Is your online advertisement effective?
It is no secret that the Internet is the newest, and some tend to think most powerful, medium in today’s advertising world. But who hasn’t been annoyed by the random moving pop-up or turned off by the obnoxious noisy banner or sent away by the continuous spam e-mails? I think we all have. Understanding the Internet’s power as an advertising medium is vital to a company’s marketing success, but you want to make sure it’s done the right way. It’s not just about creating an Internet advertisement, but more importantly about creating an effective advertisement that will impact and influence people more than it annoys them.
The Internet is a self-paced medium, but not yet a forum where people expect exciting or intriguing advertising. People are still in the “don’t bother me” mode to a certain extent when surfing the Internet, so your company’s advertisement needs to not only grab a users attention, but make them remember the ad. One of the most important keys to Internet advertising success is for your users to be able to easily associate the ad with your product or service.
That is a common mistake that advertisers make. The ad can be extremely creative or funny or witty, but at the end of the day, will consumers remember your product or service? Internet ads have very limited space, so you need to communicate the features and benefits of your product or service in a simple, effective way by using bold contrasts and more visuals than copy.
You’ll also want to speak to your target audience with one unified voice in your campaign (whether you’re running a full fledged integrated marketing campaign or not). This entails keeping your message and slogan consistent among all mediums, so that your target audience can recognize the message heard in your Internet banner from your T.V. commercial and your radio ad from your billboard. Repetition of branding and brand messaging can be very effective, so you’ll want that message to stay consistent throughout your Internet advertising as well.
Some of the most common Internet ads are formated in banners, skyscrapers and pop-ups which are generally viewed positively, according to Entireweb. Placing your ad in the appropriate place on the appropriate site is also an important part. You want to obviously have it in a place where it can be openly seen and doesn’t have to be “found”. Adding interactive features to your ad can grab additional attention as well, being that this engages your target audience and can potentially navigate them to your site.
Here are a few things to avoid in your Internet advertisements:
Not utilizing all of your ad’s space. White space on such a small ad is not a great idea, nor is it viewed positively.
Floating ads across the screen can be seen as “annoying” and are generally viewed negatively.
Automatically playing sound. If the user is on your homepage and that is a part of your page’s effects, then by all means play sound. But when they are trying to surf another page and have to figure out where the sound is coming from to turn it off, that could upset them.
An ad that doesn’t say exactly what it is for. Tricking people by simply using an attractive message, but not immediately connecting the ad to your product can be seen as deceptive and viewed negatively.
Don’t advertise on websites that are not relevant to your product or service. Make sure the users on the site would originally be a part of your products target market and you have reason to believe would be interested.
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