The president of a manufacturing company recently asked me, “Why isn’t my advertising working?” Have you ever been asked this question? Have you ever asked it yourself?Like most marketing communications questions there are no simple answers. After all, communication is a high level activity. There are lots of variables involved.
If your ad results are disappointing, here are
key things to look at:
1) Message Is what your ad promises compelling? Is it meaningful to your audience? If you’re not offering something prospective customers want, they won’t respond. If you’re not sure what prospects want, ASK!!
2) Audience Are you reaching people who make buying decision for your product or service? Many big ticket sales involve buying teams or multiple layers within an organization. Are you reaching everyone you need to?
3) Vehicles Are you in best publications (or radio time slots, TV programs, whatever)to reach your audience with your message? Look at quantitative AND qualitative data to get a true evaluation of media and vehicles. 4) Frequency/repetition There are two cardinal rules of human communication: a) People will notice your ad only when they’re interested, and b) People retain about 10% of messages they’re exposed to each day. So for a communication program to succeed, it must repeat, repeat, repeat. (Current estimates are that it can take 7-9 repetitions of a message for it to sink in.)
