5 steps to effective advertising

These tips are perfectly suited to digital signage advertising. They can also help you create more impactful ads on traditional media, digital media or social networks.

Step 1: Determine your goals

Before you begin any advertising project, you need to take stock of your objectives.

When you think about your objectives, you probably have in mind developing your sales and increasing your turnover. But is this really the only objective your advertising campaign can achieve? We suggest a number of different objectives that can be achieved through digital signage communication at a point of sale or in a public place:

• Promote the launch of a product or service: you can present a new product or service, and encourage your customers to discover it and make a purchase;
• Communicate about your loyalty program : you can create an ad whose main objective is to encourage customers to sign up for a loyalty card, or to provide information about the associated benefits;
• Informing customers of a new feature or change: your advertising can be used to inform your customers of new opening hours, a promotion, a private sale or a special opening on a public holiday;
• Share your values and actions: an advertisement broadcast via digital signage can also highlight your charitable actions or CSR involvement ("For every €10 purchased, we finance the planting of a tree", "We contribute to the employment of disabled people", etc.);
• Recruit new staff: your customers love your brand, and may want to put their skills and motivation to work for you. 
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These are just a few examples of how not to neglect this first step. A less ambitious advertisement that focuses on a precise objective generally offers a better return on investment than one that targets an objective that is too generic and vague.

You also need to clarify your objectives in the light of your resources and constraints. Have you set an advertising budget? Is your campaign limited in time, or tied to the calendar (sales, Black Friday, Valentine's Day, etc.)?

Step 2: Identify your sales targets

In-depth knowledge of your target market is a key success factor for your advertising:

• It allows you to validate the match between your objective and your target;
• It helps you validate the tone of your advertising message;
• It helps you identify the arguments that will convince and motivate you to take action. 
  
  

You can do this by creating personas. A persona is a fictitious person who combines the typical characteristics of your sales target. Depending on your positioning, several personas may be interested in the same product range.

Let's take the example of a store selling connected sports watches. We can define two personas:

• Christine, 41, a municipal employee, likes to run once a week for less than 10 km. She simply wants to keep fit and clear her head, and isn't looking for performance. Uncomfortable with technology, she was looking for a simple-to-use solution.
• Antoine, 32, digital project manager and technology enthusiast, is an experienced runner. He runs 3 to 4 times a week, over a distance of more than 10 km. He completes several triathlons every year. 

Christine and Jean both want to buy a connected watch. But they're not looking for the same references, nor are they sensitive to the same arguments:

• Christine wants to buy an entry-level watch, with basic functions, and is especially sensitive to ease of use and price.
• Antoine prefers a top-of-the-range connected watch from a well-known brand, offering a wide range of functions. 

These two targets expect different advertising messages.

Step 3: Define your message

An effective advertising message is powerful, clear, concise and precise. Above all, it must be perfectly adapted to your target market. There's no point in multiplying arguments, as this will dilute the impact of your advertising. Instead, you need to focus on the key arguments that will win the decision and trigger action.

The message is adapted to the objective and the commercial target:

• Christine is sensitive to an advertising message that emphasizes price and ease of use: just €19.90, intuitive application.
• Jean prefers an advertising message on the performance of the connected watch, and is sensitive to the prestige of the brand: Waterproof to 100 meters, 200 training programs included, 450-hour battery life... 

These two messages are aimed at specific targets, and provide immediately identifiable added value. Your digital signage can also include in a loop amore generic advertisement around the range of connected watches: 40 references of connected watches, From €19.90 to €790, Watches adapted to all sports...

Step 4: create a visual impact

Apart from certain special cases, such as search engine ads like Google Ads, an ad cannot rely entirely on text to achieve these objectives. In an attention economy, the time your target audience can devote to you is limited.

You need to rely on visual and multimedia content (video, sound) to produce more impactful advertising. These visuals must respect your graphic identity, to create a coherent brand environment (color, logo presence, etc.).

Would you, for example, like to highlight the 20 pre-recorded sports in a multimedia animation on a connected watch? Choose icons instead of words!

The length of your ad also depends on the context in which it will be displayed. In digital signage, for example, an ad that is too long will not be seen in its entirety by a passing customer. You need to opt for a short format, lasting just a few seconds.

You can use dedicated tools such as Canva, or entrust the production of your visuals to graphic artists or designers.

Step 5: Measure results

Several key performance indicators (KPIs) enable you to measure the effectiveness of your advertising.

ROI (Return On Invest) measures the return on investment of your advertising campaign, taking into account other expenses (salaries, suppliers, etc.). This indicator is invaluable for measuring the profitability of your actions. For example, an advertising cost of €1 for €10 is not profitable if your margin is €0.80.

ROAS (Return On Ad Spend) focuses solely on the ratio between the revenue generated by an advertising campaign and its exclusive cost. ROAS is very easy to obtain in the case of digital advertising: audience measurement tools enable us to attribute a visit or sale to an advertising click, and allow very precise measurements. In the case of digital signage, return on investment is more difficult to measure. However, it is possible to obtain trends: for example, an increase in sales of a model during the period when a point-of-sale advertisement is broadcast can be used to establish a positive return on investment.

Reach refers to the number of unique people who have seen the ad. This KPI is very easy to obtain in digital advertising, and can also be measured relatively well for traditional channels such as radio or television. Reach can also be obtained in digital signage, by the number of people who visit the store during the ad's broadcast. The measurement can be refined using eye tracking technologies: a special camera detects eye movements, and identifies the people who are actually viewing the advertising content.

ROO (Return On Objectives), less well known, is useful for evaluating the effectiveness of advertising on objectives that are difficult to measure. Approaches vary according to the objectives. For example, an advertising campaign designed to increase awareness of a brand or product range can be measured by surveys carried out by specialized agencies, or by online polls. Marketing professionals can help you manage and create more effective and profitable advertising.

Create effective advertising with digital signage

Our Cenareo digital signage software maximizes the performance of your on-screen communications. Discover an omnichannel, contextualized and impactful solution for your brand image, point-of-sale promotion, product and service promotion, and internal communication.

Request your free demo today, and discover all the features offered by the Cenareo solution!