Traditional Marketing Explained Some

Opportunities to market and promote your products and services are expanding, as are the way that people respond to promotions. Sifting through all of the options can be confusing and overwhelming – not helped by the numerous advertising consultants making contact with you, almost daily!

Traditional marketing methods are fast being forgotten about or left behind, to be replaced by more cost effective and direct methods of promotion. The web and technological advances has seen the growth in these new methods as a very effective marketing tool for business.

Good marketing – is about utilising a variety of appropriate methods in order to put your message and brand in front of your target market. print advertising

Traditional marketing methods including print (newspapers and magazines); television and radio all still have a place in the world of promoting your business, but do not rely on only these mediums. With print (especially newspaper) you need to remember that a paper will only get read once by a person and it will be discarded 1-2 days later. When it comes to TV and radio you have your 15 or 30 second slot to be able to capture people.

The design of your ad is therefore very important and it is usually worthwhile to look at a graphic designer to do the work for you. You will need to have the following in your ad:
1.Headline that will attract the viewers attention
2. Short descriptive piece that will give a solution to a problem that your key target market may have.
3. Call to action – with a way of recording the responses from the ad, this could be a separate number, e-mail address, or sub-domain.
4. Consistent branding is critical. The way you present your logo, images you use, colours and fonts all need to be the same across all of your promotion and advertising.

This is where the traditional marketing will blend and work succinctly with newer methods of marketing. You can now use technology to measure and monitor your advertising, this may reveal things that will surprise you about consumer behaviour and also your target market.

So next time that consultant rings you and tells you that you absolutely ‘must’ advertise in their publication, what will your answer be? How will you be proactive about where and how you place your advertising? You need to be the person making the decision where and when to advertise and not being pushed into it. At the same time special publications or television premieres maybe worth investigating if they reach your target market.

You need to remember that advertising consultants are simply trying to meet their quota, after all it is the advertising that is paying for the publication or shows you watch on television. Next time you think of placing an advert in traditional media ask yourself some simple questions:
1. Is it part of your plan?
2. Are you placing it when and where you want or has the consultant talked you into it?
3. Is this simply to raise brand awareness of your product or service, or will it have the potential to convert to sales?
4. Can you accurately measure the success of your advertising and ROI?

If you answered no to either of these questions then you really should consider how you are advertising.

Ad hoc advertising also does not work and is not an effective use of your marketing dollars. Try considering the following:
· Smaller ads over a period of time rather than 1 big advertisement
· Multiple ads in the same publication
· Shorter ads over a shorter period of time (for radio & television)
· Leverage off events / activities / sponsorship that you are already committed to maximise exposure to your brand
· Be consistent in the way you present your brand / product / service

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