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Many small businesses don't advertise a lot. They grow by word-of-mouth and, when they try a small ad somewhere, they really don't know what they are doing. When the results are poor, they stop advertising altogether.
While the reaction most ads are looking for is an impulse to purchase the product, ads also often try to position the product or the company in a market or try to inform about changes that have taken place in a company. For a successful ad, all of these factors have to be very clear in the mind of the advertiser. If you consider a simple ad to sell a particular product, the first step is to determine who is going to buy it and why. A good place to start is your existing customers for that product. Who are they and why are they buying? How can you reach more of them? If they are business people buying on price, advertise in a business paper and highlight the low price of the product. If they are local people buying for the convenience of not having to drive far, advertise in the local paper and highlight your address. If they are coming from a nearby city because your product is unique, advertise in the city paper, describe your product and put a map of your location in the ad. The ads of these examples have a purpose - to sell a product. They have focus - the aspect of the product of interest to the target. They have targets - the people most likely to be interested in the subject of the ad. This page from Advertising Age has lists and examples of the most successful ads of this century. Go though some of them in terms of purpose, focus and target and see how it changes your perception of the ad. For a more in-depth discussion of this subject try the "Growing Your Own Small Business" course at Suite University.
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The copyright of the article Focus and Target in Advertising in Small Business is owned by Bert Markgraf. Permission to republish Focus and Target in Advertising in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
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