For any business or product growing public awareness is one of the most important things it can do. After all if no one knows you or your product exists no one is going to spend their money with you. Advertising is an easy way to get your name out but it is not always going to lead to customers walking through the door or visiting your website.
Take a drive in your car and what do you see? Billboards and signs. Turn on your radio and what do you hear? Commercials and their catchy jingles. Open a magazine or newspaper (yes kids they do still exist) and what fills the pages? Advertisements. On your computer open a web browser and guess what’s there. Advertisements. You can’t get away from them, not even at the movies.
Advertising comes in many shapes and sizes and developing an effective strategy is one of the keys to success for your business. You can control the content and there is space for every budget. There’s a reason that Super Bowl TV ad space costs as much as it does; the advertisers know that people are going to watch it. The problem is that while potentially thousands of people will see your ad, how many will actually see it? We have become so programmed to ignore advertising that we almost instinctively put ourselves onto another task when one comes around and the more advertisements and the more clutter the more people will tune it out.
Sure, that motorist that is stopped at a red light may have nothing else to do but look at a billboard or the computer user may have to watch the ad before their requested content comes onto the screen but you can’t control who sees the message and when. Advertisers know this. Heck, the NFL adjusts its game just so you don’t go to the kitchen while the commercials come on, lest you miss something important like a kicker missing an extra point.
What you are really looking for is to entice someone to not only try your product but to buy it as well. There are many ways that this can be done from setting up a stand at an appropriate venue and giving out samples to purchasing advertising space at the venue. Celebrity endorsements will help but may not be cheap. You hopefully have figured out what your target audience is so it should not be too hard to figure out the venues that they frequent. If you don’t, have a look at social media, you can probably find out there.
Let’s say you are looking to target men age 25-45 for your product. It would probably be a good idea to set up a stand at a local sporting event, say a baseball game or college football game. Looking to target the outdoorsy type? Find an outdoor show in the area. Hand out free samples of your product or put on a demonstration of the product in action. Let your audience see how it works or how it tastes and for trying it, give them a coupon, or an enticement, to purchase it or if you are offering a computer product offer a trial version or free limited version. This can potentially give you face to face interaction and you can see if what you are offering is working. If customers like it or find value in your product word of mouth can spread the value of your product in some cases much better than a billboard or radio spot ever can. Their friends and neighbors will see it and ask about it and if your customer gives a good enough account of it, they may buy it as well.
There is no one best way to go about getting awareness of your product out to the public but knowing the best way to reach your target audience and enticing them to buy your product is in some ways the first hurdle to overcome.