Finding the Right Promotional Advertising

Advertising Ideas
Vital to any ad campaign is determining what positioning is desired for the product being promoted. If it is a new product in the marketplace the initial advertising strategy is
more about positioning the product than selling anything. If a product is properly positioned the follow up advertising campaigns will be much more successful. For instance if your product is ice cream – should it be positioned as a high end premium ice cream with Ben & Jerry’s or is it a low cost alternative? One is not necessarily better than the other but the advertising strategy has to support the positioning of the product in the marketplace first.

Advertising Ideas
It will be tempting when positioning your product in the marketplace to announce all 50 bazillion benefits of using this product…don’t do it! A positioning strategy should be simple and well defined, the point is to categorize the product in the marketplace to establish a market identity and to announce the product to anyone who may not be familiar with the brand. Using one main identifying benefit to the product will yield better
results in the initial phase of the positioning promotion. It is better at this stage to promote name recognition than to actually sell anything. The sales will come with the advertising strategy later on.

Advertising Ideas
Once the product has been well positioned the other aspects of the advertising strategy and development can begin such as defining a target market and establishing the best form of advertising medium, television, radio, newspaper, flyer etc… These elements should be developed with the product positioning as the main theme and the strategy built around that idea.

For instance in our ice cream example it would be important to determine a target audience after we have determined our positioning strategy. Maybe we have premium ice cream but it is not going to be sold in grocery stores like Ben and Jerry’s, instead it will be a local independent ice cream shop selling premium ice cream with all natural toppings. In that case our target market will be the locals in the area of the shop and a flyer campaign including a coupon for “buy one ice cream get one free” may be more effective and cost efficient than a radio ad or television commercial.

Developing the main positioning of the new product or service will help establish a market identity and lay the ground work for a highly effective advertising campaign.