Advertising is easily one of the most important components of marketing. Because of the similarities, a lot of people get the two confused. The truth is, each has its own primary objectives. The over encompassing objective of advertising is to effectively carry out particular messages directly to the end consumer. Below, we will be going over the primary difference between advertising and marketing and what are the 7 main objectives of advertising.
What Is The Difference Between Advertising And Marketing?
Marketing essentially refers to all of the different activities that are involved in promoting your brand, product, or service. Whereas, advertising refers to one specific component of the marketing mix. Marketing encompasses everything from advertising to email marketing and more. A comprehensive marketing plan will have advertising as a major component of it. Advertising offers a significant advantage over other marketing components because it offers the ability to directly communicate with and target a specific audience. For instance, if your target consumer is someone that reads specialty trade magazines, you will be able to advertise in a trade magazine that targets your ideal customer. Likewise, with advertising, you can target even more specific with digital advertising methods like Facebook and Google AdWords. Because they have so much information on their user’s demographics, you can effectively niche down your advertising to a subset of consumers most likely to respond well to your advertising message.
The 7 Main Objectives Of Advertising
1) To Inform Consumers (Introduce a New Product or Service)
This is easily one of the main reasons a lot of businesses invest tremendous amounts of money on advertising. If a business is launching a brand new product or service, they are likely to spend countless resources on ensuring that the entire marketplace knows about it. This is to not only generate awareness, but it is also to build ‘hype’ about the new product or service. You can see examples everywhere you look in the marketplace. For instance, every time Apple unveils a new iPhone model, you can find their advertising everywhere including billboards, digital ads, TV commercials, and more. Likewise, anytime a new HBO show is coming out, you will find a lot of advertising being done to introduce the new show to get people interested. This is an essential objective of advertising because it can dictate the success or failure of a product or service. If no one knows about the new product or service, it will not do well in the marketplace.
2) Maximize Awareness (Capture More Mindshare)
This is another major objective of spending money on advertising. You will find a lot of businesses spending even more money on advertising during the holiday season. This is largely because they want to sustain or gain mindshare of the consumer when they are most likely to make a purchasing decision. Advertising is something that can put your product, service, or brand in front of the mind of the consumer. This alone can really help to reinforce your brand message and help you keep your product or service on the minds of actively seeking consumers. Being able to capture the mindshare of your respective audience can make or break your ability to maximize market share in a competitive marketplace. For instance, you will notice Sony consistently releasing exclusive PlayStation advertising trailers or news leaks during Microsoft Xbox’s biggest events. This is to capture the mindshare of the target customer.
3) Persuade Consumers (Capture More Marketshare)
Another primary objective of advertising would be to effectively persuade a customer to switch to your brand, service, or product. Whether the prospective customer is currently a customer of a competing brand or they are looking to make their first buying decision, your advertising should effectively be designed in a way to persuade them to buy something from your business. This is largely why the majority of advertising is centered on persuading consumers and motivating them to buy your product or service over the competition. For example, you will see a lot of television ads by Samsung that shows consumers what their Galaxy phone does better than the iPhone. Samsung wants to persuade customers to choose Samsung branded products over the competition which is the direct goal of these persuasive ads.
4) Build Up Or Sustain Brand Messages
Another objective of advertising would be to build up or sustain a specific brand message. This is a very important one because it can determine the brand’s reputation within the marketplace. The goal of this type of advertising is to really better position a brand in the marketplace. The focus is on improving the brand message and getting a much more favorable attitude towards your brand which can help your business sustain higher profits from having an enhanced brand perception and the ability to retain customers which can minimize customer acquisition costs.
5) Generate More Immediate Sales
Another objective of advertising would be to generate more immediate sales. While the majority of advertising is to better position the company for long-term success, many businesses utilize advertising as a means to generate short term sales just as much. This is especially true with digital advertising being so convenient and accessible. With digital advertising like Facebook and AdWords, you can create targeted ads with greater urgency which can help to get customers to visit your website or brick and mortar store to make purchases.
6) To Get Customers To Buy More
Another objective in advertising is to get existing customers to become repeat customers. Your advertising should get them to want to continue buying more of the product or service that you are offering. Retaining a customer is much more affordable than constantly getting brand new customers. Therefore, this can help a business decrease total advertising costs considerably.
7) Maximize Other Marketing Objectives
Because advertising is a component of marketing, a lot of businesses will utilize advertising and advertising campaigns as a means to help give a boost to other marketing efforts. Advertising can play a key component in really be able to help drive other marketing efforts which is only going to improve the cost-effectiveness and cost-efficiency of those efforts.
Importance Of Advertising In Modern Marketing
Nowadays, it is perhaps even more important to focus on advertising to achieve great results with your marketing efforts than ever before. Because there is so much competition due to virtually every industry having lower barriers to entry, you need ways to effectively stand out from the rest of the marketplace. Thus, engaging in proper forms of advertising can help you promote your brand message, introduce brand new products and services, emphasize the benefits of your product or service, and help you maximize mindshare and customer retention. Because more and more people are using social media platforms and because they are doing a lot of buying research on these platforms, you will want to be investing heavily in social media advertising methods. After all, social media platforms have a lot more information on their users which is a goldmine for advertisers because you can target the specific demographic to advertise to. This alone can help boost the efficiency and effectiveness of each and every one of your advertising campaigns.
What Is Social Advertising And Is It Different?
Social advertising is essentially any form of advertising that you are engaging in on social media. Whether you are paying for a specific ad campaign like Facebook ads or you are paying an influencer to display a promotional ad on their page, you are engaging in social advertising. It is such an integral component of an effective advertising campaign in today’s digital marketplace because an increasing number of consumers are using social media in their buying cycle to make buying decisions. Not only are consumers congregating on social media to discuss products and services, but social media is a great place to generate more awareness, more engagement, and build greater brand trust. Therefore, every business should be actively investing in their own social advertising efforts.
Final Thoughts On The Main Objectives Of Advertising
Overall, advertising is one of the most important components of a highly effective marketing mix. Nowadays, advertising has really become even more essential purely because of the new platforms and mediums that exist. Now, you can ultra-target an ideal customer on various platforms like Facebook, YouTube, and even Google AdWords. Because of this, every business should be actively looking to incorporate digital advertising in its advertising strategy because it allows for much better targeting than traditional forms of advertising. With Facebook advertising, you have the ability to really narrow down your target customer to the point where they are much more likely to convert. Best of all, it is easier than ever to utilize these platforms because the management of the advertising campaigns has become so streamlined. Therefore, you don’t need to be an expert to take advantage of the advertising platforms that are readily available. Thus, every small business owner should be actively looking to spend a large portion of their advertising budget using these various platforms.
