your target group. The slogan or tagline should strike a chord with your target audience. There is no point in executing an ad campaign that speaks to people who may not even have the money to purchase the product you’re trying to sell. Your idea should exert a pull on potential customers, create an interest and desire, and result in purchase. All of this while keeping the idea simple, interesting and original. Frequent and appropriate changes in advertising ideas and messages have to be made too.
Do choose more than one medium for your product or service. Your advertising mediums should be chosen after taking into consideration the populace your ad is targeted at. Customize your choice of medium or media accordingly. If you desire to speak to a large audience, you may need to look at outdoor advertising, television, radio, magazines and newspapers. If you’re looking at speaking to a select group, choose the kind of media that the particular group is most familiar with. It’s simple things like these that need to be given serious thought when zeroing in on the media to be used to promote your product.
Do scatter rays of light on the advantages or benefits of your product or service. Focus less on the features of your product. Place yourself in the shoes of your target customer - Would you really be interested in the features of a product? To a certain extent, yes, but wouldn’t you like to know more on the ‘advantages’ of the product? Remember this, all great and successful advertisements and advertisers have placed the needs and thought processes of the target audience first.
Do take a look at the advertising efforts of your competitors. While this may be thought of as an unethical practice by a handful, it still is an essential one. The advertising industry runs on competition. Advertisers gain inspiration from their competition and proceed to produce ideas that match or sail past the efforts of their competitors. Look at the ads around you, ponder over them and mull over the creative efforts that have made those ads a possibility. When you are coming up with an ad for your product or service, take into consideration everything that you’ve seen in the ads of your competitors.

Don’ts

Do not make your message complex or ambiguous. You’ve got to keep it simple. No one wants to look at an advertisement and then go to a dictionary to look up the meanings of the words in the advertisement. A complex and long message will destroy the very purpose of your ad, ultimately leading to the failure of your efforts.
Avoid or eliminate grammatical mistakes in your ads. Even a small grammatical error can undermine the chances of the success of your advertisement. Let’s step back into the shoes of a potential customer. Do you think a potential customer would even think about buying a product or service that’s promoted by an ad plagued with grammatical errors? A big fat NO, is the answer. A customer with prudence and sensibility may not fall for the persuasiveness of an ad that’s ridden with errors. Make it a point to produce ideas and ads that are faultless. It’s important, extremely important!
Do not overcrowd your ad copy. An advertisement that looks cluttered is not the way to go; it’s nothing but a killer. Your message, your art and your colors should complement each other. Successful advertisements have always struck a balance between these three key ingredients. Keep the artwork simple and pleasing to the eye. Your message should stand out and shouldn’t be overshadowed by the artwork, but at the same time, it’s all about what you want. However, striking a balance between a perfect ‘headline’ and the artwork is a must.

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