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Blenhiem Graphic Design and Website Designers

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Is your Advertising an expense or an investment?

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There are two camps in viewing advertising. Some people consider it an expense while others regard their advertising campaigns as an investment. The raw truth is that it can be either. To know which, you need to know how many customers your advertising campaign brings you and how much they spend.

If an advertising campaign brings in more profit than you spend on it, then it is an investment

If an advertising campaign brings in less profit than it costs, then it is purely an expense.

Of course, a loss making advertising campaign is still getting your name and brand out in front of an audience, and there is some long-term benefit in this. BUT wouldn’t you rather get paid while keeping your brand in the public eye?

The secret to successful advertising is to find out what does work and what doesn’t. Measure, measure and re-measure!!! Double the advertising that does work and quit that which doesn’t.

Print Finishes

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Design in print is one thing. But the design OF YOUR PRINT is another thing altogether. AND well worth taking a look at exploring.

Within the realms of paper finishes and print finishes there is a whole new element to design and the influence it can have over the completed job.

 A designer can and should consider the end product when developing a concept. This means more than taking into account the most appropriate paper stock. It means thinking about how a myriad of other tricks and techniques (within the budget) can be used in tandem with the graphics to meet the brief.

Our son was given an organic cotton toy that was packaged in a special brown shoe box, printed in natural ink colours and die-cut at the side to expose the logo. Everything about the packaging screamed “natural!” to me and even though it had a matt finish and was predominately brown (think paper bag), the overall impression was one of absolute quality and that the product was worth treasuring.

A simple business card doesn’t have to be on clean white stock like everyone elses’ UNLESS this supports how your business is positioned. Sometimes a different finish, such as an emboss or metallic for example, can set your business apart from others as well as saying more about your brand.

 

 

Targeting your brand

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First, your brand won’t appeal to everybody.  Don’t worry this is a good thing;  it shouldn’t appeal to everyone, because not everyone will want to buy your products or services.  An 18-year-old boy isn’t going to buy a crotchet kit, and a 65 year old couple are highly unlikely to purchase a new wakeboard.  With this in mind, ANY time, effort or money spent marketing to these groups is completely wasted.

To increase the effectiveness of your brand and all related advertising and marketing, you need to know who your most likely customers are.  Lets be honest, you already know this… it isn’t rocket science.  It is easy to slip into the “I’ll take money from anyone” mindset (and so you should, but you shouldn’t market to them), or consider it too hard to define your core customers; I’ve been there myself.  But it is CRITICAL to the success of your brand.

Think about it.  If I told you, that you could have all the profits from any nappies you could sell to one hundred people, would you ask the first hundred people you meet? or would you do better asking the next hundred people pushing a stroller?

The more knowledge you have of who your customers are, the easier it is to target them with your branding and marketing.  You can draw better conclusions as to what they want to buy, and why.  What their likes and dislikes are, and how they want themselves to be perceived.  It also gives you an insight into what radio stations they listen to, and what newspapers and magazines they read.

Demographic information you need to know about your customers:

·        Age (range)

·        Employment – Are they management, professional, or owner

·        Location – City, town, region

·        Gender

·        Education

·        Occupation

·        Marital status

·        Ethnicity

·        Income – total household income. Can they afford your products or services

·        Family status – do they have children? What age and stage?

 

If you supply products or services to businesses, you can also collate demographic information for the businesses you deal with.  Such as:

·        Industry

·        Size of business (sales, no. employees)

·        Type of business (manufacturer, retailer, primary production)

·        Location

·        Geographic scope of the business (regional, national, international)

 

So how do you get this demographic information for your business?

 

The best way to gather demographic information is through using market research companies.  However, these can be expensive.

It is possible to do your own research: it is relatively inexpensive to run your own phone survey, or observation of your customers.  My favourite method is to ask your customers if they would be willing to complete a quick questionnaire during the purchase transaction.  You could even offer an incentive such as a prize draw, small discount (or better a bonus).

When it comes to advertising

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It is helpful if your company has a strategy regarding advertising for the year, which relates to your company’s broader brand framework.

Regardless of whether you’re that organised, booking an ad last minute and giving your designer half a day to ‘come up with something’ is a waste of resources.  Even worse if it’s not your designer but someone else’s! My apologies if you’ve ever been forced to do this, but let me explain…

It goes back to the necessity of writing a brief and treating each ad as an investment which must bring back some ‘bikkies’ in return.  If an ad doesn’t do it’s job then it can be a glorious waste of money.

Last minute advertising opportunities are always out there.  Perhaps you have an ad you can rerun, which can fit the space, and you know gets you results.  Great!  But be wary of making a booking and handing your logo over to a publication which can ‘rustle’ something up.  This can weaken your brand and render the ad ineffective.

When it comes to advertising…  Have a plan.  Have an advertisment or better, an ad campaign ready to take advantage of advertising deals when they come up. 

Why build a brand anyway?

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So why spend so much time, effort and money to build a brand?

Its hard not to noticed the price difference between branded products and generic versions when grocery shopping.  Watties tomato sauce for example can be twice the price of a supermarket brand.  I’m not even going to get into whether Watties tastes better.   My point is that the costs for making Watties, or a generic brand of tomato sauce is likely to be much the same.  So the difference in mark-up is one measure of the value of the Watties brand. 

A strong brand adds value to your products or services by differentiating them from your competitors, establishing credibility, gaining trust and therefore customer loyalty.

In fact, back to the Watties sauce example, I have an uncle that left New Zealand almost 15 years ago to live in Oklahoma USA, who still has Watties tomato sauce posted to him by the box…  Now that is brand loyalty!

The great news is that even with well targeted branding and marketing strategies, all businesses can reap the benefits of building a brand.