This week I met with a ministry that is very well established and doing well in their work both in outreach and seemingly financially as well. But there was some areas that just a little tweaking would make a huge difference in their ROI for advertising.
Here are a couple basic things to keep in mind when you are looking at advertising.
Decided what the purpose is for the outgoing advertising funds. Is it for:
A. Branding, creating a visual of presence in the forefront of the viewer or listener's mind.
This is not a quick deal, and the most expensive to be effective. It takes repetitive ads
and in multiple avenues to reach a consistency of that presences when the person goes to
act upon their knowledge to respond to you instead of another business or ministry.
B. Is funding. Is your purpose to gain business or funding for your ministry? If so, this is
not the same direction or content as awareness campaigns. Here you need to create a need
to satisfy for the prospect. This is often done by the old stand by, "pulling at the heart
strings".
We have all seen the suffering animal commercials, the starving children commercials,
and the organization survival commercials like " we will have no fire, police or medical, all
prisoners will be set free if you don't vote for us now, commercials.
To be effective, and all examples I just gave are highly effective in their own projection
of need. They all present a crisis or need that can only be fixed with your help. It makes the
viewer feel empowered to make the difference for this organization.
C. Recruiting is for a calling for help or volunteers. Here there needs to be a balance. You can
not come on too strong or too needy, thus driving the viewer away by thinking they are
desperate, or they will need all my time I don't have. So to achieve the wanted volunteers,
you must do a sandwich effect. First intrigue the viewer with something relatable or
pleasing. For example a horse rescue ranch you would not start out showing a starving
horse, that is more of the plea for funding area. You would want to show a great looking
horse interacting with people, running, full of life. Then you would bring into view the
people helping and enjoying working with the animals from good times to when they first
rescued the horse in it's worse need, then back to the recovery.
Now a person is going through the emotions of how great things are, where it started,
and where they are in the completed cycle of fulfillment. People need to feel needed,
helpful, and satisfaction as making a difference.
In all of these examples, there must be a decisive message. A hook, and a call to action. There must be repetitive information throughout the ad. Name, action, contact as a rule needs presented a minimum of three times to start to be effective in the mind of the viewer.
One ad a week, you're wasting your money. If you are not hitting your prospect at least 20 times in a campaign a week at a bare minimum, you simply are not going to hit the target enough to create action or to remember to go to later. The brain often reacts on what seems to be the most important thing to it when deciding something. The most repetitive item registers as that must be very important, I have heard or seen that several times.
Think of car ads, medication ads or furniture ads. These are on every break. Why, because they have competition and they need that front row seat in your minds decision making process. second is not very effective...
Finally, unless you have very deep pockets to through away, you need to verify your targeted audience. The ones who are most likely to act in your favor. Your ROI (return on investment) must have a price point that is affordable and achieving with your funds the desired effect.
A fast a furious movie may not be the effective audience for a feed the children spot. However a Disney family movie might fit the target better...
