Category: Advertising
Be Imaginative
Whatís the easiest way to kill a great ad campaign before it even begins? Take it too seriously. Advertising is not rocket science. You shouldnít need a degree in the physical sciences to create or understand an ad.
And you should never, ever, under any circumstances, kill an ad because it is not literal enough. On the contrary, if you find your ads are too literal, you should destroy them all and start fresh.
Are Volkswagens flawed pieces of junk? No, but an ad with the headline ìLemonî gets your attention, doesnít it? It makes you want to read the story, which goes on to explain how the particular car shown in the ad would never be driven because VW cares so much it weeds out the lemons so you never get a bad car. Think what an opportunity would have been missed if the folks at Volkswagen had taken that headline too literally.
Think about it from this angle. Why do people read an ad or watch a commercial? The majority do so because they find them entertaining and informative. If your ads are all information and no entertainment, youíve wasted your budget.
This is not to say that an ad should be created purely for entertainment purposes. Again, a great ad is both entertaining and informative. The entertainment value should be derived from a feature of your product or brand. In other words, what youíre selling should be the star of the show. Sounds simple enough, but it is often hard to strike the right balance. Thatís what makes advertising so fun.
How much information does your audience really need? What kind of story will they find entertaining? These are questions that should be asked and answered early on so that when you finally are presented with an ad or a campaign, you can judge the work according to these preordained guidelines.
A good campaign will reach your target audience and talk to them on a personal level. This has a valuable effect on your sales and reputation. A great advertising campaign will do more than that. It will create a buzz outside of your target audience.
Apple Computerís ì1984î commercial ran only once. But it is still one of the most talked about commercials because it was rebroadcast on every major news show and written about in every major newspaper for weeks and months. And none of this cost Apple anything more than a single TV buy.
Itís worth noting that Appleís Super Bowl commercial helped make the company a household name and created unbelievable demand for the new Macintosh computer-yet the ad never showed the product or explained any details about it.
BMWís Mini Cooper was one of the first cars to be introduced in the United States with no TV advertising. Blasphemy! Instead, they bolted the Minis to the roofs of SUVs and drove them around major cities. They created tongue-in-cheek billboards, interactive print ads and great guerrilla promotions. Most importantly, they created a waiting list of customers who couldnít wait to get a Mini.
Companies that think bigger become bigger. Itís a self-fulfilling cycle. If you just think like a local operation, you might miss the opportunity to expand regionally, nationally, or even internationally. Your advertising campaign should reflect the direction of your companyóeven if youíre not yet there.
Challenge yourself and your agency to think bigger
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Advertising Temptations & How Small Businesses Can Handle Them
New advertising ideas and techniques most always get the quick attention of the optimistic small business owner.
The first time you hear about a something new to use or adapt, your mind races forward, especially if the testimonials are realistic and seem to relate to what you are doing.
To illustrate, picture that ad salesperson standing right there in your business.
Temptation is staring you in the face. “It’s a great deal,” they tell you. Do you go for it or not?
Here are three sets of realistic questions to ask yourself as you evaluate the proposal:
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1. Take a step to the side and consider this. Is your current advertising already covering the basics? Is this new temptation part of your basic advertising plan or does it fall in the “next level” category? Remember that you’ve got to do the basics first, just as you have to open a showroom before you can decorate it. So make sure you are doing the basics well before you move to the next level.
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2. Will the new idea or technique stand on its own as a profit generator? Can the new idea or technique be integrated into your basic advertising thrust so it can compliment what you are already doing? Will it contribute to building a cumulative advertising effect?
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3. Can you afford it? Is your advertising budget already strained? Will this advertising method pay for itself? Or will it break the bank?
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Background: The informed small business owner keeps good records of all promotions and advertising. You want to develop enough information to figure out what works and what doesn’t. It’s called learning from your experiences of being in the trenches.
Temptation stares you in the face at the least expected times. Temptation can come from hearing or reading about super results others have gotten with their advertising.
Often it appears when a salesperson tells you about the “great deal” they are offering. Temptation can come from looking forward to how great it would be if you could get similar results. It always sounds so easy.
Is temptation worth listening to? By giving yourself honest answers to the three questions above, you’ll know if it’s time to move ahead to the next level and succumb to your latest advertising temptations.
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Beverage Company Sponsors Teen Games
As part of an effort to contribute to the community that has added to its success, Fire Mountain Beverage Co. recently sponsored this year’s L.A. Watts Summer Games, the largest high school athletic competition in the nation.
“Our goal here is to support elite high school athletes by giving back to the same markets that support our sales,” said Anthony Miller, chief executive officer of Fire Mountain Beverage. “This event helps to accomplish one of our objectives by promoting healthy living through education.”
Since the passage of the Pupil Nutrition, Health and Achievement Act of 2001, California schools have banned the sale of sugared, carbonated beverages and are moving toward juices, certain sports drinks, diet sodas and bottled water. And recently, major beverage distributors have followed suit, agreeing to stop selling sugary drinks to the nation’s public schools.
Fire Mountain’s Five O2 oxygenated bottled water is enriched with vitamins A and C, niacin, potassium and calcium, making it a more nutritious alternative to beverages containing sugar, caffeine, sodium and carbohydrates. Five O2 also comes in fruit flavors that are appealing to consumers of any age. By sponsoring the games, the company hopes to show teen athletes that they have healthier options with which to quench their thirst.
The L.A. Watts Summer Games started in 1968, three years after racially charged riots tore the Watts neighborhood apart. The goal was to foster understanding and camaraderie among the area’s high school students. The games now include competitions for both boys and girls in soccer, track and field, volleyball, tennis, cheerleading, music, art and poetry and more. Nearly 200,000 young people have participated in the games to date.
To promote the achievements of high school students in areas other than athletics, scholastics were added to the mission of the games. In 1992, a scholarship program was established for youth dedicated to serving the community through volunteerism.
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Be Single Minded
Youíve read about the importance of being courageous, rebellious and imaginative. These are all vital ingredients in an effective advertising campaign. However, they must be tempered with the most important ingredient of allóstrategy.
As long as the advertising industry has been in existence there has been debate about whether advertising is art or commerce. Quite frankly, this kind of divisive argument is a waste of time and has only helped to diminish what little respect the industry has earned through the years. Besides, the answer is simple. Advertising is the art of commerce.
It canít be pure art because pure art wonít engage the consumer on behalf of the brand. Art can certainly get peopleís attention, but it rarely causes them to take action. If the consumer is not actively engaged, the brand wonít grow. If the brand doesnít grow, the company wonít profit. And if the company ceases to make a profit, it dies and takes its brand with it.
On the other hand, advertising canít be mere commerce because capitalism, in and of itself, is not pretty. It doesnít make people sit up and take notice. Pure commerce deals with the exchange of money for goods and services. How boring is that. Besides, you donít want to encourage simple commerce. You want to promote branded commerce. That is what makes strategy so important.
Letís be clear. Weíre talking advertising strategy. Advertising is not marketing. Marketing involves several disciplines including product, pricing, packaging, distribution, customers and promotions (which encompasses public relations, advertising, point-of-sale, direct marketing, e-marketing, etc.).
If your ad agency canít tell the difference between marketing and advertising strategy, run like hell. Youíre liable to waste a lot of money. Now some agencies do understand the balance between the broader marketing picture and the narrow, targeted advertising scope. If they are capable and comfortable operating in both realms, they will be a very valuable partner to you.
The importance of a strong ad strategy canít be stressed enough. Creating ads without strategy is like throwing a ping pong ball at a speeding car in a wind storm. There is little chance you will hit your target.
With a sound advertising strategy, however, even a company with a limited budget can compete against deep-pocketed competitors. Such is the power of the single idea that remains constant over time. This, my friend, is the essence of long-term branding.
You must start by knowing to whom you are speaking and to whom you should be speaking. What are their hot buttons? What kinds of things are they paying attention to (art)? What would make them want your product or service (commerce)? What kind of life do they lead? What are some of their daily hassles? Can your product or service help with any?
The key, of course, is to begin thinking about your customers and potential customers. Focus on their needs instead of your own. By offering solutions to their needs, you will fulfill your own profit needs. It doesnít work the other way around. Trust me.
Only after you know your audience, should you start thinking about how to communicate with them. Because only then will you know how and where to reach them.
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Best Result For Pay Per Click Advertising Search Engine Advertising Internet
You will find ideas and articles on pay per click search engine advertising or pay per click internet advertising as it is also called. Cybertegic, a PPC internet search engine marketing company, specialize in building pay per click advertising campaign for ebusiness. Our pay per click internet advertising follows special practices to achieve the best result for PPC search engine web marketing campaign. So check out Mamma’s Internet marketing solutions, including pay-per-click advertising, graphic ad network, xml search feeds and the branded search box.
Cybertegic, a PPC internet search engine marketing company, specialize in building pay per click advertising campaign for ebusiness. Our pay per click internet advertising follows special practices to achieve the best result for PPC search engine web marketing campaign. Our staff can setup your pay per click Internet advertising campaign. You will find ideas and articles on pay per click search engine advertising or pay per click internet advertising as it is also called. On this site, I will show you how to make money on the internet using affiliate programs and pay per click advertising. I tried almost every internet money making opportunities that exist and my biggest find was pay per click advertising.
This is the reason why pay per click advertising returns are far better than banner advertising – the internet user is looking for you! Internet advertisers can select from a variety of performance-based advertising alternatives, including pay-per-click, banner, e-mail, and pop-up campaigns. With Pay-Per-Click Advertising an advertiser only pays when an Internet user clicks on their keyword-targeted ad and gets transferred to their website. This allows the Internet Marketing company the scope of reducing pay per click advertising spend and of increasing significantly the number of target keywords.
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Best Advertising For Small Business
The best advertising, whether for a small business or large, is advertising that works. The price a small business owner pays for advertising would not be an issue if the outcome of the ad was known.
If a small business owner had a choice of paying $1000 a month for advertising that brought in a guarantee of at least $2000 a month profit, or paying $500 a month for advertising that brought in $750 worth of profit a month, there would be no hesitation. That savvy small business owner would gladly shell out $1000 each month for the advertising.
Small business advertising has no such guarantees however. Itís not like buying a refrigerator that is guaranteed to keep the milk and eggs cold. $1000 of advertising might bring $8000 of profit, or it might bring in zero. So, whatís a small business owner to do, especially if faced with a limited budget?
The best answer is to use small business advertising that only charges the owner when and if it works. There are several ways of doing this.
The primary method is called pay per click. This Internet option is available with numerous online merchant sites as well as hundreds of newspapers across the country and the globe. Simply put, a small business agrees to pay a specified amount to the publisher, or the merchant site, for each ad that entices a consumer to come to the small business site. The price paid is generally an amount that the small business owner has bid on. More and more newspapers are offering this option as they struggle to maintain competitive online with eBay, Craigslist and other pure play classified and marketplace sites.
Another option for pay per click and inexpensive advertising for a small business that wants to concentrate on local customers is with regional publications or some of the larger metropolitan newspapers and groups that are introducing citizen media sites. These zoned products offer a much less expensive buy because the small business advertiser is buying the local neighborhood instead of the total metropolitan circulation of the metropolitan paper.
Companies such as YourHub, a product of the Denver Post and Rocky Mountain News, are licensing these citizen media sites to other newspapers in other areas and those welcome small business advertising and discount the price. They also encourage citizen journalism. The small business owner can contribute articles, photos and local stories, although the paper will undoubtedly edit something too unabashedly self-serving. This is still a great way for a local entrepreneur to introduce himself or herself to the neighbors in a friendly, casual and soft sell way.
Be Rebellious
In order to get consumers (whether they are retail or service customers or business-to-business audiences) to notice an advertising message, many companies resort to loudness and one-upmanship. Neither of these tactics works in the long run.
If your competition is talking loudly and you decide to yell louder, what do you think they will do? Yep. Theyíll start to scream. Nobody wins a shouting match when it comes to advertising. And usually youíll find you even lose a few customers in the process because they canít stand the noise.
Itís the same with one-upmanship. If you have to compete on more and better coupons or more and better discounts, giveaways or incentives unrelated to your core product, your revenue per sale decreases as well as your number of sales.
Customers see these types of games as gimmicky, fake and disingenuous; and they leave. The ones who do stay now view you and your competitors as commodities with no difference except your price. That is a dangerous place for a company to find itself.
The answer to clutter is not more clutter; itís finding who wants to hear you and speaking to them. So how do you compete if you canít out shout or out discount your competition? You get rebellious and radical with your advertising.
Do those words scare you? Thatís okay. Remember, youíre being courageous now. You can handle it. Besides, rebellious and radical arenít dirty words. They will help you draw attention away from your competition without resorting to screaming and insulting your customers.
Itís not about being outrageous just to get attention; itís about being remarkable. An advertising campaign with a strong rebellious strategy is, by its very nature, different from anything your audience will find from your competitorsí marketing efforts. Itís unexpected. Itís surprising. Itís effective.
There are two keys to creating a successfully rebellious advertising campaign. The first is the big idea. This idea comes from a strategy that is derived directly from your customers and their relationship with your brand. You arrive at this idea through a discipline called account planning. Weíll get into the details of both the big idea and account planning in later articles.
The second key to a successfully rebellious advertising campaign is attention. You canít gain attention if you donít learn to identify and then steer clear of the norm. It doesnít matter how great your product or service is or how large your potential market, if your target audience doesnít pay attention to your message, your ad budget has been wasted.
Think about these two keys while you flip through the newspaper or a magazine. Ponder them while you watch TV. You should notice something almost immediately. Most ads today donít seem to be based on any big idea. Many are so boring that you flip right past them without noticing them. Others get your attention but the ads donít have much to do with the product so you quickly forget the brand the ad was supposed to sell you. What an opportunity for your brand!
Now, there is a caveat to being rebellious. Your ads should never be different just for difference sake. The difference should be derived from your brandís uniqueness
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Be an Independent Nurse Contractor and Start your own Successful Nursing Agency
How To Start A Nursing Agency Business Guide Books are flooding the internet. Most of these manuals are extracts from articles found on the world wide web. Because individuals seeking to start their own nursing agency buy information guides that do not have all the contents and key tools for success, a good number of these agencies either fail within their first year of business or simply never get to launch their new business.Thats many business man today want to build their own nursing agency.
Entrepreneurs have made lucrative business in nursing agency, nursing registry, homecare business, medical recruiter recruiting, or as independent nurse contractor in their own field.The time is now for entrepreneurs to start a nursing agency,nursing registry business, operate a homecare business, or as a medical recruiter or just become an independent healthcare contractor. By being an independent healthcare contractor, you are bypassing the agency and are self employed. Healthcare facilities are the clients. Homecare are regulated by all levels of goverment from local to fedeal level. Homecare levels of regulations depends on the category of service provided to clients. Homecare services ranges from providing just companions or the more medically needed clients such as terminally ill clients. Homecare services can be in the form of social service, non-medical, and medical services.
Nurses now a days wake up and take advantage of this extraordinary opportunity. Are you tired of having no input in your career, little money in the bank, lack of respect for your profession and little compensation for the long hours and years of dedication? Starting a nursing agency business or becoming an Independent RN Contractor is a great way to renew your interest and rejuvenate your nursing career. An Independent contractor can contract his or her nursing services directly with a healthcare facility or with a patient and continue bedside practice.
You don’t have to be a nurse or a doctor to start your own Nursing Agency. All you need is our packages and the desire to be self employed. This is the only industry where there will always be a shortage. 2007 Professional Edition of “How To Start A Nursing Agency” covers all 50 states and is jam packed with new additional products and services, making it the most comprehensive guide offered on the internet today! And NEW Searchable Database of over 22,000 Hospitals and Nursing Homes.
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Best Internet Marketing Strategies ñ Success Is Yours
Do you have a list of words that you like? I used to have a pretty extensive list. I had lots of words on there, but unfortunately I have forgotten many of them because I wasnít thinking about them enough. This is depressing because that list was such a simple little pick me up to maintain. I also liked that I liked the words for absolutely no logical reason. For example, the word ìfusiaî was on there and Iím not even one hundred percent sure what color that is, but I like the sound. Incidentally, Iím thinking fusia is a burgundy-ish color.
I once was out to eat with a girlfriend named Kit (actually her name was Katrina and for some reason it was shortened to Kit rather than Kat). The relationship was clearly coming to a close, but we still had a few dinners and drinks in us before the official end. Anyways, that night she told me that she liked the word ìperpendicularî and although I was mentally tainted in my thinking about her, because I knew that we were going to break up, at the moment that she said that, she seemed to me the most beautiful woman in the world. I like words and I like people who like words.
Anyways, I just realized that I also like the word ìstrategyî. Iím not sure why. I like it and moreover, just thinking about it makes me wish I had a strategyÖfor anythingÖexcept marketing. I donít want a marketing strategy and I definitely donít want an internet marketing strategy. Much like my feelings towards Kit in a positive way, I think that I would be negatively influenced by someone who had an internet marketing strategy. I donít even want to think about what Iíd feel towards someone who claimed to have the best internet marketing strategy. So in conclusion, I feel that the word strategy is cool and I also feel that actual strategies are cool, but a marketing strategy to me reeks of exploitative intentions and to me that is just not cool.
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