Most of the
time large corporations secure top talent to execute their advertising and marketing,
therefore when you study their marketing and advertising in the public domain
you can extract valuable lessons from them at no charge.
Here are a
few notes to take while observing some of the best at work:
Look at
the print ads, mail pieces, coupons, and watch how and where they position
their brand names consistently. Numerous small businesses forget how important
it is to keep their brand name obvious in holiday advertisements this time
of year and can’t afford to be discreet, like some large brand names
have after building and spending funds to get to that point because of saturation.
Watch how
the significant brands keep their name consistently treated in color, font
style, and don’t abbreviate it unless they have spent time and money
researching if they can do that without losing their current base and brand
equity.
Feel the
balance between the humor and message, humor allows people’s guard to
come down and catch them off-guard allowing the message to reach sometimes
ad numb customers. They have heard so many they automatically block these
messages out, unless they have a unique twist to them.
Note how
they are addressing the “concerns” of consumers head-on rather
than pretending the economic stress isn’t upon us. Messages such as
save 3 days worth of gas, recession dinner selections, frugal fun, etc.
Busy location,
use it with a sign and make sure all directions can view it easily and understand
your services promptly.
Update your
language to attract the younger crowd if they are a target, the terms they
use are not the same as the 50’s crowd for the same product. If you
have been in business a long time you may be older than your target so be
sensitive to this, and realize you will need to operate outside of your traditional
zone to stay in business. Every generation has its niche in terms of passion
and complaints.
Review the
web sites of businesses like yours that are larger and see how they are navigating
the Internet, where are they showing up, are they using key terms, have they
divided their web site logically to address market segments.
Are you
telling or showing people what you provide in service or product promptly
or is it hidden? Keeping it simple is still in and the big brands don’t
always do this well, but the ones that do allow you to envision quickly in
your head an image of their product/service.
Some of these
items sound obvious, but you would be surprised how many small to mid size firms
miss the mark on one or more of the above.
Debbie Newhouse, Newhouse Strategic Marketing, Inc. http://www.NSMktg.com