All about advertising media:
Topics covered:
• It all starts with ‘Who Your Customer is.�
• TV: The most powerful media, advantages and disadvantages and how to use it
• Radio: The affordable media, advantages and disadvantages
• Newspaper: The grand-daddy of media, how to and not to use it
• Yellow pages: Small business’ best advertising
• Direct Mail: The best media to target customers
• Magazines: The image builder
Introduction: Who are your customers?
In my 25 years of working in the advertising and marketing business, I have seen many different businesses use every kind of advertising medium including Television, Radio, Newspaper, Magazine, Direct Mail, Outdoor, Specialty, Internet, and more.
Who is your target audience?
The key is matching up your target customers with the kind of media they use. One of the biggest mistakes businesses make is they don’t really know who their target customer is. The owner may think he knows who his target customer is but does he really. You must know everything about your target customer if you want to choose the right advertising media to use. Your target customer is male, female, or do you sell to both? What is the average age range of your customers? Where do your customers live? What media do they use? If it is radio, which are their top three stations? If it’s newspaper, which one is it and what sections do they read? Do they read the paper more on one day than the others? What TV shows do they watch? Etc. This kind of information is called demographic information. It will give you a pretty clear picture of who your customers are. Does it sound like a lot of extra work to gather this kind of information? Well it’s really not.
Introduction to Television Advertising
Of all of the major advertising media available to small businesses, television is the most powerful. This section is to give you a general overview of television advertising that will help you understand how it all works.
Television is often thought of as the giant of all advertising media. People spend more time with TV per day (4 hours per day) than they spend with any other media. (Television Advertising Bureau) Television is powerful and has become the major medium to shape public perceptions, attitudes, and buying decisions. Television uses more of the human senses than any other medium. The combination of color, sight, sounds, and motion all work together to create a synergy of powerful influence.
Advantages of Television Advertising:
Television advertising can give a product or service instant credibility and status. If a business can afford to advertise on TV, it must be a solid, successful business.
You can easily reach any audience you have targeted using television advertising.
Stay at home Moms can be reached using afternoon soap operas, and talk shows such as The View or Dr. Phil. Business people can be effectively reached by advertising in programs like the local and network news, financial programs, or political programs like Meet the Press. Children can be reached by advertising on cartoons and programs like Nickelodeon, while teens and young adults can be found watching the O.C. or Friends.
While television can reach a specific target market, it is also very effective reaching large numbers of viewers in a very broad market. An example of this is advertising milk, cars, or televisions. Everyone uses them. The creative power of television surpasses all other media. With camera, light, sound, CGI, (computer generated images) and on air talent, the audience can be taken anywhere they can imagine.
In most metro areas, television adverting reaches more potential consumers than does newspaper advertising (99% of all households in the U.S. own a TV). Less than half of all the adult population in any major market in the U.S. is reached by newspapers.
Disadvantages of Television Advertising:
Like all advertising media, television not only has advantages to the advertiser, but it has disadvantages as well. The high cost of advertising on television is usually considered the biggest disadvantage to using television advertising. Anytime a medium delivers a very large quantity of viewers, its cost will be very high. Because TV reaches such a large audience, the stations can charge more money per spot. The high cost of using TV advertising often puts that medium out of reach of most small businesses.
The cost of television commercial time is based on three variables:
1. The number of viewers who watch a program and see your spot.
2. The time during the day a spot airs such as prime time, mornings or afternoons.
3. The number of times (frequency) a spot is aired and seen by viewers.
For example, because a TV spot will reach a very large audience during prime viewing time which is 7 pm to 11 pm. Stations can charge much more per spot because it delivers a larger number of viewers.
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