Blind Marketing, If only We Had Seen The Light.
Statistics and demographics can show a variety of information including income, buying habits, ages, computer system, internet browser, and/or other pertinent data that is useful in a effective marketing campaign. Without this information a business would be conducting blind marketing which, by the way, is the most expensive and most ineffective form of marketing. Suppose for example, a business had 500 postcard mailers to distribute for a product for senior citizens, blind marketing would be to distribute them to every household mailing address. Considering that the best direct marketing literature yields a 10% return, and supposing that 15% of the mailing addresses had homes with senior citizens as occupants, the best expected RIO (return on investment) could provide a maximum of 1.5%. Demographics also help designers websites for improved visibility over the clients machines. Using the same audience as above, suppose that site was built using layers (HTML 4.0 standard) combined with dynamic Macromedia Flash. Statistics prove that most of this base of users do not keep up to date with technology, thus the pages' coding may not at all be understood thereby producing a unprofessional look on the page.
Thousands of businesses all across the internet can offer these services, but the question is at what price? Will the new customer base provide a enough business to exceed the cost of advertising? Can your business support the demand of increased traffic? Considering every aspect including the quality and quantity of the ad being served is the job of a professional advertising agency.
How much are you willing to
spend to save a buck?
Playing the Numbers Game in advertising is a risky business move. Is the lowest price per impression worth it always the best decision? It is like what our parents have always said, "You do not get nothing for nothing.". Below are two examples of a comparison study analysis of two real companies that will remain nameless for sake of confidentiality.
Company A wants to play the numbers game and so doing, they saved $1000 on their advertising campaign which brought them a lower By having Jill, their in-house secretary, design their marketing collateral.
Jill just took a class in Frontpage and Publisher. She claims an astute knowledge for the subject. "She would be a perfect candidate for the job right?". Wrong!
The graphics she produced on the computer screen turned out beautiful; however, because of lack of years of experience, subject matter discipline, and knowledge of consumer demographics, her expectations became the best part of the project.
On the printing, Jill lacked the experience to produce a quality documents without errors. Not only did she forgot to check her work before sending it to the printer, but she used RGB color palette instead of CMYK or Index colors. The colors on the printed brochure came out as one customer would claim, "Funky". To top it off, she used copyrighted images from the internet without permission which could have lead into a lawsuit.
On the web page design aspect, Jill proved her inexperience once again.She encoded the page with layers which is an HTML 4.0 standard that looked spectacular on the in house computer (well except for a couple of coding errors), but when viewed on their clients machine, nothing showed up or the pages where discombobulated, having some having redundant mistakes.
Jill forgot to look at the company's demographics. The profile which included a majority of users from ages 59-70.
With this age group, statistics show that a majority of the users do not have that latest in internet browsers and therefore where not be enabled to read the HTML 4.0 standard. As a result, the advertising campaign, including the brochures, postage, and the web page design was a flop.
Jill did get good pricing on the brochures. She found extremely competitive pricing at $741.90 for printing/postage of 900 full color tri-fold brochures Jill's inexperience the web-page design and the print design her efforts were futile. It took her three weeks at a total of 110 hours time; time which could have been spent on her actual job function. Company A's ineffective campaign totaled $2495 (Production time $1320 + consumer-rate domain costs $35 + consumer-rate yearly web hosting costs $240 + printing costs $741 + miscellaneous expenses) . In addition, Company A still had to pay into her unemployment benefits, taxes, and any other fees associated with her working there. In conclusion, Jill have yielded the same results by putting that money directly in the dumpster along with the contents of the office waste reciprocal.
Advertising Effectively
Understanding that Company B requires help in this area, Jack, the business manager, decided to outsource to a professional. Jack took the time, to locate a skilled graphic and web artisan that could deliver results. He knew he needed an educated professional with proof of past performance. He checked out a couple of recommended sites, because he has a job function too, he made his selection without it becoming a new-found career.
Jack made a managerially worthy decision and has the proof to back it up. Jack called a web design company, sat down, then discussed the project stating his requirements, history of the business, identifying the goals and expected outcome. Based on consumer marketing data, Advertising Media Works had made suggestions and alternatives and sealed the deal. Advertising Media Works within a week had the website and printed proofs completed beyond expectations within a week. The 900 brochures have arrived in the mail the following week. The total package had come to $2895 and Jack received a marketing collateral that fit his company's customer profile and identified company brand. As a bonus, John at Advertising Media Works threw in free search engine adverting for 3 months.
In conclusion, Jack and Jill were both intending to have the same outcome, fortunately for Jack, he had learned from others mistakes were Jill's boss obviously had not. Then again, effective advertising is not for everyone!
