Your advertising message falls into one of two categories: passive or intrusive. Intrusive advertising is simply anything involving sound. Sound itself is intrusive because you don’t have to be listening in order to hear. You do, however, have to be looking in order to see. Passive media include newspaper, magazines, billboards, and direct mail.
Passive media are best used as “reminders” once you’ve established significant name awareness with intrusive media. To increase name awareness, it is best to use intrusive media (radio, TV) exclusively. When you’ve bought all the intrusive media there is to buy, the next step is supporting your campaign with billboards.
Billboards are a great way to point out an invisible or hard-to-find location. The trick is finding available billboard space nearby. Placing a billboard on the other side of town obviously won’t help much. The best billboard location is at a busy intersection so people stopped in traffic have time to notice your message.
Newspaper ads are best suited for a sales event or other promotion. The reason being no one remembers a newspaper ad because it’s here today and gone tomorrow. It’s perfect for showing inventory and prices, but you must be sure to show a picture of the item as well as a captivating headline.
There’s a reason direct mail is often referred to as “junk” mail. A 1% response rate is normally considered a success, but it all depends on the quality of your mailing list. It’s a good idea to collect customers’ addresses whenever possible so you can let them know about special events or “customer appreciation” discounts.
Intrusive (electronic) media work better the longer you use them, but only when done the right way. Think about it. Would you rather reach an entire population with your message or only those who are in the market to buy TODAY? Wouldn’t you rather be the first option someone thinks of whenever they’re ready to buy?