Know Your Objective
Before you begin advertising, there's something you must establish upfront - Your Objective. Sounds a little bit elementary, doesn't it...maybe too simple. But you'd be surprised how many people say, "I know what my advertising objective is...it's to generate business, to make sales, and to make money. What else is there?" Well, there are lots of other things. Specifically, you want to decide if your ad is going to generate leads, generate sales, move somebody to the next step in the buying process, or a combination of these things.
Many advertisers assume that everyone who sees their ad will be ready to buy - that they'll just waltz right in and plunk down cash. But consumers don't always behave that way...because it depends on what you're selling and to whom you're selling. To illustrate this, here's an example of an upscale consignment furniture store that only carried really nice stuff in excellent condition. They'd spent almost $20,000 on radio advertising that sounded like the typical advertising nonsense. You've heard it before, "We carry this, this, and this. Only the finest that. We're committed to this. Yadda, yadda, yadda. Our store is located at such and such shopping plaza, we're open from 10 to 6 everyday."
The indisputable lack of results proved that their ads were not good. And like many businesses, the owners concluded that radio advertising does not and will not work for a furniture store like theirs. But remember, there are 2 parts to every advertisement: The medium, and what you actually say in the medium. In this case it wasn't the radio station that was bad...it was their ads. They had assumed the next step in the buying process was for the prospect to come into the store to browse around. Sounds reasonable, right? What would you expect people to do after they heard an ad for a consignment furniture store? Come on in and take a look.
For the rest of the story, tune in tomorrow.
For more information
SUBSCRIBE to our new weekly marketing newsletter.
When Marketing Know Your Objective - Adult B2B Marketing Tip
Hybrid Mode
