Advertising can be expensive, yet your business’ success hinges on it. So before you choose to spend your money on any particular form of advertising, make sure that it fits the financial and marketing goals of your particular business. Below are reviews of three traditional methods of advertising.
Television
Television is all about entertainment. It has been proven that the average Joe spends more time in front of the television than listening to the radio or reading the newspaper combined. For a long time, the television was considered one of the main forms of advertisement. This is because it was established that most people watch at least some television during the day. So ideally, the television would be the way to implement any advertising campaign.
But there are other things to consider when it comes to television advertising. Television advertising has a limited time span, audience diversity and high ad avoidance. Most advertisements, once aired, lose their uniqueness. This is because the prospective customer or target audience cannot go back to refer to the
advertisement for things they may have missed. This is a big disadvantage in the ad world, where impact of the ad is everything.
Second, television advertising is extremely expensive. For most small businesses, the cost of television ads is prohibitive – especially during prime time. For this reason, many small business owners limit their TV advertising to shopping channels, like QVC, or to local viewers of cable channels.
Audience diversity is another factor. This may sound a little confusing. With more than 200 channels available, most television audiences become confused, and advertisers do not have only one particular channel to advertise on. People also tend to avoid ads like the plague. This is because they see advertisements as unwanted interruptions. Most people switch channels when ads come on. Currently, there is no answer as to how to deal with this.
Radio
The radio is not far behind where advertising is concerned. More and more people are using the radio, but they are using it only while driving or working. The cost of radio advertising is also expensive, though not as expensive as TV advertising.
To make this problem even more complex, people are now switching to satellite radio. Satellite radio is ad-free. And when these working people go home, they do not even listen to the radio. They prefer listening to music CDs or watching TV.
To circumvent this problem, some small business owners choose to advertise on public radio stations, where costs are reduced and target marketing is a bit easier.
Print Media
Newspapers have always been multipurpose. People use newspapers for both catching up on the news and looking at advertisements. There has been concern that newspapers are dropping in popularity, and they are. However, even though this is true, people are still reading the newspaper, especially those that have online versions.
As far as most advertisers are concerned, newspaper advertising is by far the most effective. The newspaper is a physical version for prospective customers to refer to. When reading the newspaper, the person’s entire attention is on the paper, and reading or viewing whatever he or she chooses to.
So before you decide on what form of advertising to choose, keep in mind what you want out of the ad and what method would best suit your product or service. You owe it to your small business to get the most out of the money you spend on advertising. Choose wisely.
