Advertising has come a long way; from the traditional strategies that required TV viewers to wait between their favorite shows to digital strategies that involve heavy use of the internet. Both strategies have their advantages and disadvantages, however digital advertising has taken the centre stage lately. Digital advertising takes advantage of numerous available channels on the internet and has proven to be very effective in reaching a great number of people across the world. Some of these channels for digital advertising includes; email marketing, display advertising, pay-per-click, social media advertising, video advertising. Digital advertising mostly involves the use of social media for advertising purposes; some of these include YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and many more. When a business wants to enjoy massive benefits they spread their advertising strategies across multiple channels. It is not wise to abandon traditional marketing channels because newer channels are evolving. This only means giving room for a wider reach across a wider span of audience. One important practice businesses adopt today is the use of websites that serve as centre for control of most online traffic derived from advertising. It doesn’t matter what business you are running; an SEO agency or Magneto Ecommerce Agency, you need to develop strategy that ensures you are successful in advertising. Here are 6 advertising mistake to avoid in 2018 for business success.
- Lack Of Creativity In Advert
Creativity is evolving very quickly, what was creative decades ago may be losing its juice today. Businesses discovered that creativity is one of the major tools that drive engagement. This means that for the advertising campaign to be effective, it needs to be creative. There are different ways to be creative when advertising, one major way is to centre the advertising around a trending event or happening-because people are already talking about this topic, it becomes easy to relate to the message in the advertising. Another way businesses get creative is by endorsing celebrities and using them for their advertising campaigns in order to tap into the followership of the celebrities. This strategy is one of the most effective and can work across several channels like billboards, Television, social media and email. It Is important to ensure the advertising team makes proper use of analytic tools to monitor the progress of the advertising, these reports will be useful for developing other advertising projects in the future.
- Ignoring Social Media
Social Media is fast catching on, especially amongst mobile users. Social media is one of the reasons mobile traffic is getting significant on the internet, websites have gotten wide linkages from social media that supplied them with quality traffic. This means social media is where everyone seems to be lately, advertising on social media is a great strategy because it can allow for the marketer to target specific demographics. Facebook for example, allows marketers to target advertising to a specific audience from a particular location, a certain age range, gender, and interests. This ability to be so accurate is provided through the information users provide on their profiles. Targeting advertising to a specific audience saves costs and increases the chances of improving sales and revenue for the business. Social media loves video, it is recommended to consider using videos when advertising on social media.
- Missing Key Information
Some marketers get carried away with creating the advertising materials that they forget to highlight key information. Major Key information in advertising is a Call-to-action. Advertising without this information proves to be rather pointless. Key information is contact information, assuming someone decides to buy an advertised product where would they go to buy it? Can they make a few enquiries before buying? Advertising without key information does not happen often, but it is a mistake to avoid in 2018, especially for beginners. The key information usually relies on choosing the right objective of the advertising. The wrong objective would not align with the business objectives of your organization. For every advert to be successful it needs to have key information required from every advertising, otherwise it may be a waste of time and money
- Utilizing limited channels
There are several channels for advertising; there is Television, Social media, billboards and so on. A grave mistake is when a business adopts a limited `number of channels to advertise. Although some channels are likely to produce higher conversions, there is always strength in number. These channels have different strategies and requirements for successful advertising, keep note of the way things work in the different channels for effective marketing. Do not simply spread advert across several channels to have a wider reach without having the manpower or capacity to monitor and successfully manage the campaigns. If your business is not big enough to handle advertising across different channels at the same time, simply plan the campaigns at different times. For example when running an advert on television, wait until the project completes before running on social media. This strategy is effective for small businesses who cannot assign different teams with different responsibilities to work at the same time due to limited manpower.
- Choosing The Wrong Advertising Strategy
There are different strategies for different strategies for different target audience or channels of marketing. Some strategies may work across several channels but it is important to specify strategies for each channel. The behaviors of people on social media are definitely not the same with the people watching television. This means advertising for television requires special strategy compared to other channels. For example, it is not effective to use the same video project for advert on social media and electronic bill boards because social media is well targeted while billboards are made to advertise to random people who may be passing by. Utilizing the wrong strategy can lead to poor conversions and poor performance of advertising.
- Wrong Targeting Of Audience
Modern marketing strategies can be much targeted; especially those that rely on the use of the internet. The days of advertising randomly with the hope that it captures the attention of someone are long gone. Adverts are more targeted now, they are tailored to connect with a target audience and most times it never fails to. When a business targets the wrong audience, the efforts put into the advertising are rendered to waste. This is why businesses pay keen attention to research-one tool that has been effective in determining ways to make advertising more successful. A business which seeks to advertise a men’s wear does little by advertising it to women; they stand a better chance displaying the adverts to men between a certain age ranges that can afford to purchase their products. Similarly, the same company advertising make-up kits would be better targeted at young women than older women or even men.
Final Thoughts
Digital marketing channels can be very useful in reaching a younger audience. Social media especially is the best way to reach younger audience. While the older generation sticks to traditional marketing channels such as radio, television, billboards et cetera. To appeal to both generations, it is vital to utilize all the suitable channels. Advertising is goes a very long way in shaping the way your brand is perceived , hence the need to budget sufficient time and money to ensure only quality and creative projects are sent out. Do not fail to monitor the progress of your campaigns as this can give useful insights for improvement on future projects.