Effective advertising - what makes it different?

Why is advertising effective? What makes users of Facebook and other social media pay attention to an online campaign? You will understand the answers to these and other questions once you start your marketing adventure. Learn the ins and outs of it and you will learn how to make your company's advertising that will help you establish a relationship with more than one customer.

Effectiveness - the primary objective of advertising

Advertisements can have different objectives. Some forms of promotion are designed to stimulate sales of products from a shop, others focus on building brand awareness among consumers and still others are created to create a positive corporate image.

Although each promotional message has a slightly different premise, they all share one primary objective. The primary task of any marketing message is to be effective.

Most effective advertisement is one that generates the anticipated profits. These can be financial earnings, image benefits or other gains. In fact, various factors determine the success and effectiveness of advertising.

Why is not all advertising effective?

The effectiveness of advertising is measured by the reactions of the target audience. It therefore seems extremely important to adapt the message to the target group, its language, mindset, emotionality or cultural and social habits.

If an advertisement is not up to the task, it will not be able to appeal to the recipient and persuade him or her to take a specific action (e.g. purchase the promoted product). Thus, it will become ineffective.

What does the effectiveness of advertising depend on?

Successful advertisements have several characteristics in common. One of these concerns the simplicity of the message. This is not just about the language of the message - although this too is of great importance. What is most important in terms of simplicity is the clarity of content and form. To a large extent, this is what makes it possible to understand the message contained in the ad.

A complicated or unclear promotion may make the recipient think, but this will not always be the case - the message will not prove effective in every case.

Therefore, instead of creating confusing storylines for spots, ambiguous posters or other forms of advertising, it is worth betting on event scenarios that are based on culturally established and clear patterns. Such patterns are familiar to audiences, so they can understand them without problems.

However, simply grasping the meaning of an advertisement does not always translate into a willingness to take the action it promotes. Effective online or traditional advertising should also have some impact on the recipient. This means that it must be engaging.

It is mainly about capturing the consumer emotionally. If the message is moving, entertaining or generates other feelings, there is a good chance that it will stand out from your competitors' advertising. Thus, the customer will not only watch your material with curiosity, but will also remember it more easily.

Various solutions can be used to attract the attention of the audience. Among effective advertising methods, storytelling treatments should be mentioned first and foremost. Stories involving the promoted product or service can engage consumers much more than a typical advertisement for the item itself. This is because stories affect other areas of the brain and are absorbed better than dry facts.

Another way to absorb the recipient is to use the rule of authority. This method of social influence is based on building trust, which is based on recognition towards an expert in a particular field. If an advertisement creates an expert image of a company, there is a good chance that the consumer will place trust in the company and its products - and thus be more inclined to make a purchase.

The customer's attention can also be gained through elements of surprise that can be introduced into the promotion. This includes, for example, the use of interesting music in the spot, the use of eye-catching colours on the poster or placing the advertisement in an unusual location. Anything that is surprising and original is good at captivating the viewer.

Traditional forms of advertising - are they still effective today?

Traditional forms of advertising are those that are distributed through the classic media. Thus, we are talking about promotion on television, radio or in the press. Traditional solutions also include poster advertising, billboards and leaflets.

Is marketing through such means effective? There is no clear answer to this question. All because traditional advertising has both advantages and disadvantages.

The advantage of such forms of promotion is that you reach a wide audience. However, the group of such audiences usually does not seem very homogeneous. After all, television or posters are seen by everyone, regardless of their preferences or consumer needs.

Therefore, traditional advertising reaches both potential customers and people who are not representatives of the target group. Therefore, this type of message runs the risk of overpaying to reach consumers who will not buy the product anyway.

It is worth pointing out that sometimes traditional advertising is the only way to make a name for certain customers. This is especially true for older people who do not use social media.

In addition, remember that the use of classic forms of media is often a good complement to online marketing activities. With billboards, TV spots or radio commercials, you can serve your audience a certain teaser and send them off to read the details on your website.

Which advertising is most effective? Choosing promotional methods according to the specific business and sector

Which advertising is most effective? It depends. Too many factors influence the effectiveness of marketing messages to formulate a simple answer to such a question. Among the most important variables are the specifics of the business and the characteristics of its target audience.

If the company is targeting young people, it should choose online advertising using portals such as Facebook, Instagram, TikTok or YouTube. Marketing activities on the Google search engine itself are also a good solution. Positioning the company's website for specific phrases or running campaigns with paid advertisements is very important to increase the reach.

In order to reach a wide audience, you can also work in the area of e-mail marketing. Sending out newsletters or informing about promotions, events or other issues of interest (from the customer's perspective) via e-mail helps to build a positive relationship with the consumer.

Also, remember that if your business is e-commerce-only, then online advertising should be your natural and primary solution. However, you don't have to close yourself off to other ways of promotion.

If a company has sufficient budget and sees potential in traditional advertising as well, it may consider implementing 360-degree marketing. This is a strategy that involves integrating activities across different communication channels. The aim is to provide as many touchpoints as possible. These are moments in which the customer has direct or indirect contact with the brand.

Increasing the number of touchpoints makes it easier to shape the consumer's journey from the moment they get to know the brand to the moment they take advantage of its offer and post-purchase service. Thus, it makes it possible to effectively win over the consumer, as well as to ensure a positive experience.

How do you test whether advertising is effective?

The effectiveness of advertisements and entire marketing campaigns is measured by ROI (return on investment), i.e. the rate of return on investment expenditure. This parameter illustrates how every single zloty influences the incremental profit over a certain period of time.

However, it is worth knowing that ROI is usually used to calculate the effectiveness of activities in the long term. Therefore, this parameter is best suited for assessing strategic marketing objectives. On the other hand, for a slightly narrower analysis of individual activities, it is recommended to use key performance indicators, which are referred to as KPIs (key performance indicators).

With the help of these indicators, the effectiveness of specific elements of the marketing strategy can be determined and a more informed decision can thus be made to continue with the adopted method of promotion or to abandon given activities.

Indicators that show how effective a company's online advertising is - examples

The effectiveness of advertising on the Internet can be checked much more easily than in the case of promotion using traditional forms of media. This is because there are specific indicators that can be used to analyse the impact of specific activities on increasing sales or other types of conversions.

Among the most popular performance indicators for online advertising is the CTR (click through rate). This is known as the click-through rate, which determines interest in a particular message based on how often an ad is clicked on by users after it has been displayed.

Another well-known indicator is CLV (customer lifetime value). This is a measurement of customer value, which is determined by the anticipated revenue generated through the customer's relationship with the company.

If one has knowledge of CLV, one should also pay attention to the CPA (cost per action) indicator. This measure determines the cost per conversion, i.e. the ratio of a company's expenditure to the number of conversions (e.g. transactions made). CPA therefore shows how much you realistically have to pay to gain a customer's interest.

Assuming the consumer has a high CLV, you can afford to invest more in attracting them. However, when the measurement of the consumer's value is not very optimistic, you have to try to reduce the CPA. Otherwise, customer acquisition activities - advertising and other forms of marketing - will simply not be profitable.

InPost advertising - effective and surprising

Effective business advertising is something that can be realised by working with us. In our InPost offer for business, we have interesting suggestions for both online and offline marketing activities.

As part of our online promotion, we display advertisements on our website (inpost.pl), which is visited by a really large number of internet users every day. In addition, we are also able to offer entrepreneurs a mention in the InPost newsletter. This makes it easier to start promotional activities with e-mail marketing.

Among the solutions that will help to effectively reach the recipients is the option of using banners or PUSH notifications in our InPost Mobile app. This modern form of advertising has a good chance of attracting consumer attention.

If you are a fan of offline advertising or want to invest in 360-degree marketing, then you will also be interested in outdoor solutions. Our flagship proposition is the wrapping of Parcel Machines®. Placing promotional graphics on a machine for sending and receiving parcels is so customised that it immediately attracts attention.

In addition, InPost's advertising offer includes the option of a display promotion on the screens of our proprietary vending machines. We can also offer product sampling, i.e. giving consumers samples of your shop's articles. This form of advertising will allow you to increase brand recognition and attract new customers.