AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE MOST EFFECTIVE WAY OF ADVERTISING

What Is Advertising

‘Advertising is a process, not a medium in its own right, although it uses different media forms to communicate. Advertising, in its simplest form, is the way in which the vendor or manufacturer of a product communicates with consumers via a medium, or many different media’

Ways to advertise a new business• Print Media: Newspaper, Magazine,

Leaflets. etc. • Websites • Blogs• Social Media and Networking Sites

Print MediaBefore distributing your product think about the design-research shows is critical in this form of advertising as the rate of success is very competitive; ‘Approximately 80% of people will not open a brochure that doesn’t give a prime benefit or a compelling reason on the front cover’. (Professional Advertising).

WebsiteMore and more people today are choosing to use the internet over the more tradition way of advertising as its ‘cheap, flexible and cost effect’ way of advertising.(Small Business).

Social Media and Networking Sites An example of a social networking site and its popularity is Facebook; it has 700,000,000 estimated monthly visitors. (business insider 2011) Statistics also show that since 1998 in the UK alone the percentage of internet users has gone up 70%.

Victoria Oldham

Victoria Oldham is an American writer, editor, blogger, publisher of her own short stories and now is owner of her her business, Global Words. Global words provides a variety of courses for writers at all levels. Courses are offered online and in person, these range from single day element workshops to six weeks intensive editing services.

Advertising Global Words

When meeting with Victoria, she proposed the task of creating a leaflet, I suggested rather than using leaflets to advertise her business to stay internet based as she has already got a website advertising her business and use social media to promote. However she was confident that she wanted to use leaflets as an advertising tool before using the internet, and I happily accepted the task proposed.  

Market Research

The following leaflets were collected via two different methods, one being handed to me in the streets, and the other was left on show for the public to pick up themselves if they wished. Both leaflets have a creative design, which is suited to the business it is promoting which research shows is critical in this form of advertising as the rate of success is very competitive; ‘Approximately 80% of people will not open a brochure that doesn’t give a prime benefit or a compelling reason on the front cover’

As shown the YMCAActiveforlife business card the leaflet has the same overall design which can be for ease of recognition for customers who would be able to associate to two and know they are the same business. This in mind when it came to designing my own leaflet and business card I have also chosen the same layout and colouring.

My Artifacts

From when I was first asked to design a leaflet for writer Victoria Oldham, knowing her business was called Global Words I had an idea of combining the globe with the leaflet itself. The colour scheme i chose is blue and green, with the green symbolizing land and green the sea. I felt these were appropriate colours to use as the colours have been taken from the image of a globe.

Survey

Leaflet10%

News-paper

Magazine 17%

website23%

Social Network-ing Sites

50%

When first meeting with Victoria she proposed producing a leaflet, I was unconvinced by her choice of method and suggested working to improve her website and blog. I suggested this because of the internets popularity, which has been proven to make an ideal place to advertise. However I do think Victoria did chose a good way of advertising. Once one person knows about her business the word will spread person to person, otherwise known as ‘word of mouth advertising’. However because of how big the internet is becoming, knowing she already has a website and a blog I would have stayed internet based and connecting her blog with her website. This would have saved costs on which the more traditional print methods incur, and widened the potential audience by millions.

I asked 30 people which of these methods of advertising a new business they thought way the best way. The majority of people said social media/ networking sites as its has a worldwide audience and is easily assessable

If Victorias business becomes larger and she is looking to expand her audience even further, I would suggest promoting her business on social networking sites as today most people are connected to at least one social networking site. An example of a social networking site and its popularity is Facebook; it has 700,000,000 estimated monthly visitors. (business insider 2011) Statistics also show that since 1998 in the UK alone the percentage of internet users has gone up 70%. .

Poster