Brand Building
These ads build familiarity with a brand. They work by enhancing the Know - Like - Trust factors.
Get your prospect to know your brand exists.
Tell a story about your brand to get them to like it.
Then your prospect will come to trust that your brand will deliver on its promises.
When it comes time for a prospect to go shopping, the concept of a "brand" helps to narrow their choices.
You see, in the world of shopping there is a universe of brands. From this universe prospects derive two subsets of brands: first an evoked set, and then a consideration set.
The evoked set is the total number of brands of an item that will pop into a prospect's mind when asked. For example, cars = Honda, Toyota, Tesla, Ford, GM, Chrysler, Acura, Lexus, Infinity, Nissan, Jaguar, Porsche, Mercedes, Audi, Range Rover, Hyundai, Kia, Volvo, Volkswagen. That's my own evoked set. There are more brands, but those are the only ones that come to my mind right now.
The consideration set is a subset of the evoked set. These are the only brands that the prospect will consider when actually shopping. For cars, I'll only consider Honda, Toyota, Acura, Lexus and Tesla.
Brand building doesn't need to sell in and of itself. But it needs to be noticeable. It needs to be frequent. It probably should tell a story. It needs to generate some engagement and get the brand into the "good books" of prospects. TV, radio, newspaper, billboards on busy commutes. These are all traditional media that serve brand building well.
Demand Building
These ads are timely. They link to world events and life events in an emotional way.
Bad war news? Protect your future with this gold investing newsletter…
Back to school time? Then come shop our store for all the latest fashions to put your kids in class in style…
I recently experienced a timely targeted ad from Amazon. After a string of record-high temperature days where I live, an Amazon email popped into my inbox. "Wouldn't I like to beat the summer heat with one of these unique fans that are bestsellers?"
Demand building ads work well on the Internet because the time to produce and deliver them can be so short. They can cue off real-time events almost immediately.
Direct Response
This happens online and offline. Your ad must interrupt the prospect. This is key.
In the online world, you must understand that (usually) an information or entertainment hunt has engaged your prospect. Your ad is not on their radar. But interrupt them with a relevant headline, and you might tweak their interest to engage with you… a little bit.
Pay-Per-Click advertising works this way. Your prospect has engaged with some set of keywords. Your ad has its first chance at relevancy when it has something to do with those keywords.
An email that pops up in a prospect's inbox has a chance at relevancy if you've already gotten some kind of permission from him to be there. And then your subject line evokes an initial response that's relative to the topic that introduced the two of you.
And finally there is offline direct response. This shows up in the physical mail box. It's a little less focused than what online direct response can achieve. The data driving delivery to prospects is broader.
Postal Codes and Zip Codes speak to demographics. Similar people live in similar neighbourhoods. Buying patterns that result in physical delivery to doorsteps also speaks to demographics. A sale delivered to one postal address may point the way to marketing to that customer's neighbours.
Direct response mail targets the concerns, needs and interests of those who share demographics.
All successful direct response campaigns will pay for themselves if you balance a key equation: buy the right copy for the right prospects and pay the least amount to send it.
It All Comes Down To Marketing
Where are you in the life of your business? The answer to that question will help direct which advertising strategy you should use right now.
Just beginning? Go for Direct Response. Supplement with some Brand Building.
You've built a customer base? Now add some timely Demand Building once you've got a few more products to sell.
And don't think you need to create all these products yourself. Start expanding your product line by selling affiliate products.
Finally you can focus more on Brand Building.
Tell your story. Keep launching Direct Response and Demand Building campaigns. But continually now, you must keep building your brand.
Become better at marketing with your ads in all three ways and you'll really boost your earnings.
By Kevin Rokosh
No comments:
Post a Comment