Quiz your advertising skills

Advertising is the key part of business marketing. If the advertisement succeeds, it can mean big profit. Advertising requires innovative thinking in todays world because the traditional advertising mediums are becoming very expensive. A well thought advertising that is different may create a big impact. But advertising is not being given the attention it deserves. As soon as the profits go down or the market scenario looks bad, advertising expenditures are cut first. How much do you know about advertising in a business? Please quiz yourself about that. What should be the ideal percentage of advertising in total marketing expenditure? Should the advertising expenditure increase with growing business or decrease? Which advertising media should be used for advertising in a very low budget? Should every business advertise in the beginning? Are advertising professionals must for getting the best return out of the expenditure? Is a small market survey about advertising effectiveness always necessary before full-fledged advertising campaign? Do women add value to advertising? What if you are advertising nuts and bolts? These are some small questions that I have raised about advertising in business. Please think about the answers. Advertising is tricky, because wrong advertising means total loss. There is no scrap left to recover anything. It is like a bad dream, but it costs. A business succeeds if the advertising succeeds at the right budget. Please try some more quizzes on your personality and career and improve your performance manifold.

Characteristics of a successful advertisement

Characteristics of a Successful Advertisement Many small businesses don’t get success they want from advertising due to availability of very little resources. The results are simply flat due to lack of good ideas for improvements. Whether the ads are put in a local newspaper or are printed in the famous periodical or posted on a website, the money invested should gain the desired outcome. There are some common mistakes small businesses and professional service providers do when designing and posting the advertisement, which leads to the failure of the advertisement. Bigger is better is believed in by many. That’s exactly what some of the small firms think when they want to advertise their product. They think bigger and select a medium where they need to invest a lot of money, but do not reach the targeted market. Like if a company specializes in designing diet plans and want to help out people who had disappointing results from their individual diet plans, and the company chooses to advertise a full page in the local paper instead of running advertisement in a health magazine, obviously not many of the dieters will notice the advertisement and the advertisement doesn’t get the desired attention. So the point is to come up with the best campaign, which will increase the probability of the ad getting viewed and the right customers trying to buy the product or sign up for the service. Studies and research can be carried out on the market and targeted audience can be narrowed down. Once getting the list of newspapers, magazines and magazines meant for the customers in mind, find out how many readers they have and the cost they ask for posting the ad. Special deals are offered by them from time to time and can only be found by watchful eye. It is estimated that everyday people are subjected to around three thousand commercials. That is a huge number and if someone desires to be noticed, he should certainly be different. Not only the services and product sold should be unique in the market, so should be the advertisement. For example, if a business selling mattresses says, “We sell mattresses”, it will not make a statement and will be passed off as any other mattress advertisement. But if they say, “Our mattresses are of the finest quality”, it will make the advertisement stand out in the crowd. Other catch lines are “Are you suffering from back pain? Probably you must try our mattresses ”, are more specific and will catch the fancy of the people who are suffering from back pains since a long time. The advertisement should also focus on the uniqueness of the product and how it is better compared to the competitors’ product. Focusing on the problems of the customers and giving a solution for them, is what a customer demands. A customer does not buy a product; he buys benefits in the form of a product. The real value of the product should be realized and a clear picture of it should be presented to the customer so he will be able to relate with the product. If the advertisement doesn’t specify the solution it can provide, the customers will never know of it. So focusing on the customers problem is what some ads miss. The last thing missing in most of the advertisement is motivation for the customers. If the advertiser has designed the advertisement and the customer had read the advertisement, all efforts and money invested will be wasted if he doesn’t get up and do something about it. It shouldn’t be assumed that the customer knows what to do; instead the advertisement should influence the mind of the customer and should tell him what to do. Call of action is the final job of the advertisement. It should call for information, or visiting the store or even visiting the online store. The message should sound confident and clear. Word Count 656

Tricks and tips in poster advertising

A poster is a visual representation comprising of whatever a person wants to convey to its readers. If done effectively, posters can influence or entice readers to make an action. Advertising through posters necessitates a business owner to consider some tricks and techniques in order to catch the attention of its prospects. Although a simple poster always do the trick, it is still essential that you do something unique and different in order to please your readers. Here are a few pointers to consider: Use different posters. As much as possible don’t use similar posters. Your readers will get bored if you use the same posters all through out your advertising. You don’t need to change your poster every week but you can try a monthly change or even a quarterly change. Try using different poster sizes. Large posters can easily grab attention but when the space is limited you obviously cannot post your large poster in such a small space. For this reason, you can print your posters in varying sizes. Small posters are often great for smaller boards and they can be easily squeezed in-between posters on crowded spaces. Simplicity is the key. It is important to keep your design simple. Do not be tempted to fill your poster with so many images and text. Keep in mind that crowded posters can look like a blur from a distance. Your goal is to get noticed and stand out among other posters and the best way to do this is to us simple design, text and content. Clearly state your benefits. A good marketing material is one that is able to clearly state the benefits of the products or services to its customers. It is not important to only say how great your products are but to also let the readers know how you can meet their needs and wants. Be nice. In posting your posters make sure that you are not covering up someone else’s posters. If there is little space left on a board for you to post on look for old and expired posters. Don’t just cover up other posters. Respect other’s space. Remember that you will be in that board for long so as long as you respect other’s posters they will likewise respect yours. Finally, just like a man who wants to furnish his room, you need to take a good look at your poster before printing it. Take a look at the space where you will put your products and services then run in words and images accordingly. Keep in mind that if you crowd it too much it can be unattractive to your readers and if you leave a lot of blank space it can look scanty and unprofessional. The point is to fill your poster with just enough words and illustration to make it eye-catching and substantial. For this reason, it is important that you carefully study the advertising space at your disposal. You should have a good idea of how the poster will appear in print. Remember that you are producing your material for your business, so make sure you are getting a job done well.