If you don't have any existing data about your particular target audience's sensibilities, or you want to supplement such data with results from larger samples, you can turn to national or international marketing studies. These can be very persuasive due to sheer numbers of participants. But because they might not reflect your ideal market, they're best used in conjunction with your own, more targeted, studies. Many marketing research firms offer demographic reports; most are for sale, but some are free. Check out Internet Advertising Bureau's market research page for related links.

Testing Your Ad Finally, use testing phase of banner ad development to assess stylistic preferences as well as technical effectiveness. Along with testing for usability, include a questionnaire that asks participants to elaborate on exactly why one ad worked while another didn't. These responses will give you invaluable information about how subtleties of style affect your target audience.

Change also might be hurried by painting negative scenarios , as in "Unless we get more efficient, senior management will outsource whole department."

Tactically, change usually demands more communication, as in more often and more words or pages. As you can imagine, it takes more communication to drive change than to stay on same course.

There are also tactics we can use to reinforce existing beliefs or actions.

To maintain status quo we can stress a service record, as in, "Serving you with quality and service for 25 years." or "Your performance has been very good over past year, Betty. Keep up good work."

Reinforcement does not automatically rule out change; however, it emphasizes incremental and gradual change rather than major and abrupt change.

You can also appeal to shared values or experiences to reinforce. Nothing commits us to staying course like emotional cues that link good times to status quo. For example, consider power of an advertising slogan that begins, "Remember when...." It connects a powerful, positive emotion with a product or service. By extension, product or service offers an opportunity to relive that good time.

In summary, make a distinction in your communication between reinforcing and changing. Decide which way you want to go, and then choose appropriate strategies, tactics, and tools.