Five Top Tips for a Basic Advertising Campaign

 The top 5 tips weekly post is always full of hints and tips for small, home & micro business owners.

• Don’t rely solely on word-of-mouth advertising – be pro-active & devise a campaign strategy.
• Know everything possible about your competition.
• Stress the benefits of your product / service rather than simply stating features.
• Whether you are planning on advertising on local TV, radio or in a newspaper make sure you speak to them before starting – they will often help to produce the campaign.
• Make sure your advertising message is consistent across all mediums e.g. business cards, signs & invoices.

If you have additional tips, please share them in the comments section.

8 Responses to “ Five Top Tips for a Basic Advertising Campaign ”

1. Leaflet Distribution
   
   Said on September 21st, 2009 at 10:02 am

   In our mind, advertising is the key to success, without it how can you expect anyone to know about you, you just have to find the way that is best suited to you and your business, some are free, many are not.

   You must advertise in one way or another right through the year, not just once or twice per year.

2. Paul Keetch
   
   Said on September 21st, 2009 at 7:13 pm

   Of all the points you mentioned, I think #3 is the most important – stressing benefits over features. There is a very fast and easy way to get to the true benefits of each feature or advantage of your product or service.

   Keep asking “What’s so good about that?” until you can’t come up with a better answer.

   Example: You sell a travel mug with “no-slip” grip.

   WSGAT? The mug sits firmly in your hand.
   WSGAT? The mug won’t fall out of your hand while you’re driving or walking.
   WSGAT? You won’t spill hot coffee (or tea) all over yourself while you’re driving right before going into an important business meeting.
   WSGAT? You’re free to focus on the road, keeping yourself and everyone else on the road safe / PLUS / You won’t risk losing the big account by walking into a meeting with coffee all over your pants!

   The benefits are almost always emotional – how others perceive you professionally.

   I also think #5 is really important – keeping your message consistent across all marketing efforts.

   Thanks for the great article.

   Paul

3. Get Clever
   
   Said on September 22nd, 2009 at 4:09 pm

   It’s important to remember that you don’t need to include that much information in your advertising as long as it’s compelling enough to drive traffic to your website where you can explain things in much more detail.

   Good article and I certainly agree with Paul’s comment.

4. Emma
   
   Said on September 23rd, 2009 at 12:40 pm

   Hi, Excellent tips !! Awesome.Keep it up,Good job .

5. Tyrone Solee
   
   Said on September 24th, 2009 at 5:16 am

   Nice tips! If I may add, you can also explore other non-traditional forms of advertising. Nowadays, social media has became too popular. With bloggers, twitter and facebook users increasing fast, these has become one of the ways for business people to advertiser their products and services.

6. Jeff H.
   
   Said on September 24th, 2009 at 5:29 am

   Great post! Advertising and marketing is so key to everything. Its funny, cause when I started I did nothing. Put a phone number on my car. I thought that would do it. We grow fast when trying to grow a business…I have now added some local marketing to my arsenal of services. Gotta get creative.

7. Mark
   
   Said on September 25th, 2009 at 5:29 am

   Nice post!

   May I suggest the following communities;
   -Something like zillow (for real estate)
   -Yahoo neighbors could help as well

   Just my 2 cents!

8. Hardy Capo
   
   Said on June 21st, 2010 at 6:38 pm

   I make animated commercials, splash screens and training films for small businesses on the net, so I thought I\’d pass on some advice to those of you thinking of using video for advertising their small business on the net.

   THE POWER OF VIDEO – yes it is true, video is a very powerful tool. But don\’t just put it on youtube and expect the world to come flocking. Make a marketing plan. Think laterally. Use it in blog posts, as entertainment content and even offline. See if you\’re local shopping centre has a video screen for instance.

   BUDGETS – it doesn\’t have to cost a fortune to look good. For instance, budgets in my area of animation have come down about 90% in the last few years.

   THINK ABOUT HIRING A PROFESSIONAL – it\’s true you can make your own video with a few images and free video editing software. But if that\’s not your area of expertise think of hiring a professional. Because if you\’re video doesn\’t look professional it reflects on your business.

   USE VIDEO AS CONTENT – as well as making a straight commercial for your business, you can use video as content. For instance if you\’re selling DIY products, think about making a series of 10 videos giving advice on DIY.

   BE CREATIVE – make your video stand out from the crowd. The net is full of videos of people talking into webcams. Unless you have a very powerful message, people will switch off very quickly.

   I hope this helps people. If and when I think of more advice, I will post it here.

Leave a Reply

I would love to hear from you, please let me know what your take on my blog post is. In order to stop spam on my blog and increase conversations, I had to implement some simple rules:

1. Please enter your real name, not your company, product or service's name.
2. If you enter your URL, your name will become a link to the URL.
3. We may send you a confirmation email to check you are a real person

We are sorry but any violation of the above rules will mean an automatic removal of your comment.