From The Billboard To The Soundboard… What Are The Most Important Advertising Methods These Days?

Advertising and promotion are essential methods to engage with the market, but we have so much choice now, from sales techniques to marketing platforms, and everything in between, that we can be spoilt for choice. And this means that we can, invariably, choose the wrong method for us. While social media is one of those all essential methods, it doesn’t necessarily work for every business.

There are so many things that we have to dissect within ourselves, by finding out who we are, as well as consulting the business plan and so forth, that we have to find the best promotional tactics and methods for us. But, what are the most important ones out there right now?

Is it all about brand new techniques, or is it a combination of old and new?

Print Media

A lot of people don’t believe in the power of print media anymore. From newspapers to posters in the street, as well as flyers and banners, it’s a very visceral way to engage with a potential customer.

It doesn’t seem like it’s a very cost-effective method, but when we’re looking for immediate engagement on a local level, print media, especially in the form of posters, can create an uncertain buzz. And in fact, we can make the most of specific techniques to make the poster stand out, perhaps using inkjet transparency film to make these posters gleam and provide a little extra in comparison to other people who are handing out random flyers that nobody ever looks at. And this is something that has to be addressed because print media is very effective, but only when it’s done right.

The fact is that when we think of print media in the form of flyers or posters, we have the image of a person in the street, handing out these random bits of paper that don’t capture your imagination at all. As such, if you are to use this method, it has to be new and exciting. Posters are great, and they certainly create an image when it’s done right, and when you tie this into components like billboards and more large-scale advertising, such as on the side of buses, these things are still a vital component to getting a product out there.

Podcasts

A lot of businesses have a podcast as part of a larger promotional machine, but a podcast can be a very fascinating tool for any company. For many, a podcast is the key promotional tool. And podcasts are still fighting the battle between audio and visual promotional materials, but podcasts and audio content are working very well right now because it’s building up a relationship with the listener.

It’s a very intimate medium, and to ensure that it captures its audience’s imagination it has to provide a specific service. Now, the business may provide a product, but if the podcast can provide a supplementary service to the product, this begins to create a more wide-ranging impact. Many businesses are struggling between the image they present online to the one that’s offline. But those that marry the two effectively find they have a consistent brand. When it comes to building a relationship with the consumer, a podcast is a very difficult art form, because it is an art form.

To encourage listeners to stick with them requires the appropriate subject matter, engaging presenters. In addition to this, it needs to solve a problem the consumer has. It needs to provide that emotional needs, and that emotional need will keep them coming back week after week. And in providing this regular content, this is what will maintain the relationship between the business and the customer. But the big problem with podcasting now is that quality has to be of such a standard, and has to go out at such a regular rate, that if the content creators drop the ball, this could very easily lose listeners. But on the other hand, there are many podcasters out there that go in without a plan, and so it’s the presenters themselves that are the product.

You see this with numerous radio stations and comedians. As far as advertising is concerned, a podcast is one that can nurture a long-standing relationship with a customer, just as long as the content is of a high standard in the first place.

Email Marketing

It has been unfairly viewed as old hat. But email marketing still has pride of place in any business’ promotional campaign. In fact, nearly 60% of B2B marketers say that email is the best way to generate revenue. The fact is that email is a great way to reach out to customers and potential consumers simply, while also communicating the brand.

The best email campaigns can improve engagement, as well as increase the site traffic, and keep those customers with the business. Emails pose a new challenge these days because every single one of us receives an abundance of them; how can any business sell a product effectively with so much spam flying around?

But this is where an inherent understanding of the brand becomes essential. Not only this but the brand, in combination with the appropriate call to action, as well as the latest offers that can retain a customer, becomes the essential trifecta that will keep a customer on board. To create an effective marketing campaign, you start with an amazing headline. Try it, it’s a big challenge, but it’s one that can improve your business infinitely!

Mobile Advertising

It is complete common sense, as consumers spend on average 5 hours a day on their mobile devices, gives you a direct feed to their sensibilities. There have been targeted advertisements that it worked so well over the last couple of years, but by hitting the target market with the best advertisements for their sensibilities requires a lot of research upfront.

What can be difficult to implement this effectively is to ensure that we are hitting the right markets right away. This can be very difficult because it’s a lot of trial and error, especially when businesses are in their infancy.

Mobile advertising, in general, can work well, just as long as you have the ability to make videos and banners, but it seems that now, a lot of people don’t like to be targeted because it feels like an infringement on their privacy. So what’s the solution?

It’s about persevering with other, more covert methods. Mobile advertising isn’t necessarily an infringement on privacy, especially now as users have to consent to so many requests, but voice search is a technology being adopted so much, it’s changing the way customers interact with everything around them. And it works so well because when you ask a question, it’s not about getting an abundance of links back, you get one direct answer. As such, from your perspective, you need to make sure that the voice providers like Google and Microsoft have the facts about your business correct.

Video

Video content is one of the main reasons businesses ascent up the Google search rankings. If you have a video, you are 50 times more likely to appear on the first page of the Google search results. And while there’s an abundance of search engine optimization tools you can take advantage of, if you don’t have a video, you are letting yourself down. But in addition to using video to climb up the search engine rankings, it’s a very simple way to communicate your business and what it’s all about.

Whether it’s an explainer video highlighting the internal processes of your business, or an advertisement online capturing the sensibilities of your target audience, video becomes an essential weapon when you’re in direct competition with other businesses. It’s so easy to create videos now, but as everybody has a camera on their phone there can be a big debate in terms of the video quality. A lot of businesses use videos that their customers have sent in as part of a marketing campaign, such as Google, and this can be a very cheap way to create a commercial, but also provides that bridge between business and consumer. It can be done via competitions, but what video does, and always has done, is provide that perfect unification of brand and product.

To create a business that is consistent in an online and offline presence is more difficult now, but with a video, you can use this to your advantage. A lot of people have big production values, and it’s not worth doing this now, because customers are savvier to their specific needs. Honesty can help you communicate directly to a potential customer, especially those customers that are ethically conscious about where they buy their products from.

As far as advertising is concerned, there are so many important aspects now, that it can’t be just one direct method employed by any business. So many of us go for social media as the important aspect, but it’s not as simple as getting a Twitter or Facebook account, because this is really only one small component of a much larger world in terms of advertising. And this is why you’ve got to think of the bigger picture, but also have a real understanding of your brand and what platforms benefit you the most.

From podcast to video, email marketing to mobile advertising, they are all essential.

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