Where is your audience? Pt. 2
“Where Is Your Audience” is a series of posts that helps business owners and marketers determine where to promote their business, products, and services. To do this, we are focusing on your target audience who will purchase your product or service, and which marketing mediums best appeal to them based on where they spend their time and what they pay attention to. Last week we discussed Social Media. This week we are broadly reviewing traditional media including TV, print, and radio ads.
The internet and its supporting technology has caused a shift in how businesses engage in marketing to drive awareness to their brands. Nearly every family’s “TV room” is equipped with a DVR, households read the news online, and drivers listen to music or podcasts through their phones, causing traditional TV, newspaper, and radio ads to be less effective in reaching mass amounts of the targeted audience. Each of these mediums have their own unique sets of pro’s and con’s in reaching their target audience, a few of which we have included below.
TV
Pro: Research shows the average person spends more time with television than with radio and newspaper combined
Con: Ad avoidance is also a very rapidly growing problem for TV today. TV ads are typically seen as an interruption.
Radio
Pro: Viewed as primarily an entertainment source, radio ads can be most more effective during drive times.
Con: Like TV, it is also primarily an entertainment medium. As such, advertising is also considered an interruption.
Newspaper
Pro: While newspaper subscriptions have declined, research shows that readership has plateaued and is maintaining a core local readership base. Newspapers are
Con: The decline in subscriptions, while has stabilized, is still less than it once was.
In addition to the effectiveness of each form of advertising in reaching the target audience, cost is also a large factor. The most appropriate measure of the cost effectiveness of advertisements is measured on a cost-per-thousand impressions basis (an impression means that someone viewed the advertisement). The below chart shows the cost per thousand of various mediums.
The chart illustrates that some mediums (newspaper and television) may require a larger investment to get in front of consumers than other mediums (radio & billboards). So, while newspapers may be a good medium, it may also be the most expensive, requiring a larger budget to effectively promote your business. The key to identifying the right advertising medium is to identify which medium is most effective for the budgeted amount that you are willing to spend on advertising.