How Your Advertising Choices Reflect You in Business

How much should you spend on creating your advertising? It’s a question that has no “right” answer. It’s not unusual for national package good brands to spend six and seven figures on producing a single television commercial. While at the same time, some small companies get by with “free” production from a local TV station.

What’s right for you? It really comes down to the image you want your company to project … and the trust or distrust that your image creates in homeowners.

Your advertising – whether TV, digital, print or outdoor – is the “first impression” you make on homeowners. If it looks low-quality, homeowners will often assume your work might be, too. If it seems disorganized or unprofessional, homeowners might assume your team is, too. These superficial judgements aren’t always fair, but they almost always happen.

So do you have to spend a fortune to get professional-looking advertising? Not necessarily. RCG Contractor Marketing has found a number of great ways to make sure every dollar you spend on creating your materials pays off for your company image. Here are just three:

Focus

Trying to tell too much in any given advertisement is a common mistake. Better to be focused on one thought – one homeowner benefit. Then, explain or demonstrate that single-minded benefit in a clear and believable way. Homeowners will appreciate when you make it simple for them in this way … and will believe you’ll make their project simple, too.

Plan Ahead

Especially for video production, pre-planning is a key to success. Just having a script is not enough. Think ahead to how each scene transitions to the next so there are no awkward cuts. Consider how long type (“supers”) will remain on screen … enough time to be read? Think about any props and how they will get on and off screen. Most of all, think in terms of what you might film now that could potentially be repurposed and used in future videos so you can amortize your investment over multiple projects.

Coordinate

It’s an old adage that people need to hear a message seven times before they remember/act on it. While we might argue the “number” the fact remains that increased exposure to a message does multiply its impact. With that in mind, be sure that whatever advertising you produce uses similar elements so that every exposure to ANY of your advertising multiplies the impact of ALL your advertising.

 

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