Advertising for Beginners assumes that you have a tight advertising budget and have to get the best bang for your buck. In this way, it differs from many books which are generally written from the viewpoint of large companies or multinationals which have huge advertising budgets.
The book opens by differentiating between advertising and marketing. It then reveals how much money is spent on advertising and poses the question: why spend the money?
You will learn the use of advertising "hooks" and how they differ for the business market and the consumer market. It shows you how to create your message and how to utilize testimonials, endorsements, logos and trademarks. It urges you to be different and to try to create a sense of urgency.
The Internet offers tremendous opportunities for advertisers, yet many small companies have failed to establish themselves in cyberspace because they consider it too expensive or too complicated. This book will help to dispel those ideas.
It starts by showing you how to register your domain name and select a Web hosting service. You are cautioned about browser compatibility, screen resolution, load times, copyright, spelling, layout and the colour scheme you propose to use. You get advise on your home page and tagline together with the use of multimedia and splash pages. You are recommended to observe the "3-Click Rule" and incorporate a site map and search tools. It shows you how to use referrals and testimonials and ways to create a "Sticky Site". It recommends that you include your contact info as well as answers to frequently asked questions (FAQ).
You will learn about the use of cascading style sheets as well as the difference between static and dynamic Web authoring software. You are provided with reviews of eleven different software packages.
The chapter on search engine optimization shows you how to improve your ranking on search engines. It reveals the role of spiders, crawlers, meta tags, title tags and keywords. It shows you how you can use pay-per-click and other methods to drive traffic to your Web site. Finally, it gives you a sobering look at your average cost-per-order and your return on advertising spending.
You will learn about other ways to drive traffic to your Web site by using links to other sites, Web banners, pop-ups, Web rings, permission-based e-mail and e-newsletters.
The chapter on offline advertising discusses print media as a delivery system and shows you how the market is segmented. It covers advertising in newspapers, magazines, trade journals and professional magazines as well as the classifieds.
The chapter on direct mail advertising will take you through the steps in creating an effective direct mail piece. It shows you how to develop mailing lists and comments on the use of list brokers. You will learn how to save money by using bulk mail rates. Finally you will get an introduction to database marketing and how to rank your customers using the RFM (Recency, Frequency, Monetary) method.
You will get to read a candid discussion about advertising in the Yellow Pages and directories.
Both indoor and outdoor signage is the subject of another chapter. Yet another shows you how to effectively use trade shows.
Less emphasis is placed on broadcast media, since this tends to be expensive and often beyond the budget of smaller companies, so you will only get a brief review.
A whole chapter is devoted to the basics of telephone marketing and fax broadcasting. It cautions you about the Do-Not-Call List.
The final chapters discuss some of the topics you will need to address in preparing your advertising plan, such as the concept of the lifetime value of your customers and...