Welcome once again, I’m glad you can join me for a few minutes and what is article number three in our series of ten, on the Top Ten Mistakes in Advertising and How to Fix Them.

As we saw in articles 1 and 2, we talked about testing and the critical importance of identifying each and every ad you prepare. Those should be the basis of everything that goes on the market.

A challenge that I have encountered several times is that my clients have considered themselves as the target group. And while that may or may not be the case, in most cases you are selling a product or service to solve someone else’s problem, and your tastes as a product or service solution are likely to be very different from those of the recipient who needs your experience, your product. your service.

I had a client who was infamously attached to a particular medium, and it’s a very good medium, but it was the only one he used because it was the only one he felt conveyed the message he would see.

My challenge to him was very simple, Ian, please remember your they’re not the target audience for what we’re trying to sell, and I applaud them for being so attached to this particular medium, but it shouldn’t be the only vehicle we use.

Now he’s finally relented and we used a mix that included his favorite, but we used the media mix to reach a broader platform and still stay within budget.

I think it’s a critical component for too many advertisers. Unfortunately, and without realizing it, sometimes they have blinders on and only want to use media that they see, recognize, understand, appreciate and know about, and that’s great.

It’s always a good comfort zone to use something you know, like, and trust, and more importantly, if you’ve tried it and it works, you’ll keep using it. I have no problem with that, however I want you to make sure you don’t rule out or rule out other opportunities.…because I never read that magazine, I don’t listen to that radio station, I never get home in time to watch TV.

Are you okay! You do not! But you are not selling to yourself, you were selling to the hundreds, thousands, millions of thousands who are interested in your product,

at your service and they don’t really care what they would see. What you want to do is get your message in front of them on platforms and times that resonate with them.

If you get a chance to watch it, great, and you’ll watch the commercial before it airs and we can give you a schedule of when it will air if you want to take the time to record it and watch it later. .

We can give you a list of the websites that we’ll be appearing on if you want to come in personally and see it, that’s great. But don’t rule out other media options just because they’re unfamiliar to you. They are familiar to their audience. Your media professionals should be able to present you with empirical data that shows why you need to use radio in addition to magazine.

Why online platforms are going to be a powerful help for the magazine and the outdoor campaign. Whatever it is, it must first be measurable, empirical to justify it, but most importantly it must reach your preferred target group.

So, as I mentioned at the beginning, you are most likely not the target group for their products, so don’t just rely on your intuition or gut feeling or your own taste in media to place the ad.

For God’s sake, I’ve placed hundreds, maybe thousands of ads in media that I know from a buyer’s point of view and not necessarily from a user’s point of view. And that’s fine because like it or not, I’m not always a target group for this or that product.

But I know the right ways to get your message to the right recipient.

So when you’re developing who your audience is, take the time to be as specific as possible. You don’t want to get so finite that you end up with a universe of twelve people and I’ve seen that happen.

But don’t pick the wrong venue or the wrong target group or both and then wonder why this is such a mediocre answer. Man, no one is buying my new space age shovel, my post hole diggers, whatever, they need to know that you’re providing them with a solution and the solution that you provide has to be what they need, and it has to be in the media. that they will respond and act.

One customer in particular was a true sports fan and so was his. Absolutely choose, a sport and I’m there. But they put the ad on the sports radio network because that’s what they listen to. However, its primary audience was younger women who had little or no interest in most of these sports programs. It’s disappointing because it was a very powerful campaign if it had been properly targeted at the right audience. So this is what I want you to do.

To fix mistake number three, do the proper research to find out who is really buying your product or service. and maybe it’s a survey, an in-store intercept survey, an online survey, an email, something that actually tells you who’s buying your product or who you think your candidates are.

You can be as specific as possible by gender and age, by income and lifestyle, and a host of other demographic details that will help you zero in on them. As much as you can. Please don’t rely on the universe for a sampling. Well, my mom liked that. Oh perfect. She loves your mom. You should always love mom, but mom doesn’t necessarily buy the new car ramps or the trampoline for the kids.

That’s not to say they aren’t influential, but it’s important to understand who will be making those decisions. If it’s mom, great.

If you’re dad or dad and mom or if you’re the boss or if you’re the treasurer or your financial officer at the company, you really need to know who you’re after to make the ads work better, be more impactful and what’s more Important, cost. It costs you less, yes, it costs you less.

You’ll get a better return on investment and give you more to spend on future marketing if you take the time to identify who you want to target. What message do you want to put in front of them and what means to better reach them. Believe me, after three decades, I can tell you that it pays to do some research to get to know your audience.

Ok so what you are looking for is some features that consistently define your audience, then you can craft the message using the right radio station or website, outdoor media, newspapers that reach them efficiently and effectively.

Also, as I mentioned at the beginning, take the time to test the ad. Or several small-scale ads to see what works. You’ll have a lot of coding in place and a lot of planning to do, but you’ll pay dividends when you hit the sweet spot of the ad, or the ad in the right media, or the mix of media that attracts customers.

By the way, many of your local media sales reps should be able to give you detailed profiles of all their resources to give you a clear idea of ​​who you’re looking for.

Let them do a little leg work. Tell them who you want to reach and in many cases what you’re looking for is a very specific age range and income range and you want to see how well their media outlets whatever the radio station, magazine, newspaper, whatever want. See how well your media performs in front of audience members and eyeballs on a regular basis and you can track how well they’re performing.

Respectfully I don’t mean just ‘Pleasures’ that’s true, KPI that seems to be a hot button and that’s great. But that’s not really a real measure of how well the product is working. You want a measurable return on investment. You want to be able to say that we spent $1,000 on this ad and it generated $2,000 in new business. Perfect.

If all you get is 500 likes or 35 shares etc, that’s fine. That’s not what your marketing should be about. It should pay you back at least one dollar for every dollar you invest. So when you’re testing your ads, take the time to do it on a small scale. Here is the best analogy I will leave you with, you don’t need to eat a whole bowl of soup to tell if it’s salty usually a tablespoon or two will tell you

Then you’ll decide whether or not you want to eat the rest or move on to something else. With that I say goodbye to you for number three. I hope to see you in article #4: learn to be consistent.