Can businesses connect to sales through advertising?

Yesterday we attended a seminar held at the National Metal Forming Centre in West Bromwich.

The seminar was presented by Interactive Ward Lovett a media agency based in Stafford who talked about the in’s and out’s of advertising, during which they briefly explained some of the general areas which small businesses should look at.

Advertising is a real hard thing to quantify for the small business, as every business knows it needs to be done, every business thinks they do it already....and those who would like to do more, either won’t pay or think that it’s way too expensive.

Like Ward Lovett with us being in the creative sector ourselves, we did on occasion have a rye smile during some of the presentations when videos were shown – like showing the well known Cadburys advert with the Gorilla playing the drums.

The point being to highlight the impact of advertising...for instance what the hell does a Gorilla have to do with chocolate?

The answer which is of course is open to interpretation is ‘enjoyment’ - the advert trying to stress the peace and enjoyment by the Gorilla playing the drums, will be the same as experienced by someone sitting in a chair comfortably and eating a bar of collocate.

Whether you agree or not......... One thing is for sure which is that such an advert has gained recognition and awareness even those who don’t like chocolate but like the advert will refer to it as “that Cadburys advert”?

Although perhaps some of the more corporate styled businesses were exampled, and the fact they perhaps they may have more money to spend on marketing and advertising the underlying point remains exactly the same for the small local business

The recommendations from the day were:

Identify and study your target audience, who they are, how old are are they, what jobs do they do, what type of house they live in.......

Actually create a marketing budget within your business plan.

Think outside of the box, try and gain people attention with impact.

The first two lines of text is what will be read this will include the head line so try and work it so  what you want to say is said within two lines.

Do not write loads of text as a sales tool, as no one will read it except you.

Give adverting time..... As people will have to see it 3 – 4 times before the message will register

Don’t devalue your product or service by saying free, or cheaper than as you’ll find it hard to increase and move with the times – also one important thing is if you say “cheaper than” and have loads of stuff printed and the company your cheaper than then reduces their prices....you’ll have a load of printed stuff which will then be misleading.

There were many more aspects relating to advertising which were spoken about yesterday, detailing how local businesses can connect to sales through advertising. But as the subject - advertising is so vast, and bespoke to each business that detailed conversation need to take place as to their requirements.