Advertising has been an effective business marketing tool for decades.
In 2020 so far, there’s been a spend of $151 billion on digital advertising and a whopping $107 billion on traditional advertising. The figures speak for themselves.
Effectively, businesses wouldn’t be spending this time of money on advertising if the results didn’t show positive for their return on investment.
Are you wondering how advertising services can help your business? Keep reading to find out why no business can survive without it!
Traditional Advertising and Digital Advertising
Advertising services can almost be split down the middle to traditional advertising and digital advertising.
Let’s have a brief look at the differences between the two:
What Is Traditional Advertising?
It’s safe to say that traditional advertising can be summed up as advertising that has stood the test of time. Think back to advertisements that you saw as a child and still see around you today.
Things like newspaper adverts, flyers, TV commercials, radio commercials, and even posters are what make up traditional advertising.
What Is Digital Advertising?
Digital advertising on the other hand is a fairly new concept in terms of how long marketing has been around. Digital advertising includes any and all advertisements that you can see whilst online.
Social media marketing, website marketing, internet marketing, digital banners, and more. Basically put, digital marketing encompasses any advertising that is done through an electronic device and on the internet, otherwise known as online marketing.
The Benefits of Advertising
The benefits of advertising are vast, and results can only truly be monitored based on what your goals for the business are. So, what can advertising do for your brand, as a whole:
- It can increase traffic either through your door or to your website, advertisements can create buzz for potential customers to want to visit your store or business
- It can generate solid, qualified leads for your salespeople to follow up on, once people have viewed an advertisement, they will only take action if they are truly interested in your product or service
- It’s a great way to introduce new products to the market, many companies will launch a product and fail to use the advertising tools at their disposal to inform the market
- Advertising can improve all-round brand awareness, using it correctly, your brand can be viewed so many times by a potential customer, that by the time comes that they require your services, your brand is front of mind with the consumer
- It can spread the word about promotions or sales that you have coming up, particularly before the launch date of said promotion. If people can be armed with the details of a sale before the time, they’ll be likely to keep money aside to spend with your business.
- Advertising can also help solidify your brand’s reputation through repetitive messaging in your collateral and help you to be viewed as a thought leader within your sphere of services
No matter what channel or platform you decide to have your advertising on, these benefits remain the same. You can choose how you use your advertising in line with your goals and what you want to achieve, in order to maximize each benefit.
Advertising Services: The Lowdown
Different agencies will offer different advertising services, it’s your job to wade through the information and see what advertising each agency offers.
For example, some advertising agencies may only specialize in digital and online marketing, whereas other agencies will have a traditional advertising service as well.
Depending on the agency that you’re looking at partnering with, it’s always important to check out the full range of what they offer. Mainly because it’s vital that your advertising has the same branding, uniformity, and messaging across whichever medium it’s found on.
This is easier to achieve with one team managing your advertising services than having multiple outlets to manage.
These are typically the type of advertising services you should look for:
Social Media Advertising
Platforms such as LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram have advertising capabilities that your business can use to its advantage. However, managing a social media platform as well as other advertising efforts can be very time-consuming.
The right agency can manage this for you, if not manage all three platforms across a broader advertising campaign.
The thing about social media advertising is that each platform differs slightly from the next, Instagram is a very visual tool so your advertising should focus on that. Whereas LinkedIn gives you the opportunity to advertise longer-form content.
Pay-Per-Click Advertising
We’ve all come across the letters ‘PPC’ before, but what exactly is it?
Well, pay-per-click advertising is simple.
Your agency should use things like mobile display and search ads, mobile video marketing, and even in-app advertisements to get your advertisements out there.
The idea is that the business would only pay for the actual clicks they gain from each campaign, as opposed to paying for something like a billboard. The advantage of PPC advertising is that it is easily measurable for you, so you’re able to see right off the bat what you’re paying for and if it is worth it.
Print Advertising
Your digital campaigns should match your print campaigns to a certain degree. You’ll want your branding to be easily identifiable, no matter where your potential customer is seeing or interacting with it.
Print advertising services should include the design of flyers and brochures, your corporate marketing collateral as well as newspaper and magazine adverts.
The service should include in-depth research into which publications are right for your brand and how their readers form part of your ideal target audience.
Outdoor Advertising
Outdoor advertising is a larger form of advertising in the way in which it is produced and displayed.
An agency will be able to use their research to present to you the best possible locations for your adverts to be displayed. Why a certain billboard is a prime location for you. Why a bus stop display advert will work for your brand and so on.
Direct Advertising
Although this is a form of print marketing, we’ve put it in its own category. Did you know that 90% of direct mail gets opened, in comparison to only 20-30% of advertising emails?
Direct marketing is mail that you post into the mailboxes of your ideal target market. Meaning they receive a printed brochure, flyer, sales catalogs, newsletters, or informational sheet in their hands.
if advertising services include the design thereof, your direct mail campaign should be visually appealing and eye-catching.
Deciding on an Advertising Strategy
Now that you know more about advertising services and what they can do for you, it’s important that we discuss strategy.
No advertising campaign should be launched without a solid marketing strategy in place beforehand.
Why?
Well, simply put, a well-thought-out strategy is going to have goals and objectives in place that you’ll be able to measure the success of your advertising campaign against.
Chat to your marketing team or decide on your own what you want to achieve with your advertising, and discuss this with your advertising agency.
Do you want to bring in more leads? Do you want to create more online sales?
Getting your advertising strategy in place is paramount to the success of any advertising you do. Never fear though, if a strategy isn’t your strong point, the right agency will be able to help you in choosing the direction you should be going in.
Moving Towards Advertising Success
By now you’re ready to dive in head-first, decide on the advertising services you want to use moving forward and launch your campaign.
But, one more thing…
It’s worthy of mention that any advertising campaign is a journey and not an overnight success. You should discuss with your chosen agency timelines for each channel and how long they expect it will be until you see some positive results.
If you’re still on the search for the right marketing agency, one that’s going to answer your questions and even perhaps give you a free strategy session, you should read this.
