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Advertising is a means of communication with the users of a product or revive. Advertisements are messages paid for by those who send them, the advertiser, and are intended to inform or influence people who receive them. Advertising is present everywhere although people may not be aware of it, and it uses every possible media to get its message through, via television, radio, press, internet, mailing, sponsorships etc. In 2010 the United States spending on advertising was estimated at $142. 5 billion and $467 billion worldwide.
Advertising effectiveness relates to how well a companies advertising campaign reaches their target audience, and getting the customers reaction hat was expected by the company. Effective advertising helps a company build or support the brand image of the company, as well as increase sales and profits by attracting more customers. This report examines three of the most important factors that contribute to advertising effectiveness, which are: market research, target market and media. In a second part this report will define Internet advertising and it’s relevance in advertisement.
II. General Approach A. Market research An important factor that makes advertisement more efficient is market research. Market research is a process that takes a careful look at markets, nonusers and the competitive situation and often address one or more of the “4 of marketing; product, price, place and promotion. Market research allows business to gather information about the marketplace to make strategic decisions and prepare a marketing plan. The first part of marketing research is focused on collecting information from already existing and published secondary research.
The advantage of using secondary research for market research includes both cost and time saving. Many secondary information sources are available to advertisers doing strategic research: -Government Organizations Trade Associations -Secondary research suppliers -Secondary information on the Internet Primary research is more expensive and time consuming then secondary data because it is research that is collected for the first, for a specific purpose or problem. In other terms primary data is more focused then secondary data.
Primary research can be collected through quantitative and qualitative research: In order to understand the reasons of how consumer behave and why, market researcher have to do qualitative studies, which will give them more specifics insights on the product, the market and the customers. Face- to-face interviews and focus group discussion are usually the best way for a company to get accurate and descriptive feedback of customers. When a company develops a new products or a new advertising campaign, qualitative research can be valuable.
Quantitative research delivers numerical data such as number of users and purchases, their attitude, knowledge, exposure to ads etc. It also gives information on people’s reaction to advertising and motivation to buy something. Two primary characteristic of quantitative research are large sample sizes and random sampling. Surveys are the moon method for quantitative data collection. The different surveys collecting methods are, email surveys, telephone surveys, Internet surveys and face-to-face surveys.
The second part of market research focuses on conducting research and analyzing data. The aim is to identify the brand’s strengths and weaknesses, as well as corporate and market opportunities and threats. Interpreting marketing information in terms of the S. W. O. T helps managers turn data into insights. Market research is important for the effectiveness of advertising because it helps advertisers to have an insight on the customer’s expectations ND behavior. B. Target market A target market is a specific group of consumers at which a company aims its products.
In order to make an effective advertising, it is essential to determine the target market that means the potential customers of that product that is going to be advertised. Focusing on a target market is essential to develop the advertisement of a product that will attract and affect consumers targeted by the company. Target marketing involves breaking a market into segments and then concentrating your marketing and advertising efforts on one or few segments. This process in marketing helps companies get more value for their advertising investment.
Three main activities of target marketing are segmenting targeting and positioning. Market segmentation is the process of dividing a market into distinct groups of buyers on the basis of their needs, characteristics or behavior. This might require separate product or marketing mixes. The four main segmentation criteria are: Geographic segmentation: based on location, climate, town, city, country or continent. Demographic segmentation: based on age, gender, religion, occupation, life stage, family size or income. Cryptographic segmentation: based on lifestyle, views, beliefs, attitudes and personality.
Behavioral segmentation: which is the relationship with the product, the usage Of the product, loyalty, frequency Of use and benefit sought. Targeting is about deciding which of all the possible segments that exist the company is going to concentrate on. They are three main targeting strategies: Undifferentiated or mass marketing, which means one product for everyone. Differentiated marketing means giving different varieties of the product for different segments. Niche, concentrated or focus marketing is when the company just concentrates on one particular segment.
Positioning is about how a company would like customers to perceive their brand in comparison with their competitors; it is the way of distinguishing between products, which are essentially the same. Per example Ben and Jerseys and Hagen Dads offer the same basic product but it is positioned differently and seen as different by customers. A perceptual map is a good way of demonstrating how the brand is positioned relative to competitors. C. Media One of the most important factors to make an advertisement effective is to choose the right media to spread the researched message to your target market.
A media plan is part of an advertising plan and it identifies the best media to use to deliver an advertising message to a targeted audience. The media plan will have it’s own objectives and strategies to deliver the message. The execution of the plan is done through media buying. We can identify two types of media for advertisement; the first one is the print media, which includes, newspapers, magazines and outdoor advertising. The second type of media for advertising purpose is the electronic and digital media, which includes radio, television and Internet. Newspapers are one of the traditional mediums used for advertisement. It allows to reach a huge number of people is a given geographic area. An advantage of a newspaper advertisement is that the exposure of the ad is not limited and the reader can go back to the message for information. One of the disadvantages of the newspaper is that ad space can be expensive. -Magazines are more focused. This medium allows reaching highly targeted audiences, because a magazine publication usually targets a specific audience. -Television is considered as the most effective mass-market advertising format.
An obvious advantage of the television is that it permits to reach a rage number of audiences at a national or regional level. The main effect of television on advertising efficiency is that it actually shows the audience the product and its use. On the other hand television ads are the most expensive, and the disadvantage is that the message is temporary. -The radio is often listened by people during the day and at home or when driving. Also because it has a lot Of programs it offers to efficiently target the advertisement to narrowly defined segments.
One the other hand because there is so many station a person might skip to another station during commercial breaks. Internet advertising is often used to deliver promotional marketing messages to consumers, it includes email marketing, social media marketing display advertising (web banner advertising). Internet advertising is used a lot by companies because the costs are much lower then any other media. The goal of most media plan is to reach as many people in the target audience. Frequency refers to the number of times a person is exposed to an advertisement.
Frequency is related to how many times does a consumer need to see an advertisement before he or she will remember, respond and then buy the product. In order to make an effective advertising and have the right target audience it important to find the right media for the ad as well as the advertising frequency, in other words when and how many times is the ad going to appear. IV. Specialized Approach A. Internet advertising Internet is a linked system on international computer networks. The World Wide Web is the information interface that allows people to access the Internet through an easy-to-use graphical format.
The Internet provides to the customers more information, and it allows better communication interaction with the businesses. The Internet also helps businesses collect customer information and feedback. These are factors make advertising more effective, because it enable the advertiser to have more knowledge on the customers expectation, as well as giving the customer persuasive information. Internet advertising is a growing industry and advertisers see it as a relatively low-cost alternative to mainstream advertising media. It is always a way for advertisers to reach people who aren’t watching T.
V or reading the newspapers. About 90 % of internet advertising is found on established news media sites like Anytime. Mom or ESP.. Com, as well as on a major search engines and service providers such as Google or Yahoo. Online advertising has three main purposes. The first purpose is to provide a brand reminder message to people who are visiting the website. The second purpose of Internet advertising is to deliver information or a persuasive message. The third purpose of Internet advertising is to provide ways to entice people to visit the advertisers official Website.
They are different types and format of Internet advertising. One type of Internet advertising is banner ads, which are small ads on other Web pages hat contain a link to the advertisers Website. Other formats of Internet advertising are skyscrapers, pop-ups and pop-behinds, or mini-sites. One of the reasons why Internet advertising is growing is that it offers many advantages over other media. Internet is a good media for small and medium size companies to compete against larger organizations, because the cost of creating a Web site or a set of ads is affordable for every marketer.
On the other hand it is important for a business to have creative and innovative experts that will produces effective ads, in order to keep the customer interested and face competitors. One of the disadvantages of Internet advertising is that the marketing materials of the business are available for anyone in the world to copy. Another disadvantage of Internet advertising is that because people are used to getting a lot of pop ups and banner ads they start getting used to it and ignore it. V. Recommendations The final purpose of advertisement is to be effective.
In order to reach that objective advertisers have to take a close look at the market research, the target market and the media they will use for the advertisement campaign. When doing a market research for a product it is important to identify the attention threats and opportunities of the macro and micromanagement in order to generate alternative plan of action and evaluate De alternatives, in order to make an effective ad for the product. Identifying the business’s target market is crucial to best serve and advertise directly to the real potential customers.
For an add to be effective it is important for advertisers to use the right media at the right time, because it will help targeting the right audience and facilitate the communication and relationship with the potential customers. VI. Conclusion This report presented and defined three factors that make an advertisement effective. Market research is relevant in order to make effective advertising because is allows business to gather information about the marketplace and so it helps advertisers to make strategic decisions on how to make a certain ad for a certain product.