Your choice between the different types of advertising depends on the audience that you want to reach. If your ideal customer is a baby boomer or retired person, print ads may be your best option. If you’re looking to attract a younger type of consumer, there are many online advertising methods that can be used to reach them. Broadcast advertising can be split between radio and television commercials and can reach a broad spectrum of customers depending the station you choose and the time slot when the ads air. Your marketing budget can also impact the types of advertising that are accessible to you.
The most expensive types of advertising are generally within the broadcast realm. TV and radio stations charge top dollar for the best time slots, which have the most viewers and listeners, respectively. Based on your research into the kinds of customers you want to reach, you can often target broadcast commercials to connect with the largest number of those people. For example, the demographics are very different between the types of customers who watch soap operas on TV compared to the types who watch news programs or reality TV. Likewise, radio listeners can often be categorized differently, based on whether they enjoy talk radio versus top 40 or another genre of music.
Print offers a diverse range of different types of advertising. These options are often less costly than broadcast commercials and tend to reach an older audience with more disposable income. You might want to use direct mail advertising, in which you send coupons or news about sales in newspaper inserts. A panel ad in a newspaper is another option. Many companies often choose to take out an ad in the local yellow pages, because virtually every consumer will receive a phone book in the mail.
Online marketing can often be one of the most cost-effective types of advertising. It’s often relatively inexpensive to purchase banner ads on blogs or other websites that attract a lot of targeted readers. Pay per click ads often reach customers who use search engines to look for products, services. or other information. Producing video commercials and placing them online in social media channels and sites like YouTube can also be done cheaply in most cases. Another option for marketing your business is mobile advertising, or sending ads about special sales or discounts directly to the customer’s cell phone or smart phone. The advantage to these is that customers often have to opt in for the ads, so they’re already nominally interested in your business.