How to be Sure Your Advertising is Reaching Your Target Market

26 January 2010

Marketing has been likened to putting a message in a bottle. You take your time to write it out, seal it up, toss it out into the ever-moving ocean and hope desperately that it reaches a target.

With today’s multi-media basically running the world, the old bottled message way of thinking is now reversed. Now the message reaches everyone, but the recipient is so inundated with bottles that the message has to be something special to get them to show up to your island.

In short, there are two basic ways to “reach” your audience. One is simple: having your market put eyes on your advertising and your business. The next way to reach someone is in more of a metaphorical way - reach, as in, get through to them and get their attention. And if you want to know if your business is doing that, there’s only one surefire way to tell.

The Only Way to be "Sure"

Profit is, no matter what other benchmarks or signs you hear about, the only way to be certain that your advertising efforts are reaching your product’s respective audience.

There are ways to track your business and see if there’s a buzz created; i.e. if your marketing is driving people to the business. But real conversion is the measure of success and the true gauge of effective advertising.

As a business owner, you will need to know if your advertising is working, and you will need to know right soon. Because, simply, most advertising takes money, and if it’s not effective, you’re wasting it.

You need to not only reel in your non-working ad efforts, but you also have to quickly learn from your mistakes and hone your approach. The money spent on advertising is an investment and not an expense. You need to recoup this money.

To tell if your advertising is working, you will need to separate your business. Keep track of what you spend on only advertising and measure the rate you earn after. The separation comes if, for example, you have a known business with repeat customers. They need to be zeroed out and you can assume that new business was attracted by your advertising.

If you’ve targeted a niche market with your advertising, you should be seeing a lot more of a return. For instance, if your ads have been in circulation and you’re only drawing a few people, there’s a good chance that this isn’t flow from your niche market.

These can be people who’ve decided to purchase your product but aren’t necessarily who you’re targeting. You can tell if your niche market has got the message effectively by the amount of traffic you’ll receive. Think of this as nibbling on the bait - you’ll get a lot of tugs on the line if you’re reaching the right people. If not, it’s time to regroup.

Even if you do make a return on the investment, it’s not necessarily because you’re reaching the right people. Effective ads will bring an influx from your niche market. You will have to develop the right advertising to bring them in.