Advertising: the basics

How advertising can help your business

Advertising can be anything from your shop sign or a website, to an advertisement in a trade magazine or a 30-second radio slot.

Advertising can:

• provide basic information such as your contact details and website address
• increase sales by telling potential customers about your product or service
• tell customers about changes to your service, new product launches and improvements
• increase your short-term sales with a specific one-off message - informing people of a special offer or a particular benefit of your product
• prompt specific action - perhaps getting customers to visit your premises or website, or use a discount voucher by a specified time
• remind existing customers about your business
• change people's attitudes and perceptions of your business
• help to create or develop a distinctive brand for your business to help you stand out from your competitors
• make your business first choice for customers, ahead of your competitors
• generate awareness of your business
• develop a particular market niche or position

Advertising doesn't always need to be about sales and marketing. You can also use it to:

• recruit staff - a recruitment advertisement should also be a chance to promote your business
• source suppliers and contractors - this also helps to position your business as active and expanding

Target your customers

Decide whether your target audience is local or regional, national or international, or a mixture. Remember that a local business might benefit from national advertising, particularly if it is looking to expand into new territories.

You can advertise in a wide range of different media. Using a media mix can help to reinforce the message or information you want to communicate.

Before selecting a particular type of media, you should find out from the media business and other independent sources about their circulation or audience figures and what the audience penetration, or 'reach', of their product is. Basically, you need to know how many, where and who to. Figures can normally be broken down into age groups, average income and other useful indicators.

Also remember you have a duty to ensure that your advertising is legal, decent, honest and truthful. You can find information about advertising codes on the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) website - Opens in a new window.

Subjects covered in this guide

• Introduction
• How advertising can help your business
• Local advertising
• Advertising on the internet and in online directories
• Advertising in the trade and technical press
• Radio, cinema, outdoor and national advertising
• Planning an advertising campaign
• Getting value for money from your advertising
• Managing responses and monitoring your campaign
• How to write an advertisement
• Here's how I increased my sales through advertising

Print options - What are my print options - Opens in a new window

• Add guide to my print portfolio (print later as PDF)

Email options - What are my email options - Opens in a new window

• Tell a friend about this page
• Send me an email alert when this guide changes