Archive for December, 2008

PostHeaderIcon Measuring the Effectiveness of Your Advertising Campaign

How do you measure the effectiveness of your advertising? Do you look only at whether or not you have had an increase in sales or enquires subsequent to the publication of an advertisement, or do you include product or brand awareness in your evaluations?

The most suitable criteria for evaluating the effectiveness of advertising, depends on a number variables, such as the advertising goals, the type of media used, the cost of evaluation, the value that the business or advertising agency places on evaluation measures, the level of precision and reliability required, who the evaluation is for and the budget. It is difficult to accurately measure the effectiveness of a particular advertisement, because it is affected by such things as the amount and type of prior advertising, consumer brand awareness, the availability of cost effective evaluation measures, the placement of the advertising and a range of things about the product itself, such as price and even the ability of the target audience to remember.

There are a number of different models for measuring advertising effectiveness.

? E. Pomerance suggests that advertising agencies might attempt to measure effectiveness under the five headings of Profits, Sales, Persuasion, Communication and Attention (Wheatley, 1969, p.91). He uses a cube diagram to illustrate how to evaluate advertising that recognises the effect of repeated exposures (Wheatley, 1969, p.93).

? Lavidge and Steiner suggest a model for ‘predictive measurement of advertising effectiveness’ (Wheatley, 1969, p.7), which recognises various stages of purchasing behaviour, and suitable measures for each stage. Kotler and Armstrong call these stages, ‘Buyer readiness stages’ (1996, p.463-464). They may be viewed like this: Awareness, Knowledge, Liking, Preference, Conviction and Purchase (Wheatley, 1969, p.7).

? Kotler and Armstrong suggest that two areas need to be evaluated in an advertising programme. They call them the ‘communication effect’ and ‘the sales effect (1996, p.507-508). To evaluate the sales effect, company information about sales and sales expenditure would be needed. To evaluate the communication effect, Kotler and Armstrong (1996, p.507-508), suggest using a number of research tests. They suggest that these evaluation measures are not perfect.

Surveys and brand/product recognition tests after an advertising campaign are sometimes used in a two pronged way to advertise and gather evaluation information.

Effectiveness of online advertising is sometimes measured in terms of the number of page views collected through various forms of counters and search engine page rankings.

One cost effective way of evaluating the effectiveness of the advertisement in terms of sales and movement towards purchasing is what Kotler and Armstrong (1996, p.480) call Integrated Direct Marketing. It is marketing that has a response section which can lead to more appropriate communication between the company and the prospect. This can also give the company the opportunity to trigger further movement towards purchasing, so it has the potential to have a greater impact on sales than a similar advertisement without the response section. It is not only online advertisers who are using this method of requiring an email contact address and giving the customer a choice of receiving more information or newsletters about their product/s. Vouchers and coupons have been used in a similar way.

All advertisements have the potential to trigger some form of purchasing behaviour.

Effectiveness may have more to do with the readiness of the viewer to consider the benefits the advertisement promotes, than the advertisement itself. It may be more cost effective to invest in finding creative ways to measure the effectiveness of an advertising campaign that is part of an advertising campaign in itself, but at the end of the day your goals are the key. It may come down to estimating how happy you are with what you are doing.

Reference:

Kotler, P. & Armstrong, G. (1996). Principles of Marketing. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall, Inc.

Wheatley, J. (Editor). (1969). Measuring Advertising Effectiveness. Selected Readings. Ontario: AMA Reprint Series. Richard D. Irwin Inc



By: Jennifer Phillips

About the Author:
Jennifer Phillips has published 5 books and created many websites. If you want an online avenue for free advertising try citwings.com



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PostHeaderIcon How Advertising Can Drive you Traffic?

Advertising is the key element of any business. If the advertisement thrives, it can mean immense traffic that generates thousands of dollars in income. Advertising requires original thinking because conventional advertising mediums are becoming very costly.

Advertising is the best method to make sure that customers learn about your products or services. But the real question is; are you getting the proper returns on investment on your advertising dollar? Do you feel that your promotion dollars and advertising overheads are giving you the results that you want? Probably you have been wondering where to advertise your business. Stop wondering, just look for a website that has the potential to draw thousands or millions in traffics and your business will surely benefit.

Most advertising sites offering only one of three main categories of directories, that is, classifieds, normal directory or jobs. If you find sites that offer all three probably the traffics generated is greater.

The common features integrated with classifieds directory advertising usually contains more than ten categories including houses for sale or rent, apartments for sale or rent, shops for sale or rent, and offices for sale or rent, cars for sale and business opportunities and son.

On the other hand business directory advertising normally associates more than 2,000 categories of listings to get wider circulation. Among the more popular categories are advertising, airlines, banks, beauty salons, bus lines, computers, charities, travel agencies, building contractors, renovators, consultants and interior designers, florists, hospitals, hotels, transportation, car rental, car accessories, office furniture, restaurants and photographs retail centers.

Recently, jobs advertising space has become widely demanded. Most college or university leavers are desperate looking for job. Most common fundamentals in job advertising usually contains more than 60 job categories under the main headings of accounting or finance, human resource and administrator, sales or marketing, arts or media or communication, services, hotels or restaurants, education and training, computer or information technology, engineering, sciences and health care.

Web Surfers from all over the world can search for and view products and services advertised and do business with the advertisers.

The importance of advertising in a directory is outlined as follows:

1. Supply necessary information

The customer may be looking for more information than just name, address and telephone number. They may need product or service details.

2. Complete directory representation

Sometimes a company may be known by two or more names. They may deal in two or more types of products or services. Therefore, an advertiser may want to advertise in different names and classifications.

3. Supply attention and value

Directory advertisements offer aggressive business a chance to secure a bigger ad space, thus showing itself to be more prominent than its competitors.

4. Trade mark and trade name identification

Customers may be just looking for a company trade name which is better known instead of its company name.

5. Focus attention on a specific product or service

If a product or service can be obtained from several sources an advertiser will benefit if he can point out the advantages of buying from him instead of his competitors. He can do so in a directory.

6. Maintain prestige

Directory advertising is special advertising which differentiates a prestigious business from an ordinary one.

Advertisers must understand the above functions of an online directory. They must be able to differentiate directory advertising from general advertising. When directory advertising is confused with general advertising sales executive from a directory company will face a very serious problem because he will meet with strong resistance and put into a class of media with fierce competition where magazines, television, newspaper, radio, exhibition and dozens of other types of salesmen battle for a place in the businessman advertising budget.

In most businesses all advertising is designed to build a desire for the company products or services. Directory advertising is used after the prospective buyer has already decided to buy. He is just looking for the seller. Therefore, general advertising is concerned with a product looking for a customer. Directory advertising is concerned with a customer looking for a product.

All in one directory are fast becoming popular and are expected to boost traffic to the site and thus improve an advertiser chance of doing more business.



By: Kanicen

About the Author:

Andrew is the owner ofMalaysia Advertising Directory. i1Ad.com is the No.1 Malaysia’s Advertising Directory. The leading
advertising website in Malaysia. Visit http://www.i1ad.com



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PostHeaderIcon Great Advertising Resources for Your Home Business

When it comes to the success of your home business, advertising is a key factor. If you do not advertise your home business effectively, no one is going to know about it and you are not going to get any customers. If you think advertising your home business means throwing an ad in the yellow pages and placing a few newspaper ads, you had better think twice. There are many other advertising resources available for your home business and if you are not using them, you are missing out on the advertising jackpot. Post Cards, Business Cards, and Brochures 

Every single home business needs to invest in print advertising materials. At the least, you will need a professional business card and many home businesses opt for the benefits of post card and brochure advertising as well.  

If you go to a local printing company, you might have to spend hundreds of dollars on printed materials for your home business. Thanks to the Internet, you have much more cost-effective means of getting the advertising materials you need. 

After trying numerous online printing services, we found iPrint to offer the best in terms of quality, pricing and service. At iPrint you can get 250 business cards for less than twenty bucks, 100 standard post cards for about twenty-five dollars and five-hundred full-color tri-fold brochures for about three hundred dollars. The website allows you to upload your own custom designs or you can use one of their free templates to create the look and feel you want for your printed materials.

Internet Advertising

Internet advertising is critical to the success of any home business, but not all Internet advertising is equally effective. If you want Internet advertising that really works, you are going to want to invest in cost-per-click advertising. 

With cost-per-click advertising, you pay a certain amount of money for each website visitor taken to your site. Because the only people clicking on your ad are people who actually want to see what you have to offer, the conversion ratio for this type of advertising can not be beat.  

When utilizing cost-per-click advertising, you put your ad on a high-traffic website and for advertising on that site you pay a certain amount for the average number of clicks you will receive. For example, if your home business sells video games, you would want your text ad to appear on a video game enthusiast website. If you wanted a cost-per-click of ten cents and you wanted to pay a total of one-hundred dollars, you would get about one-thousand visitors to your website.  

AdBrite is a company that allows you to place your cost-per-click ad directly on the hottest websites, providing you with a massive amount of leads for your home business. Want your home business ad to appear on the Uploading.com website? Who would not? Uploading.com is the leading provider of secure file upload, transfer and sharing services. It has an Alexa ranking of 517 and receives more than half a million page views each day. With AdBrite, you can have your home business ad on the Uploading.com website for a full seven days for just $523.  

The average cost-per-click when you advertise on the Uploading.com site through AdBrite is six cents, so that means for the $523 you pay, you will get more than eight thousand visitors who have made the decision to go to your website through the ad you placed. You could not ask for more cost-effective advertising.

 If you can not afford to shell out that much money to start with, AdBrite has literally hundreds of website advertising opportunities to choose from and some start at less than ten bucks a week so you do not have to be left out of the cost-per-click game.

If you want your home business ad shown on the hottest sites on the web, go to Adbrite.com.  

In addition to cost per click advertising, you may want to look into pay-per-click advertising. With pay-per-click advertising, you list your text ad with a website or search engine and place a bid to pay a certain amount of money per click you receive. The more you bid, the better your ad placement will be. 

When someone performs a search for the keywords you have selected for your website, they will see your ad. If they click on your ad, you pay the amount you agreed to pay for each click. If you agreed to pay twenty cents a click and one-hundred people clicked on your ad, you would pay twenty dollars for one-hundred visitors. This is another highly-effective way to get targeted traffic to your home business website.  

At GoGoHub.com, pay-per-click advertising is really affordable because the searches are localized… therefore you don’t waste money on clicks from people who are out of your local area

Promotional Gifts 

Everyone loves getting a gift and while great customer service is first when it comes to customer loyalty, promotional gifts run a close second. Your best customers need to know that you appreciate their business and promotional gifts are a great way to do that. However, promotional gifts serve a dual purpose. Not only do they show valued customers your appreciation, they also advertise your home business and are a constant reminder of the products and services you offer.

For a long time, it was hard for fledgling home businesses to customize and order promotional gifts for their customers. Because most companies would require a home business to place a substantial minimum order, the costs were quite prohibitive. While it may be fine to pay four or five dollars for a customized hat to give away, when you have to order five hundred of those hats, it can wreck havoc on your home business budget.

Thanks to the Internet, this is no longer a problem for home business owners. Websites like CafePress.com allow customers to create customized promotional gifts to give to their customers and they do not have any minimum order requirements. Whether you want to order one promotional gift or one hundred, CafePress.com can serve your needs. 



By: Curt Miller

About the Author:

Curt Miller works at home to make residual income online by sharing his local area classified ads site to those who are interested in making money.



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PostHeaderIcon Advertising – How to Succeed 2



History

In the ruins of ancient Pompeii and Arabia, messages have been found with an emphasis on commercial and political aspects and themes.The Egyptians used a thick paper-like material called papyrus to create sales slogans and wall posters. This material was also used in various forms of advertising, such as requesting information relating to lost individuals and items, and was common in Ancient Rome and Greece. Another form of ancient commercial advertising include the paintings, on walls or even rock, depicting various scenes which are evident, even to this day, in many parts of Asia, Africa and South America. Indian rock art, which dates back to 4000 BC, may well form the basis for this tradition of painting on walls and rocks.

With the development of the methods used in printing, particularly evident in the 15th and 16th century, the sphere of advertising expanded to include handbills. In England, during the early to mid17th century, various forms of advertising began to appear, incorporated within weekly newspapers. With advances in printing techniques, books and newspapers had become much more affordable to the wider public. As a result, this early form of advertising using a printed medium was used extensively to promote items such as other books and newspapers. Also, with disease ravaging much of Europe, the promotion of medicines was increasingly sought after.

However, the existence of misleading advertisements, which had come to be known as “quack” advertisements, was becoming an increasing problem. Consequently, this brought about the introduction of regulation in terms of advertising content.

With the growth of Western economies during the 19th century, this gave a new impetus for the growth of advertising. In the United States, for example, this led to the introduction and success of mail-order advertising.

The French newspaper La Presse, in 1836, was the first to incorporate the concept of pre-paid advertising. This additional form of revenue allowed it to lower its price, which resulted in increased readership and higher profits. This led to the widespread adoption by all its competitors.

In Boston, around 1840, Volney Palmer was the first to introduce what would later come to be known as the advertising agency. During this period, the French news agency Havas increased the services offered by including, for the first time in France, advertising brokerage. In the beginning, such agencies acted purely as brokers for advertising space in newspapers. However, all this changed in 1869 when N.W.Ayer & Son opened the first full-service agency, in Philadelphia, which took responsibility for all advertising content in respect of its customers.

In the early 1900’s, advertising was one of the few career choices for women who wanted to progress in business. Since most of the household purchases were in the hands of women, it was quickly realised, by advertisers and agencies alike, the value offered by women in respect of their insight in relation to the creative process involved in advertising. In fact, the first American advertisement to employ a theme incorporating sexual appeal was created by a woman for a soap product, with copy that extolled the message: “The skin you love to touch”

 

Peter Radford writes Articles with Websites on a wide range of subjects. Advertising Articles cover Background, History, Types, Alternative Forms, Today’s Methods, Effects, Regulation, Trends. Website has many more.

View his Website at: advertising-how-to-succeed.com

View his Blog at: advertising-how-to-succeed.blogspot.com



By: peter radford

About the Author:



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PostHeaderIcon Internet Banner Advertising Most Reliable Forms Of Web Advertising

Your cheap internet-based banner advertising will become one of the sought for ads there are. Today, the world of Internet advertising is rapidly evolving beyond banner ads and intrusive pop-ups. Bayles A common medium for advertising on the Internet is the use of banner ads. Since the dawn of the internet, Banner Ads have been one of the most reliable forms of web advertising.

These internet banners advertising may come cheap, but it could lead you or your company to riches. An advertising company can have floating banners for your internet advertising promotions. The conversion to actual buyers or receiving quality leads for your company when internet advertising using pop banners is extremely poor. For internet advertising campaigns, banner ad design and implementation, or customized web marketing phone or email in complete confidence.

BannerSwarm.com is designed to help web sites trade advertising with each other. Since the dawn of the internet, Banner Ads have been one of the most reliable forms of web advertising. Of all the internet marketing resources available today, banner advertising most closely resembles traditional print marketing campaigns (non-internet). Your cheap internet-based banner advertising will become one of the sought for ads there are. Traditional banner advertising was arguably the first form of online advertising to become popular on the internet.

The Internet provides banner ad advertising channels both for large and small companies. Remember that the Internet provides banner ad advertising channels both for large and small companies. Members who desire to really boost their Internet advertising can now purchase additional banner displays. On the Internet, when an advertising banner is clicked, it is possible to display an unlimited amount of information. This is the reason why pay per click advertising returns are far better than banner advertising – the internet user is looking for you! Fasthoff, IVBanner advertising is an effective way of getting your advertising message seen on the Internet.

These following steps will help you get up on your feet and make your cheap internet banner advertising priceless. Comments the standards for banners are very well known cross the internet. Therefore, this site will not only include Internet advertising information, but also examine the important factors about the several characteristics of banner advertising. For the people to bring attention to your internet banner advertising, you should be able to raise the curiosity and convince the people. Because the clicking the banner is important factor in Internet advertising, what factors include the clicking the banner is main point in Internet advertising. Today, the world of Internet advertising is rapidly evolving beyond banner ads and intrusive pop-ups. Their thinking is inherently flawed, however, as it is based only on concepts borrowed from the era of pre-Internet banner advertising.

http://www.advertising-internet-online.com/advertising-banner-internet/



By: Amporn Saechin

About the Author:

Amporn Saechin is The Webmaster Of The Internet Banner Advertising Most Reliable Forms Of Web Advertising – Quickly and Easily!
http://www.advertising-internet-online.com/advertising-banner-internet/



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