Modern advertising methods include using some traditional mass media in a modern way. When you can use traditional media to target your market and to get a direct response, you’re using a modern advertising method.

Radio advertising is one example of a traditional mass media that lends itself to target and direct marketing.

The essentials of using radio advertising as a modern advertising method involves media selection, repetition of messages, and offers that motivate listeners to take immediate action.

Media Selection

With the proliferation of radio station formats, you can now select radio stations and programs to reach almost any target market. But you need to know what kind of music that your target market prefers and which programs are most popular with your market members.

Drive-time programs usually get the most listeners so ads on them cost the most. But your target market may not drive to and from work during peak drive times

For example, I live ten miles south of Fort Smith, Arkansas, where there are many factories. Most of the factory workers, who work first shift, have to be at work before 7 a.m. and get back home well before 5 p.m. So if these factory workers comprise your target market, you can reach them cheaply by buying ads to run at cheaper times.

Message Repetition

Even drive time is affordable enough on many local radio stations to provide message repetition. Running ads frequently enough to make an impression on your target market members is even more affordable if you run ads shorter than the typical 30 and 60 second ones.

For example, running a 10 second ad six times during an hour attracts more attention than running a 60 second ad once during the same hour. With shorter ads, you can saturate your market.

Motivating Offers

But it doesn’t help your business to attract attention by saturating your market, if your message doesn’t motivate market members to take action.

You have to make an offer that entices listeners enough that they will remember and act on your offer. The more immediate their action, the more successful your ad will be as a modern advertising method.

Because you can quickly change radio ads, you can design and produce them to encourage direct response to offers.

For example, a convenience store between Fort Smith and Greenwood could advertise a brown bag lunch special for factory workers on their early morning drive and change the special Mondays through Fridays. As the workers drive from Greenwood to work in Fort Smith, many may decide to stop and grab you lunch special rather than gambling on what the factory cafeteria offers.

Conclusion

If you select a radio station and program that targets your market, frequently repeat ads during the time that market members are listening, and make offers that encourage immediate action, you get the best from radio advertising as a modern advertising method.

To access the next post in this series, click the link below:

Modern Advertising Methods 7: PPC Advertising

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Posted 9-10-08: Modern Advertising Methods 6: Radio Advertising

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When considering modern advertising methods, television advertising isn’t top of my list. It’s expensive and better for brand advertising than for direct marketing.

However, two versions of television advertising better fit the definition of “modern advertising methods.” These are cable television advertising and video advertising.

This fifth post in my series on modern advertising methods concentrates on these two types of television advertising. If you want to access the first four from this series, you can start with the first one below. Then each post links to the next one so you can follow them chronologically.

Modern Advertising Methods 1

Modern Advertising Methods – Cable Television Advertising

Cable television advertising can be purchased locally, regionally and nationally.

It’s usually less expensive than regular television advertising, making it more feasible to use for direct marketing. I’ve seen some local cable television ads for as little as $8.00 for a 30 second spot.

At these prices, even small business owners with small advertising budgets can afford cable television advertising. Plus today’s ad-sales environment offers new advertising opportunities. These modern advertising methods include product placements, entitlement sponsorships, and sponsor-supplied programming.

Many cable sales people will tailor a budget for you and even help you produce your advertising spots, but don’t just turn your advertising over to them or you’ll risk your advertisement looking and sounding like all the other local ads.

The trick is to design ads that stand out from other local ads and motivate potential customers to respond directly and immediately by calling a telephone number, visiting a web site, or in someway contacting the business.

Modern Advertising Methods – Video Advertising

Cable channels are also leading the emergence of video advertising.

My local cable channel offers video advertising that potential customers request, similarly to how online searchers look for content by keywords.

Your video advertising won’t be broadcast to everyone so you don’t pay to reach people who aren’t in your target market. Those who request your video are serious shoppers who are interested in what you sell.

Another type of video advertising is similar to book advertising that I covered in yesterday’s post: Modern Advertising Methods 4: Publications
http://www.strategicmarketsegmentation.com/blog/modern-advertising-methods-4-publications/

Both share similar advantages and disadvantages.

With this type of video advertising, you actually buy placement on a video that reaches your target market. This can be anything from a movie to an information product. Of course the greater the distribution, the more your ad will cost.

Another type of video advertising involves producing videos and posting them online to sites like UTube. But I’ll not cover that here because this first set of posts on modern advertising methods covers offline. I’ll cover online methods in later posts.

To get to the next post in this series, click on the link below:

Modern Advertising Methods 6: Radio Advertising

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Posted 9-9-08: Modern Advertising Methods 5: Television Advertising

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I’m continuing posting on modern advertising methods this week. If you missed the three posts I did on it last week, you can access the first one through the link below. Each then links to the next.

Modern Advertising Methods 1

Today’s post covers publication advertising as a modern advertising method. By publication advertising, I’m not referring to mass media, but publications like programs, books, and professional organization publications.

Modern Advertising Methods – Programs

Nearly all events utilize programs from local football teams to national conventions. The price varies by the amount of people expected to attend the event/s. But if the event targets your market well, they can provide a good and immediate return on your advertising investment.

Some are more immediate than others. For instance most football programs are printed and used throughout the season with only the inside pages changing for each game. While programs for national conventions will get all the views in a short time.

You must make you advertising offer confirm with the time that your ad will run. For instance, you wouldn’t want to advertise a sale in a football program, but you could use a coupon for a percentage off that you would honor throughout the season.

In addition to programs offering a targeted market, most also provide support to the organization that produces the program. So you can also earn some good will with the organization’s supporters and fans.

Modern Advertising Methods – Books

I’m seeing more and more books carrying ads. If a book is relevant to your product, it can reach your target market effectively.

But results from book advertising spreads over a long time. You have to purchase your advertising before the book is printed, and it may be sold across years. So advertising in books isn’t as direct as the other two types of publications.

Furthermore, you can’t be sure how many of the books will be sold. Just because 5000 copies are printed, doesn’t mean that they will all reach your target market. So pricing by the number printed can be deceptive.

You’d be better off if you can get the book publisher to agree to charging you for the advertising on a monthly or quarterly basis, depending on how many books are sold during that time. Of course, the publisher will require a contract to assure that you do pay.

Modern Advertising Methods – Professional Journals

Professional organizations publish publications from brochures to newsletters and magazines. If you are targeting people in a certain profession, advertising in these can effectively reach your target market, and make you valuable contacts within the organization.

They often provide more value than other media that reach your market because the organization’s members pay most of the printing and distribution costs of the publication as part of their dues.

Modern Advertising Methods - Publications Conclusion

Many business owners never think of advertising in publications unless they are approached by a salesperson. But publications often offer good value, effectively reach your target market, and build goodwill.

Although they don’t all meet the criteria for direct marketing, they are worth considering as modern advertising methods.

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Modern Advertising Methods 5: Television Advertising

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Posted 9-8-08: Modern Advertising Methods 4: Publications

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Modern advertising methods do include traditional media. The modern methods just use those media differently.

What makes modern advertising methods different from traditional advertising methods is it’s direct, targeted and interactive approach. I discussed these differences in the prior two posts for this series. You can link to each below:

Modern Advertising Methods 1
Modern Advertising Methods 2: PR & Theater Advertising

Most traditional media can be used for direct advertising. But modern advertising methods require that you use a direct, targeted and interactive approach and smarter media buying. Today I’m covering two traditional print advertising media – magazine advertising and newspaper advertising.

Modern Advertising Methods for Magazine Advertising

I know of a business that made millions using magazine advertising for direct marketing. Its owner constantly ran ads in several magazines with a target market interested in loosing weight.

His ads looked like editorial copy and encouraged readers to call a telephone number for a free sample of his weight loss pills. When they did, he got their credit card information and enrolled them in a continuity program. He shipped a new bottle of pills every month and charged their credit cards monthly until they canceled their subscriptions.

This is an example of using modern advertising methods with magazine advertising. You can emulate this method for your business. It just requires advertising in magazines with readers in your target market, a continuity program, and a good advertisement that encourages immediate action.

Modern Advertising Methods for Newspaper Advertising

Newspaper advertising is loosing popularity but it’s still effective if newspaper readers are in your target market, and if you use it as a direct approach to get readers to take action.

Newspaper readers are older people in the WWII and Boomer generations. You can learn characteristics to help market to these generations at the pages linked below:

WWII Generation
Baby Boomers

Newspaper readers are mostly homeowners, who have resided in the same community for a long time. They like the depth of information that they get from newspapers as opposed to broadcast news.

They also like local news about their community. They are often active in their communities and many are business owners and community leaders. So they are often influential in their communities.

If you target your advertising to newspaper readers and make an offer that requires a quick response, you’ll find newspaper advertising effective. You can do this with inexpensive classified advertising or more expensive display advertising.

Of course you need to know the basics of newspaper advertising. Many newspaper advertising sales people will help you with copywriting and design, especially if you commit to a display campaign instead of a one-time ad.

But some are more knowledgeable than others. So pick a sales person that knows the community, has been at the newspaper long enough to know what advertising works best in the newspaper, and understands what you are trying to accomplish with your modern advertising methods.

The next post is this series covers using publications with your modern advertising methods. You can access it though the link below:

Modern Advertising Methods 4: Publications

To access the next post in this series, click the link below:

Modern Advertising Methods 4: Publications

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Posted 9-5-08: Modern Advertising Methods 3:
Magazine & Newspaper Advertising

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Modern advertising methods don’t have to use new media. They can use traditional advertising media approached in a different way.

The major difference between traditional and modern advertising methods is the purpose of the ad. Modern advertising methods use direct and targeted advertising rather than brand advertising.

The purpose of brand advertising is to build an image for a business so that when people are ready to buy, they will think of the business and its products.

Direct advertising, on the other hand, tries to persuade people to buy or take some other immediate action. It usually targets a specific market with an offer that its members will find appealing enough to act now.

This post covers two types of advertising that have been used for brand advertising for decades. What makes them modern advertising methods is that they use direct advertising to encourage a specific target market to take an immediate action.

The two types of modern advertising methods covered in this post are PR advertising and theater advertising.

Modern Advertising Methods for PR Advertising

Public relations, or PR advertising, is designed to get people to take an action other than making a purchase. Traditionally it’s given the business’ perspective on an issue, defended the business from accusations, or made an apology for some wrong doing. But that’s not a modern advertising method because it doesn’t require an action from target market members.

The modern method for PR advertising is to encourage interaction with the business. This includes making a telephone call, completing a form, or visiting a Web site. Because it’s PR rather than sales, the interaction is not designed to make a sale, but to support the business in some other way.

Of course, PR advertising can be either online or offline like ads in newspapers, magazines, television and radio.

Modern Advertising Methods for Theater Advertising

Theaters have used theater advertising is a modern way for decades when they advertise concession stand products. These ads run before the movie starts and at intermission to get people to buy drinks, candy and popcorn immediately.

Theater advertising doesn’t work as effectively for other businesses because it’s impossible to get people to take immediate action. However if the ad on the screen is accompanied by a printed promotion like a coupon, it can work as a modern advertising method.

For example, many people eat out after a movie. So a restaurant advertising a discount to movie-goers can encourage an immediate action. This requires that theater employees hand out a coupon or a promotional flyer that movie-goers can take to the restaurant for the discount.

Tomorrow’s post will describe how to use traditional print media with modern advertising methods.You can access it through the link below:

Modern Advertising Methods 3: Magazine & Newspaper Advertising

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Posted: 9-4-06: Modern Advertising Methods 2: PR & Theater Advertising

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