Business Review: Advertising

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Last week, we spoke about reviewing your business plans for the new year. Today, we are going to discuss reviewing your advertising from last year and some things to take into account for 2018, so that you can be sure you’re getting as much bang for your buck as possible. 

 

ASSESS LAST YEAR

Look at the advertising you invested in last year and assess whether it increased your website traffic, enquiries and sales. If you use multiple types of advertising you may find that one platform was particularly successful whereas others left something to be desired. Make a note of what worked so that you know where to start and expand this year.

 

TYPES OF ADVERTISING

Before you decide on what type of advertising to use for your business you need to decide what you want the advertising to do for your business. This normally falls into one of two categories: 

Immediate-response advertising

This type of advertising is normally seen in a sale, discount or offer and is designed to convince potential customers to buy a particular product within a short amount of time (normally in under a week). 

Image advertising

These adverts should keep your business and/or brand name at the forefront of customer’s minds, for example, through a billboard. However, it’s worth noting that image advertising normally takes longer to produce a result compared to immediate-response advertising. 

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There are many advertising platforms to choose from, but here are just a few that might work for you.

If traditional advertising works best for your business then consider:

• Direct Mail
• Newspapers
• Magazines
• Radio Advertising
• Flyers
• Billboards

If online advertising works best for you then consider: 

• Email Campaigns
• Social Media Advertising
• Google Ad Words

 

MEASURING RESULTS

Testing Immediate-Response Adverts

The following techniques can help you measure the results of your immediate-response adverts: 

• If you’re planning on running a discount, then keep a note of the number of redeemed discounts from the first, second and third week of advertising so that you know whether there was more interest when the advert first went out, or if there was a flurry at the end of the cut-off time. 
• Compare similar adverts. Prepare two similar adverts and run them at the same time. Identify the ads – either in the message or discount code – so that you can tell them apart. Count the number of redeemed discount codes for each ad and see which location, message or design was most effective. 
• Check your website traffic. Look at your normal website traffic figures and compare to those seen over the duration of the advert. By tracking whether website traffic increased or remained stable will give you an indication of your advert’s success. 

 

Testing Image-Building Adverts

• Compare results. If you choose to use something like press or printed adverts over a long period of time, compare your website traffic, enquiries and sales results over time. Why? Because you might find that the first-fortnight of your advert being displayed your website traffic and enquiries increase due to it being new and attracting the eye. However, over time these results might dwindle as viewers become used to seeing it, which would indicate that it’s time for a refresh. 

 

Online Adverts

• You can measure the effectiveness of online advertising by counting how many people have come to your website via each online platform. This will help you decide where to focus your efforts.

 

TIP

When you are considering your business advertising for 2018, make sure you take into account one very important factor – your audience. You need to choose advertisement platforms that your audience will use and see, you need to write copy that will speak to your customer bracket and design the advert visually to appeal to that market. 

For example, if your target audience is parents of young children then you might have more enquiries by advertising on social media as well as putting flyers in other businesses that target parents – e.g. nursery schools, soft play areas or local NCT and toddler groups – rather than magazines.