More About Branding and How Not to Waste Money Promoting Your Business Product or Service

Let's first start with the knowledge that in today's fast-paced world filled with busy people you have to not only get people's attention but also deliver a message and visual that they can connect to your product or service or that they can hear and connect to your product or service. This is absolutely necessary particularly with a small budget. Small advertisers won't have the budget to bank-roll a full out multi-media campaign and would be wise to stick to either print, TV or radio in addition to social media.

Furthermore, determine who you are trying to reach, i.e. where will you find most of your customers. Are they readers, watchers or listeners? Each of these particular mediums are segmented, some are absolutely splintered with choices, making it more important to select the right one. If prestige is vital to sales of you product or service and you determine that you have readers as a strong market segment, then you will want to determine which print medium reaches your future customers at the lowest cost. Notice, it is not as important how many people you reach as it is how many of your potential customers that you reach. Circulation is a factor, but so is image and repeat readership by a group of people who might be in the market for what you are offering.

In magazines, if you can afford it, a full page 4-color ad placed on a right-hand page either near the front or within or next to an article or regular feature will be the best choice. If you can't budget a full page, choose a 1/2, 1/3 or 1/4 page ad on a right hand facing page. Be sure to use you logo consistently and have a memorable slogan placed beneath it to help the reader remember you company.

Television is still a great medium for those who watch live TV, choosing not to record then play back and fast-forward through commercials. News for instance is more likely to be watched live. Generally, people who have more leisure time at home are more likely to watch live. That's why many companies such as home improvement, insurance,etc. run commercials in their local market morning TV programs. People selling cars, phones, etc. are more likely to connect with morning or evening news viewers, because this group includes a broader slice of their market, both the workplace commuters, the retired, semi-retired or homemaker. For small budget TV advertising it is important to pick a slice of time and stick to it until you see results. That's why you should be sure to ask your customers how they heard about you.

Even national TV advertisers with huge budgets often fail to maximize their product or service within their 30-sec. spot. Just because their brand is well known doesn't mean that they should stop showing the name of their product or service on screen and if they have a mascot, a piece of music or color identified with their brand or logo it reinforces their brand if they continue to use these in their spots. Consider Target. Their logo is red, the dominate color in their commercials is red, and their dog mascot is a visual. How can you watch their commercial and not know you have seen a Target commercial?

For radio advertising the same principle of choosing a slice of time when your potential customers are likely to be listening is key. To make the right buy you can't simply choose a radio format that you like, you'll need some research from all of your potential stations.They will have a breakdown by age, male or female [those are still the largest categories] by time slot, etc. Drive time is likely where you will have the ears of more people, but you also have to consider morning, noon or afternoon, i.e. school car-pool time or commute from work to home time. You have to consider what you will say that distinguishes you from your main competitors. To do this you have to know what your competitors are saying and how they are saying it.

For instance, are their commercials too crammed with words to even understand? Are they easy for listeners to "tune out" because they don't know what they're saying anyway. Or, do your competitors that run really boring commercials that are almost generic and like every other company in their same business sector? If so, you have a real advantage to be the new business that knows their market, speaks to their market in an interesting manner, and tells listeners some real benefits about their product or service. If you can afford a few seconds of original music and have a catchy slogan, even better. Marketers are rediscovering that a "jingle" is really memorable decade after decade.

{I blogged earlier about companies such as Nationwide Insurance which in a crowded advertising market was not using their very memorable jingle. Now, they are using it and driving it home in a new way with a star quarterback and a country music star. Good for them! Not only will they reconnect with people who heard that jingle years ago, but they will reach new customers.}

Also, realize that if your customer is likely to be listening to their own play list, fast-forward through recorded TV and not a big reader of mags or newspapers, you will have to rely on product/service brochures, online advertising, blogs, point of sale displays,vehicle wraps, event sponsorships, etc. It will be even more important that your messaging and packaging be distinctive and appealing to your particular market.

Interested in finding out more? Visit Anderson and Company.