“The man who stops advertising to save money is like the man who stops the clock to save time.” – Henry Ford
As a full-service ad agency, we have decades of experience developing and placing advertisements in local, regional and national channels including:
We’ve developed and placed ads and promotional materials for restaurants, boutiques, gift shops, artists, craftsmen, special events, event coordinators, schools, non-profit organizations, retail stores, product distributors, manufacturers, farms & ranch equipment operators, suppliers, automotive repair shops, contractors, the construction industry, co-ops and more.
We also build and distribute press releases and public services announcements.
Contact us today for recommendations specific to your business and industry.
Further reading: See our blog post on the importance of continuing to advertise.
There are two main kinds of advertising: Branding and Targeted
There are roughly two main channels for advertising: Traditional and Online
Most business will (at least initially) want to focus on targeted advertising. The goal of a targeted ad is to guide the consumer into taking a specific action, and the key here is, the more targeted and specific, the better. The ad needs to convey a message such as the following:
This is usually the most affordable form of advertising, with the most immediate and measurable results.
The purpose of brand advertising is to remind the consumer that you are:
The purpose of brand promotion is to promote recognition, the easier and faster the better (this ties in with market positioning, which is an advanced topic – contact us for details on how you should position and promote your brand today). You want your brand lodged in the mind of the consumer, and associated with providing something specific to that consumer to fill his need or desire, be it a service or a product.
As we said in our “keep advertising” post, you may observe that most of the largest enterprises in the world are still advertising, after 50, 75, even 100+ years. The reason is, those corporations are acutely aware that if their brand recognition and market position doesn’t stay fresh in the consumer’s mind, then some competitor will come along and replace it with their own brand. Then, at the moment the consumer decides he’s hungry, needs a new tool, or a new car, or someone to repair his computer or household plumbing, he’ll purchase from whoever is etched in his mind as the one to fill that specific need.
A great example of brand promotion is vehicle advertisements. The car manufacturers want to make sure that the next time you go to purchase a new truck, you get a Ford, or when you finally buy a luxury car, you get the BMW you’ve always wanted (. . . and just why did you always want a BMW instead of any other brand? likely as not, because of the advertisements that were most effective in getting a fixed marketing position in your mind).
This applies at the local level as well: if you own a one-of-a-kind pizzeria, you don’t want your customers going to a well-known pizza chain next time they’re in the mood: you want them to think of you and only you. If you’re a mechanic, the next time your customer’s car breaks down, you want him to come back to you – even if he hasn’t been to your shop in 2 years. It’s not possible to be there to advertise a new alternator on the spot, at just the right moment. So you have to saturate the consumer with brand advertising instead.
Which brings up the problem with brand promotion, and shows why it’s most commonly utilized by large companies with deep pockets: this kind of ubiquitous brand saturation requires a lot of consistent saturation throughout your selling territory. Depending on how large your audience is and where it’s located, it will cost at least thousands of dollars, if not tens of thousands (or millions) to run an adequate branding campaign.
Simply put, online advertising is any form of promotional ads that would be handled over the web, mobile applications or other digital forms:
Traditional advertising is roughly everything else:
The choice of which channel to use will be largely dictated by your budget and your target audience. One benefit of online advertising is it can be tracked, measured and monitored, often down the minute details – especially if you’re selling via and online store. The two forms of promotion with the lowest barrier to entry (and often the lowest cost) are email list marketing and blogging. Your best customers may hang out online on a certain website or forum – if so, try to advertise on those sites.
However, online advertising will do little good if your customer demographic is not engaged there. You may find that your best customers read a certain magazine or newspaper, in which case that’s the most effective use of your advertising dollars. Or, perhaps your clientele frequent in a certain area of town – in that case, a billboard may be your best bet.
Remember, if don’t advertise to your customers, someone else will.
Contact us today to get your advertisement campaigns primed and focused!
