At some point your brand is likely to experience declining advertising results. When it does it pays to go right back to basics and assess how you can halt falling response and sales figures. In our experience, there are some super simple steps you can take that have an almost immediate impact and will boost your campaign performance without the need to increase media spend. Ensuring your advertising campaigns deliver effectively and efficiently will quickly be seen on your bottom line. Read on for tips on how you can optimise your campaigns and improve your advertising results.
Take a fresh approach to creative
Even when you’re doing everything right your creative can often benefit from a fresh approach. Adverts used frequently become media wallpaper and their impact diminishes which in turn leads to falling responses and ultimately declining sales. Take some time out to really look at your artwork. Is that headline still relevant? Does that image look dated? Could alternative messaging be more effective? Would the logo benefit from a facelift? Speak to non-marketing members of your team and get their take. Sometimes as advertising professionals we get hamstrung by industry norms and protocols and miss things that really resonate with (or alienate!) our target audience. If you can make your creative more impactful you’ll see the benefits of improved results from your advertising.
Improve your offer
If you’ve been running the same offer for a while it stops becoming a special deal and starts to become expected. Running the same offer for a long period takes away the implication that the consumer needs to act quickly, so they won’t. If you don’t have the margins to increase a discount, change things up. Change 25% off to £250 cashback for example, even if it amounts to the same thing it grabs the attention and stimulates interest. More than ever consumers are looking for a deal so make sure they feel like they are getting one.
Sharpen your media buying
It’s pretty simple, if you reduce your costs your ROI goes up without needing to improve sales. Simply asking for cheaper media space because you think you deserve it is unlikely to get a favourable response but there are other ways to drive down the cost of your advertising schedule. Are you buying late space? Taking “left over” inventory guarantees a price discount. And don’t assume because it’s still available at 5pm the day before publication it’s poor quality. We regularly buy premium positions such as outside back covers or pages facing key editorial for our clients at a discount. Do you look ahead and negotiate based on volume? One page is unlikely to be of much interest to a media owner but if you’re talking about 6 pages in two months then you’ll have their attention. Publications like commitment and will reward those who can show it.
Track response and analyse the results from your advertising
You can do all the audience research, TGI runs and focus groups you like but the only way you’ll really find out if a title works for you is to run the ad. However, if you’re not effectively tracking response you will miss out on this vital information. We know that no response tracking mechanism is perfect, yes codes leak, yes people forget where they’ve seen the ad and of course not everyone bothers to scan a QR code but it’s likely you’ll get enough information to allow you to extrapolate and build a better picture. Once you know what’s working you can refine your media schedule and improve your advertising results.
Know your audience
There’s no point having a perfectly efficient media schedule, a fantastic offer, creative that’s spot on and first class response tracking if you’re talking to the wrong people. If you don’t really understand your audience you’re likely talking to the wrong people and all of the above is a waste of time. Get your database profiled and think honestly about who your customer is and what motivates them. Keep on top of this, just because your customers were 35-44 ABC1 ten years ago doesn’t mean that’s still the case. Also, whilst expanding your target is generally a good thing, there are some people who will never be interested in your brand no matter how hard you try to persuade them and how much you want them to be your customers. Identify these groups and don’t waste your time and resources trying to convince them.
AJ can improve your advertising results
If your agency is not being proactive to address these issues you should be asking them why. At AJ we know that what’s “always” worked won’t do so forever and it’s imperative to stay ahead of the curve. That’s why our unofficial motto is “how can we make it better”. Don’t wait until your responses start to decline, always be thinking about how you can improve your advertising results. Small tweaks and changes now will pay dividends further down the line.
For more information on our services and how we can help boost your advert performance click here.