How to Create a Successful Advertising Plan

Many factors have to be considered when making an advertising plan. Like the type of message to be delivered, the audience to be targeted, how they should be targeted, budget, etc. all of which depends on the nature of the advertisement.

Regarding the type of message to be delivered, try thinking from the point of the customer. What will impress him and catch his fancy. Note down points what the customer expects from the company and what advantage will he have when dealing with the company. Effort should be made to retain viewer or listener’s or reader’s interest in the advertisement until the end. This procedure is known as message selection.

Getting started in Advertising

Most of the professionals in the advertising industry agree to the fact that obtaining a degree isn’t a must to get started in the industry, but on the contrary all the classifieds ask for a bachelor’s degree at least. Another advantage of taking a degree is that if internship is taken during the course, it will provide the adequate experience that ad agencies and companies usually ask for. The internship director of the university can help in this regard. He may have links that could make it possible to get a break in radio, television or even in an ad agency, the choice totally depends on interest.

How to get a job at an Ad Agency?

The first and foremost criterion for getting a job at an ad agency is having tons of creativity. Advertising business is all about creativity; once the creative juices begin to flow the rewards are overwhelming. A good degree can take you places. Any course or a degree at a reputed university or an advertising school is a big advantage. People with fewer resources can utilize the Internet to maximum, as lots of material regarding advertising is available online, learning from the comfort of home. Having internship experience counts when trying in an ad agency. Internship provides ample exposure to the advertising industry and basic training can be skipped after getting a job. It is better to opt for an entry-level position as this makes your foundation in advertising very strong. Many successful people are known to have started from the bottom most position. This provides us with an opportunity to work outside the job zone assigned which helps to learn the tricks of the trade. Even if future doesn’t look bright enough in the present institution this experience will certainly count when looking for a job elsewhere.

Get your creative juices flowing if you want to be an Ad Maker

Those who don’t have creativity as an in-built talent, it takes some hard work to learn the art of advertising. There are some really basic tricks involved.

First, try to put things that you have, to use i.e. the five senses along with the brain. Eyes can capture the most beautiful scenes; try remembering those that are creative. Try to observe the Mother Nature like observing the sunset, the patterns of colors like yellow, orange, red and violet. Observe greenery around, the flora and fauna. Next put your ears and mouth to use and try increasing the observation power. This can be done by walking around the neighborhood or nearby park and trying to observer new things everyday at the same location. Just seeing a thing isn’t enough, analyze the expressions of the people around you and analyze the emotions they depict. The brain can be fed with many things at once, so carry a camera along and take a lot of pictures of objects from different angles and lighting. Try to understand and capture the mood and things, which will help in creating a perfect scene. Like vanilla ice-cream will becomes more attractive when cherry and mint leave are added as topping. Play around with the lightning effects.

Different types of Television Commercials

Since the time the first ever commercial to be aired on television of Bulova Watch Company in July 1, 1941 many categories of advertisements have been formed. The advertisements have become a part and parcel of daily life and are playing a significant role in decision making of the consumers. Such has become the power of advertisement that even a politician cannot assure his success in election campaign in if he hasn’t advertised on television. The different categories of television advertising are political advertising, promotional advertising, infomercials, television commercial donut, promo, and sponsorship.

Characteristics of a Successful Advertisement

Many small businesses don’t get success they want from advertising due to availability of very little resources. The results are simply flat due to lack of good ideas for improvements. Whether the ads are put in a local newspaper or are printed in the famous periodical or posted on a website, the money invested should gain the desired outcome. There are some common mistakes small businesses and professional service providers do when designing and posting the advertisement, which leads to the failure of the advertisement.

Celebrity Branding

Celebrity branding is a method of advertising which uses the services of a celebrity to promote a product or service with the help of their fame and status in the society. This method has several approaches; it can involve a celebrity simply appearing in a commercial and the celebrity can be signed for attending events for promotion. Another method is to start a product line using their name as a brand. Perfume and garments are the largest product lines involving such a promotion. All the top actors, singers and models are known to give their name to a certain brand or licensed products. Jennifer Lopez started her own line of clothing a while ago which features designer clothes personally designed by her.

Billboard Advertising

Outdoor advertising is a low budget and effective way of advertising a company’s product. Among the entire methods billboard advertising is the most sort after method, which has been proven to be the best sales strategy in the recent times. Nearly 5.6 billion dollar was spent on billboard advertising alone, in the year 2006, as analyzed by Outdoor Advertising Association of America.

Advertising using Power Words

Word cannot only influence the minds of people but can completely change their perception abut a particular thing. Words have the persuasion power to entice and motivate. They are used by the politicians, public relations personals, and even by parents to pass on their message. These words are known as power words and they can do wonders when used in advertisement.

New or improved words create a sense of curiosity. The customers get an impression that the product is something that is different from others and he tries to get it before anyone else does so as to have edge over others. The laundry products have always been advertised as new and improved, from years. Although it can be either new improved version of the existing product, but the power of both the words and the product reinforces each other’s strength.

Advergaming: Advertising through video games

The practice of using video games to promote a particular product or an organization is known as “Advergaming”. Wired magazine first used this term in a column to describe the commissioning of free online games by large companies, in 2001. There are three categories of Advergaming: ATL Advergaming, BTL Advergaming and TTL Advergaming.

ATL Advergaming can be vaguely explained as a promotional video game. The business incorporates interactive video games on their website so as to create more awareness about their product among the website visitors. This method is also used to attract more visitors to the site and to increase the traffic flow on the website. If the games are made for product advertising, the product is highlighted in the game.

Advertising: Self Promotion

Self-promotion is similar to spreading the word by any other means but with an artistic approach. If the artistic part were taken out of the equation advertising would look more like barging rather than self-promotion. There are many steps involved in this process. The first step is to collect and create useful content relating to the topic, which is a not an easy job.

Low Budget Advertising

After the advent of online selling sites, shopping has been made so easy that it can be done within the comfort of the home. Online selling gave rise to online advertising also known as iAdvertising, which is proving to be the best way to reach a larger audience within a short time using less money.

There are many options available on the Internet to get started. Creating a website and then placing its link on different websites is one of the ways. Pages can be submitted to the search engines after applying search engine optimization techniques. Websites offer various payment methods. Some take money for simply placing an ad or link on their website, some take money only if a visitors clicks on the link or website and some take money only if the visitors visits a link and have bought something or availed some service. There are options available for the type of ad being placed. There are pop-up ads, banner ads, wallpaper ads, polite ads, video ads, etc. Businesses with really low budget can send mails to targeted customers.

Advertising on Television

Advertisements of products, organizations, and services are generally aired on television. This is be done by buying slots on the airtime from a particular television channel. Price depends on the popularity of the channel, time the commercial is being aired, number of viewers and length of the commercial. Placing a commercial on local channels is more affordable than on national channel where the cost is almost double.

Advertising on Internet

Ever since the advent of Internet, advertising on the World Wide Web has been very popular. Many corporations, companies and business have taken advantage of this and you can see ads on any web pages you visit. Consumer can go to any search engine and type the keyword relating to what they are looking for and hit search and they will be provided with a huge list from which they can select. This is a very cost effective and time saving method of advertising.

Advertising in Yellow Pages

Some people believe that yellow pages do not receive response like other advertising methods do and this is true to some extent but not in totality. When talking about traditional yellow pages, there sure is a decline in number of people opting for advertising in it. According to a recent report, even the most attractive advertisement in a particular section is not getting the response from callers like they used to get before. On the contrary, the prices of placing ads in directories are on a rise, which speaks a different, story altogether.

Advertising for Free

Advertising for free seems like an impossible thing when heard. But there are several ways by which the cost of advertisement can be conserved, with the help of some imagination and creativity.

A business wanting to advertise, can write articles related to their field of expertise that can be submitted to media and publications having interest in that particular field. The advertising article can have information about the company and dealership opportunity. Due to the rise in Internet users and websites, new websites have sprung up which offer free services. Articles can be written for these websites and they can be broadcasted for free, which will be viewed by hundreds of people everyday.