Released on: March 29, 2008, 5:54 am

Press Release Author: DIYA SOOD

Industry: Internet & Online

Press Release Summary: The previous article examined some of the basic ideas
involved in advertising. We looked at why a company may want to advertise, the
factors involved in choosing a suitable venue and the costs and time involved. We
also explored some of the practicalities to consider and how to research your
potential venue.

Press Release Body: The previous article examined some of the basic ideas involved
in advertising. We looked at why a company may want to advertise, the factors
involved in choosing a suitable venue and the costs and time involved. We also
explored some of the practicalities to consider and how to research your potential
venue.
Once you\'ve chosen where you\'re going to advertise, the next critical factor will be
how well you know the target audience. The more information that you have to hand,
the better you can tailor your content around their needs and expectations.
You need to make sure that you speak in their language, try to give them what
they\'re already used to, or grab their attention with something new. But be warned,
these are pushy and innovative times. Whatever gimmick or spin you use to stand out
may well has been tried many times before, so don\'t over-rely on it.
Like a good informative web page, the ad needs to first of all catch their
attention, and compel them to click on it.
There should be more focus on the benefits of the software than the features, and
the ad should really push the download or sale. It should also be as compelling and
striking as possible - not easy when you\'re limited by a number of characters, file
size or space to work with!
Bear in mind that like any strategy, your advertising will only be as strong as its
weakest link. Don\'t spend thousands of dollars on good placement, only to use some
awful home-created banner that you knocked together with Paint Shop Pro 4 three
years ago.
If graphic design is not your strong point, then get a firm to design some decent
graphics for you. The same goes with writing the ad copy. Most people can write, but
few are writers. Try to make sure that someone with more than a thesaurus-dictionary
gift set writes your copy for you.
Aside from the wording, the basic market principles apply. Grab their attention,
tempt them, and compel them to act. \"50% discount\" is eye catching, as is some form
of \"only valid today\" type of offer.
But when the potential customer clicks on your ad, you\'re only half way there. You
now need to make sure that the page they land on carries on the good work.
Realistically, many will click on the ad out of idle curiosity, and very few (if
any) will have made up their minds to purchase already.
You should therefore use a separate landing page, as opposed to your regular main
website page. It should contain the same information and use the same language, tone
and focus of the ad, but now you\'re not restricted as to what you can do, or how
much space you have to work with. Here, you have all the space you need to go
all-out with the sales drive.
On a technical level, make sure that your landing page is not linked from anywhere
in your website, so as to ensure that everyone coming to this page has been driven
there by the ad.
If you\'re sharing a landing page, then at least make sure that you use a unique
referral string. To be able to evaluate the success of the ad, it\'s critical that
you can distinguish these visitors from the regular site visitors.
This brings us neatly onto the subject of tracking, without which you are
effectively deaf, dumb and blind to the effects of the ad. A unique landing page on
your website is ideal, and if possible, makes this point to a separate payment page
as well. You can also use cookies or referral strings in order to sharpen the
accuracy of the tracking.
Usage of decent web log analysis software should let you see how many people came to
the landing page, how long they spent there, which links they then clicked on, who
downloaded from there, who purchased, and perhaps even who came back to the website
later.
The analysis and follow-up of the campaign is surprisingly often completely
overlooked. This is a great loss, as in some respects this is one of the most
important stages of the whole process.
When it comes to gauging the level of generated sales and registrations, you need to
take into account the final date of the ad, plus the full length of the trial
version and then add a little extra time. Some may view the ad, click, download the
software, but may not install it for a few days or even longer.
As an example, a company may choose to run a series of ads in a newsletter that is
sent out from Monday to Friday of a given week.
Some people may not respond to the ad until the following weekend (or later), and
only then download your thirty day trial. So we\'re already looking at 35 days after
the ad was first run, and that\'s assuming that they install the software as soon as
they download it. Some people may even register after the trial has elapsed. So
don\'t go writing it off as a failure on day two of your advertising campaign.
To accurately evaluate the success of the campaign, you need to go back to your
original goals.
If your primary goal was to achieve a higher level of sales, then it should be
reasonably easy to see how many were generated by the ad. As with everything related
to advertising, your data won\'t be 100% accurate, but it should give you a good
idea.
If the primary goal was increased exposure, then you should be looking at how many
people were exposed to the ad, how many viewed the landing page content and website,
and perhaps even downloaded and purchased the software.
At this point, there are four possible scenarios.
(1) The ad appears to be successful.
Your goals have been achieved as a direct result of the ad, and more advertising
with this vendor may be considered for the future. Even with this success, don\'t
rule out the fact that your figures can be further improved, but don\'t forget that
they can worsen too.
You should also be careful not to immediately engage in a long-term contract with
this vendor. Not only because there are other advertising options out there, but
also because any ad has a certain lifespan until has it reached its saturation
point. At the very least consider trying different products, wording (or graphics)
or even a different type of offer or discount.
(2) The ad doesn\'t appear to be successful.
There have been little generated in terms of exposure or sales, and you can\'t help
but feel that the venture has been a failure.
The first thing you have to do is to try to determine the reason for this.
It may be the product itself, the ad copy, the ad, or perhaps the targeting was off.
It may even be as a result of the ad placement, or the offer or discount not being
generous enough.
If the ad failed, it is very important to ascertain exactly why. Don\'t just dismiss
it as a failure, or a \"bad\" place to advertise, and don\'t be afraid to go back to
the vendor for feedback. If you explain that you\'re interested in making this work,
as opposed to complaining that they didn\'t deliver the results you expected, you\'ll
usually get a positive response. See what they can do to help, after all, it\'s in
their interests that you walk away satisfied by your experience.
(3) The ad appears to break-even, but little more than this.
Go back and read number (2). Not being a success counts as a failure.
(4) You\'re not sure whether the ad was worthwhile or not.
There has been some response, but it\'s difficult to see whether it was a worthwhile
experience or not.
It\'s very important that you get to the bottom of this. Go through your statistics
again, and filter through your logs to see exactly what the visitors did, where they
clicked, and why they behaved as they did.
It is extremely important that at the end of the process, you know whether it was
worthwhile or not. Failure to do so will result either in wastage of money or
wastage of opportunities.
It\'s all too easy to throw money away on bad advertising. It\'s just as easy to be
scared-off by risks, or for that matter throw potential opportunities away. Like any
form of marketing, there are no guarantees that you\'ll achieve the results you hope
for. But by failing to try, you\'re absolutely guaranteed never to reach them. The
best you can do is to prepare the ground and cover all options as thoroughly as
possible, take a deep breath and then take the plunge. Be seen, be sold.


Web Site: http://www.greatpromotionsite.com

Contact Details: SCF-111,Ph-10,Mohali,017250911,n/a,touch9217278@gmail.com.