When was the last time you did some advertising? Do you know how effective it was?
There’s an old saying in advertising that ‘we know 50 per cent of our advertising works – but don’t know which 50 per cent’.
Advertising may have a range of objectives – increasing awareness, increasing preference, getting people to try your product, get existing users to increase their purchases etc. Ultimately the aim is to eventually get people to buy more of your products – either as soon as possible, or perhaps within a longer timeframe.
If you know your current sales levels conduct an advertising campaign – after the advertising campaign finishes your sales may then go up. The issue is, how much of that increase in sales can be contributed to your advertising campaign (hence did your advertising campaign pay for itself) – or how much of the increase in sales was going to occur anyway.
Realistically it is impossible to perfectly measure in $ terms the success of an advertising campaign – there are other factors/influences on your sales that are totally outside your control, e.g. seasonality, competitors’ actions, economy issues etc.
The best way to attempt to measure advertising effectiveness is to determine target customers’ attitudes before your advertising campaign, and then again after your campaign.
The types of issues to assess include – are you aware of our brand, what brands come to mind when I mention xxx industry, what are your views of xyz product etc.
If you operate in a business where you can determine who are new customers rather than existing customers you can also ask them what made them start coming to your business.
So, when did you last run an advertising campaign and how did you try to measure its success?
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Paul Chad is the Principal of CHAD Marketing Services, an organisation dedicated to assisting individuals and organisations achieve their potential via innovative marketing strategies.
Paul has over 25 years experience working with small, medium and large organisations, both public and private operating in local, national and international markets. He is a Certified Practising Marketer, Fellow of the Australian Marketing Institute and possesses post-graduate degrees in both Marketing and Business Administration as well as being a qualified workplace trainer.
For more information and free initial consultation, contact Paul on 4284-8051 or via chadmarketing.com.au
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