Advertising 101: Media Basics

You may never have to deal with advertising issues at your company, but knowledge is power, right? So here's a very brief description of the benefits and drawbacks of the major types of media.

The benefits of advertising in a major newspaper:

• Typically reaches a higher-educated market
• Guaranteed delivery to your target audience
• Each paper is usually handled by several people
• Your ad can hold a lot of detailed information
• You can show the consumer photos or pictures of your products

Drawbacks of a major newspaper:

• It can get expensive
• Newspapers require a long-term contract in order to get their best rates
• Because newspaper ad deadlines are usually a couple of days before publication, it's hard to make quick changes to your message.

The benefits of radio advertising:

• Easier to target niche markets based on consumers' music or talk radio preferences
• Easier to target different parts of the day (for instance, a restaurant can catch you during the late morning hours when you're making your decision on where to eat lunch)
• You can put "personality" into your advertising by using jingles, music, and sound effects
• Radio messages can be changed pretty quickly

And the drawbacks:

• Hard to account for "channel changers" -people who change the station as soon as a commercial comes on
• Can be "hit or miss" and hard to guarantee how many people your message is actually reaching
• With the advent of satellite radio, there just aren't as many people listening to local programming.

Television has its benefits:

• Easy to target different parts of the day and niche markets because you can choose certain shows or types of shows, especially with cable TV (such as advertising a home repair business on HGTV or a sporting goods store on ESPN)
• You can show your product or people in full color and in action
• Easiest way to develop a "personality" for your business

And its drawbacks:

• Buying advertising on television can get expensive, depending on what you buy
• Producing television commercials can get expensive too
• Those channel surfers...you can't guarantee they're not going to change the channel
• It can be expensive to change your message

What about the benefits of billboards?

• Create "top of mind awareness" as consumers drive around town and see your message in front of them
• You'll have somewhat of a captive audience if your board is positioned at a busy intersection or a high traffic area
• Great for pointing out a new location, giving directions, or announcing a special event

Drawbacks of billboard advertising:

• Billboards can be expensive to produce
• The monthly fees for billboards can be expensive
• Billboard companies usually require a longer term of contract of several months or more
• You can only put a small amount of information on a billboard because motorists only have a few seconds to view your message

There are plenty of other types of advertising, but this is a brief listing of the traditional types of media. I'll address other, less mainstream forms of media in another article soon.

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