5 steps to effective business advertising

Advertising is an important part of marketing your business.

It is an effective way to publicize the products or services you want to sell to your target market, but if you don´t do it properly, it can become a simple expense and not an investment, which is ultimately what we are looking for.

1) Clearly define who your target market is.

Therefore, here are the five steps you need to take to develop an effective advertising campaign for your business:

Can you imagine shooting into the sky with a shotgun, thinking that with a little luck a duck will fall at some point? That´s just what you're doing if you don't have your target market identified.

If you want to send one message to all the target markets you serve, rest assured that your advertising will be ineffective. There is nothing more effective than speaking to each of the markets in "their language", and above all, solving any specific need they may have.

If your market is "all people", start thinking about the different segments you serve: women from 18 to 25 years old, men from 30 to 45 years old, and not only by age range or sex, define them by habits, interests, skills, tastes, area where they live, be as specific as you can, and your messages will be very effective.

2) Research where your market is most concentrated.

Now that you are very clear on the "who", you should look for where you find the highest concentration of people for each market segment you identified. Are they young people, where can you find them in the highest volume, what about universities and schools, what about shopping malls, are they cyclists, what would happen if you advertise in magazines? 

The better you have identified your different markets, the easier it will be to find them, and what media to use. It is possible to have effective advertising, the only thing you have to do is to identify your market, the media, and the places they use.

3) Create an attractive offer.

Now that you have the "who" and the "where", we must focus on the "what". What do you offer, what do they want to buy? You must create an offer that goes according to what your market is looking for or needing, you must know your market, to launch offers that simply could not resist. To do this you must have a lot of communication with them, ask your best customers what is the reason they do business with you, ask them what they like most about your business, ask them what you could improve, and based on this information, you can develop much more attractive offers that are truly relevant to them.

4) How and when.

You have clearly defined who your target market is, you have seen where you can find that market in the highest concentration and you already have a truly attractive offer. Only the last details are missing: the how and the when. How are you going to advertise, will it be an ad in a local newspaper, will you use Facebook or a landing page? Decide which is the ideal medium to develop your campaign, and set a date, it is important that you have a plan and execute it, remember that to get results you must take action and these two elements are essential to achieve your goal.

5) Test and Measure.

This is perhaps the most important point of the five since what is not measured cannot be controlled and even less can be improved. To know the effectiveness of your advertising campaign, you must consistently ask every one of the prospects that contact you the following question: "By the way, how did you hear about us?

Imagine if you knew with certainty that 50 prospects came to your business through an advertisement you placed on Facebook, for which you invested $50, and that of those 50, 10 became customers, who bought an average of $2000, that is, a conversion rate of 20%. If you have a profit margin of 25%, you could have a profit of $400. What if instead of $50, you invested $100 or $300? If you test and measure, you can have a virtually unlimited marketing budget that is working for you.

As you can see, advertising is not that complex, you just have to follow these 5 steps in the right order and put them into action.