How to Design an Advertising Campaign
Advertising campaigns are used to promote products and services to a targeted group of prospective consumers, in hopes that they'll try the product or service and become loyal customers. Advertising campaigns require proper planning, research, budgeting and execution in order to produce measurable results. Companies with large budgets enlist the help of advertising agencies to assist them in designing their advertising campaigns, while smaller companies work hard to produce advertising campaigns on their own.
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Things You'll Need
- Budget
- Competitor's advertising campaigns
- Copywriter
- Graphic designer
- Focus group participants
Instructions
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Determine the goals of your advertising campaign. Common goals include increasing profits, improving brand visibility, staying ahead of the competition, introducing a new product, introducing a new use for an old product, capturing a new target market or expanding the business. The goals for the campaign should be smart, measurable, attainable, realistic and timely.
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Identify the target market likely to purchase the product or service on which the campaign is based. Determine which media they are likely to reply to: radio, television, e-mail, print or direct mail advertising. Some consumers may also respond to telemarketing, seminar marketing, trade show promotions or public relations efforts, depending on the industry and what's being sold. Identify how consumers in the target market spend their time, from whom they receive consumer information and news and how the information impacts their buying decisions.
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Create a budget which outlines the amount you plan to spend on designing an advertising campaign. The budget should take into account the cost to hire freelance designers and copywriters, as well as printing costs and costs for advertising placements, promotional products and other supplies and equipment used to design your advertising campaign.
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Brainstorm potential marketing messages that can effectively and creatively sell your product or service to your target market. Review advertising campaigns your competitors are running and research to uncover feedback on their products and services. Use this information to determine your product or service's unique selling proposition and how you can incorporate it in your advertising campaign.
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Determine which media options are within your budget and fit the overall goals of your campaign. Select more than one option for an integrated campaign.
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Work with a freelance designer and copywriter to create your campaign, if you don't already employ a writer and designer. Present them with the information you have on your target market and the marketing message you'd like to send them about the products and services you offer.
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Test your advertising campaign on a sample group of individuals who meet the profile of your target market by organizing a focus group to uncover their thoughts on the campaign. Get their feedback on visuals, written words and the overall message, as they represent a portion of the group you plan to target. Take their feedback into consideration and rework aspects of your campaign that need to be tweaked.
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Identify how you plan to measure the success of your campaign once you've finalized the advertising campaign you plan to execute. Execute your advertising campaign, calculate results and plan for the next campaign.
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References
Resources
- Photo Credit hand and pda on table at meeting image by Dmitry Goygel-Sokol from Fotolia.com
