This Podcast Is Episode Number 535, And It's About A Guide To Service Based Business Advertising That Works Marketing covers everything you do in your business that creates awareness, including advertising, brochures, competitions, trade shows, demonstrations, travel, direct mail, email campaigns, your website, and sponsorship. Let's narrow our focus to an integral part of Marketing - Advertising. Advertising is a massive industry with multiple mediums for your message to be heard or lost in translation. It might sound like a no-brainer, but before you start planning your advertising, you must consider what you are trying to achieve from your investment. Your ultimate objective likely is to build sales, but other things to consider are increasing market presence and building your brand. Advertising can be used to: Establish a reputation as the market leader or industry expert – allowing you to win long-term contracts or even increase prices. Build brand awareness for a product to make it easier to sell and raise the profile of your other products. Change customer perceptions of your products and services to boost sales. Detail a specific, one-off message to your market by informing potential customers of a special offer or product component. Address your existing customers to increase your brand awareness – meaning they think of your business first when considering a product or service. Identifying your target market Before any advertising is written, you need to take the time to define your target market (if you haven't already). Knowing who you are trying to target will help you customize your marketing efforts to suit those people. You should already know who is interested in your products or services, but the easiest way to clearly define your target market is to create an ideal customer profile. How to create a customer profile: Try and create an ideal demographic for your target market. Think about the age, gender, marital status, and income of the person most likely to buy your product or use your services. If you are unsure, think about your biggest customers – is there anything they have in common, such as age or gender? Think about the geographical reach of your business – service-based businesses like yours have a limited market area. Think about your regular customers or clients that live within the region. Once you know your market area, you could research existing data or conduct some market research to find out the average age, income, and family status of people in your area. Be careful not to make your target market too specific, as you may exclude many potential customers. For example, rather than targeting couples aged up to 30 years who own their first home, it might be better to target couples aged up to 40 years who are currently renting but are interested in purchasing a property. You can learn a lot about your target market by looking at your competition – pay attention to where they advertise, how they present their advertising, and the tone they use in their written material. Subscribing to competitor newsletters or regularly checking their websites is a good way of keeping up-to-date from a distance. Types of advertising Knowing what type of advertising will appeal the most to your target market is the key to producing effective advertising. Here are the most common types of advertising you can use to promote your construction business. Print advertising. Print advertising traditionally covers newspapers, magazines, brochures, flyers, and other printed media. Print advertising can be expensive, such as a feature page in a newspaper or a local magazine. More inexpensive options include community papers, classifieds, or delivered printed fliers. Internet advertising. Internet advertising includes online services such as YouTube, Facebook, Google, and Twitter but also includes banner ads and embedded video content. Internet advertising offers a range of options for different...