If you have a small- to medium-sized business, there are some important things for you to consider when starting your print advertisement campaign. If you have never advertised before, you’ll likely have thousands of questions racing through your head from which fonts to use to what publication to publish your ad with.
With all these questions circling around your mind, it’s easy to make simple mistakes. To help you get the most out of your print advertising campaign, here are some common mistakes that you should avoid and where you can get assistance in building an effective campaign.
Advertising without Researching
Advertising is great but it won’t be effective if you’re targeting the wrong audience or using the wrong messaging. Before you place your ad, you must take some time to find out certain information about the people who are most likely to buy your product.
Do some competitive research to see what your competitors are doing. What kinds of ads are they creating? Who are they targeting? What solutions are they providing to their audience’s problems? Having the answers to these questions will determine what your ad looks like, where you place it, and how effective you can be.
Not Defining Your Target Audience
The biggest make you can make with print ads and digital ads is creating a campaign without first defining your target audience. If you don’t know who your customers are, how can you ever craft the right message? If you want to get a return on your investment or have any success with your print marketing campaign you need to know exactly who your market is.
Do you want to sell to women ages 40 to 60? Do you want to provide services for youth? Is your product intended for men ages 18 to 35? Do they live in your region or are you providing a product for a national audience? Ask yourself these questions before you get started.
Neglecting Brand Consistency
Each of your print marketing campaigns should be designed with a specific goal in mind, but you should also remember to think about your overall brand consistency. Whatever features you put in your marketing plan must be consistent with your brand identity. Consider successful ads you see online, in print, or on television. What makes these brands stand out? What about their ads is instantly recognizable to you before you even see their name?
Brand consistency is vital to making yourself identifiable to your audience. If you are consistent in each of your print advertising campaigns, you will help your audience make connections between what they see today, and what they have seen from your brand in the past.
Selling Product Features Instead of Benefits
You may be fully convinced that the features of your product are incredible, but your prospects will buy for more emotional reasons. Think about your features as facts. They present evidence about the quality and function of your product, but they don’t get an emotional response from your audience.
For example, it may be a fact that your skincare line uses only organic and naturally sourced ingredients. However, your potential buyer wants to know what the benefit of that feature is. Instead of stating the ingredients of your product, let them know that these ingredients are healthy for the environment, great for sensitive skin, and have a low carbon footprint. This way, you appeal to your customers’ emotional desire to have safe products to use daily that don’t hurt the environment.
Making It Hard for People to Order
Your print ad should make it as easy as possible for your customers to make a purchase. This is not an area for you to cut corners and try to save money. If your prospects want to connect with you immediately with questions, they should be able to enter a private chat room on your website or pick up the phone and call you directly.
They should not have to visit your website first to get your number or navigate through endless web pages to access your email. Always include your full contact details in your call to action and let prospects choose how they want to communicate with you to place an order.
Selecting the Wrong Publication
If you’ve ever flipped through the pages of a fashion magazine, chances are you won’t see an advertisement for golf clubs. This is because running an ad like golf clubs in a publication like Vogue magazine would be a waste of time and money for that advertiser.
Choosing the wrong publication is a huge mistake that you don’t want to make. In most cases, your product is geared toward a specific target audience. The publication you choose will impact how many people from your target audience will see your ad. You should not pick any random publication to run your ad and hope for the best. You must find a publication that has an audience that matches your product.
How North American Media Can Help with Your Ad Campaign
Setting up your ad campaign is a lot of work and there are many easy mistakes to make if this is your first campaign or you are new to your market. But with the help of a marketing agency, you can learn from industry experts and avoid these mistakes. Our professionals can help you ensure that you target your audience, create a clear and motivating message, and stay within your budget to meet your goals.
At North American Media, we specialize in helping our clients create robust, effective, successful newspaper and print ad campaigns. Our variety of services can be customized to suit your business goals, and we have packages that can work with a range of budgets. No matter the size of your organization, we can help you target your audience, retain customers, and build your reputation among your audience as a company they can trust. Our services include print media advertising in newspapers & magazines, direct mail marketing, digital marketing, alternative media/inserts, radio & TV advertising, list brokerage, data solutions, list fulfillment, and list management. If you need help catching the eyes of your readers and establishing an effective advertising campaign, consider working with our print advertising agency.
For more information about advertising in print media and how we can help grow your business, contact us at (475) 256-0303.
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