“Advertising’s biggest strength is talking to existing customers and creating repeat purchases.”
(1) Advertising Brings in New Customers
If your message is relevant, memorable and delivered frequently, customers will come. And the better your message and media strategy, the more and more customers will come.
On the other hand,
if your message is blah blah blah like most ads and,
you dilute your media plan by trying to be everywhere or,
you continually turn your ads and off and on again,
don't expect much return at all.
(2) Advertising Reminds Existing Customers to Return
Once you are consciously aware of something, you notice it more.
My daughter taught me an annoying and frustrating game called "Spoto." It's a simple game. Players get points for spotting a yellow car. But only if they are the first to call, "Spoto!"
You never notice yellow cars. But once you play the game, you see them everywhere. You are now consciously aware of yellow cars. This is thanks to an incredible piece of biological engineering called the Reticular Activating System (RAS). Like a nightclub bouncer, the RAS is the gatekeeper into the conscious mind.
"The Reticular Activating System (RAS), which is in the lower part of the posterior brain, filters all incoming stimuli and makes the "decision" as to what people attend to or ignore. Information constantly comes into the brain from the body's sensory receptors. At any given moment, we are experiencing sights, sounds, smells, tastes and tactile input. It is impossible for us to be consciously aware of all of this sensory information. Therefore the brain has a filter (the RAS) that selects the sensory information to which we consciously attend." - Judy Willis, M.D., M.Ed. Learning and the Brain Workshop. Download the full paper PDF here.
I mentioned the game is annoying because when driving alone, the sight of a yellow car triggers the little voice in my head to say, "Spoto." Sorry, I have passed the Spoto curse on to you. Prepare to see yellow cars :-)
Once a customer deals with your business thanks to their Reticular Activating System, your ads will now jump out at them. It will remind them of the experience they had with your business. So, you had better make sure that experience was a good one.
Many business owners only count new customers when they do their customer acquisition costing. They fail to realise advertising's biggest strength is talking to existing customers and creating repeat purchases.
(3) Advertising Creates Word of Mouth (When Done Correctly.)
It's a myth that advertising only works if it reaches the decision-maker. Seldom are decisions made in a vacuum.
Look at your Facebook account. How many friends do you have? The average is over 200. These are the people you are willing to share your life events. On your feed, apart from photos of cute cats, dogs, food, and political fights, you'll see questions and recommendations about products, services and businesses.
"I need a plumber; anyone used a good one?"
"Who can recommend a dentist?"
"Does anyone have recommendations for a fencing contractor?"
"I'm looking for a mechanic, that has worked on a Nissan Xtrail."
"Can anyone recommend a service that removes tree stumps?"
If your message is relevant, memorable and delivered frequently, people will share that message with their friends, even if they have not experienced your business.
But, if you give a poor customer experience, social media will drive the villagers with torches and hoes and picks to pound on their keyboards and tell the world of their horrible experience.
(4) Advertising Creates an Expectation
Your advertising message creates an image in the customer's mind; they see how their lives will be better and how you will treat them. It sets the height of the bar. Can you jump that height every time? Because if you don't, you're setting yourself up for failure. So, make sure you consistently deliver the expectation you promise in your ads.
After 20 years of buying media, I have found something interesting. When asked the question, "Where did you find out about us?", radio (if used) always gets less than 12%, even if radio is the only media used! Why? Because customers have seen themselves using your product or visiting your store in their mind. So credit always goes to visual media delivery vehicles like TV and magazines.
So, the question, "Where did you find out about us?" will always give you flawed data.
(5) Advertising Helps Get More Clicks for Your Google Ads & Produces Higher Organic Rankings for Your Website
As I said earlier, good advertising creates an expectation and an awareness of your business name. Potential customers Google their problem or product or service need and a list of ads and organic search links appear. Good advertising will make your business name familiar amongst the list of sameness.
Remember "Spoto." You'll get more clicks.
Good advertising leads customers to type your business name, www.yourbusinessname.com direct into their preferred search engine. In the mind of Google, if people are going directly to your site without searching for a generic term, you must be doing good. Google likes businesses that do good for customers.
A couple of years back SEMrush and Wordstream, two biggies in the world of online marketing both produced papers that concluded marketing and advertising offline has a massive impact on pay-per-click advertising and search engine ranking.
Roy H. Williams wrote about their findings here.
Below is part of that article.
SEMrush was one of the big names in online marketing who concluded that "direct website visits" are the single most important factor in determining your SERP [Search Engine Results Page] position. In other words, they announced that Google is impressed – and will reward you with higher SERP placement – when people go directly to your web page instead of merely choosing your name from a list of search results.
It makes sense, doesn't it? Google is effectively saying, "If this is the company people think of immediately – and feel best about – in this category, then they must be the category leader.
Here are their conclusions, in their own words:
"Direct visits are fueled by your brand awareness, so building a strong brand image should be an essential part of your promotion strategy." – SEMrush, page 42 of 55
"What we are seeing here is that people with stronger brand affinity have higher conversion rates than people without any because people tend to buy from the companies they already heard of and begun to trust." – Larry Kim, WordStream
Now, what advertising cannot do.
(6) Advertising Cannot Make The Sale
If advertising entices a potential customer to call you and you fail to answer their questions and give them confidence in your business, you have wasted your advertising.
If advertising drives potential customers to your website, and it fails to answer their questions and give them confidence in your business, you have wasted your advertising.
If advertising persuades a potential customer to walk into your shop and you fail to answer their questions and give them confidence in your business, you have wasted your advertising dollars.
Advertising cannot make the sale. You must make the sale.
If your conversion rate is low, you have a sales training problem or a website conversion problem, not an advertising problem.
(7) Advertising Does Not Make You Better At What You Do
The best advertising in the world will send a lousy business broke faster. Why? Because good advertising can only speed up what was going to happen anyway.
So, if the world inside your door delivers a poor customer experience, fix it before you start advertising.
Until next week
Work smart and have fun.
Craig Arthur
Wizard of Ads Australia
We help owner-operated businesses attract profitable customers. Their businesses grow bigger, faster. They make more money. Do you need help?
*When your firm worldwide has invested and tracked over one Billion dollars of client's advertising dollars, you discover many interesting trends that go against conventional wisdom.