Advertising has been working since the dawn of mankind. Since the days of using papyrus as an advertising tool in ancient Egypt and Greece, from the use of newspaper ads in the 17th century to the first television commercials in the 1950’s, advertising has been on a never ending journey of development and conquering new territories. We’ve seen the history of modern advertising through the eyes of Don Draper and his “Mad Men” cohorts, and we simply can’t imagine a world without advertisements of all sorts popping and trying to lure us to purchase a certain product, most of the time successfully.
The question nowadays is how to keep the consumer engaged with the product, in an endless world of advertising niches and sub genres. The product may remain the same, but the tone of the advertisement and more important, the target audience is ever changing. In order to keep connecting with your audience, here are a few advertising methods which can be useful.
Gamification:
People love their computer games – according to a recent study by the Entertainment Software Association, almost half of the American population (150 million to be exact) play video games on a regular basis. Many of those games, especially the highly popular ones like “Candy Crush” and “Clash of Clans”, offer in-app purchases and incentives for proceeding to the next levels, making money in the process, and tons of it. With so many people paying good money, all for the purpose of getting ahead in a video game, there’s no wonder why advertisers are keen to set foot in the mobile games industry. Gamification is already a proven method for digital marketing, generating revenue and conversions for advertisers who found a new way to make money from games. With apps like Gameit, that combine standard trivia quizzes with high end products offered as prizes (for example, Nike shoes or Beats headphones), the mobile games have stepped up a notch, showing how gamification is an effective platform for incentivized ads as well as for competitions and entertainment, and it seems that trend is far from being finished.
Go mobile:
We’re in midway 2015, and mobile advertising is already almost half of the overall digital ad spending. The only way is up for mobile marketing, and what better way than engaging with your audience, new and old alike, than by reaching out to their smartphone? In a rich landscape of apps, it’s much easier to engage with users by studying their habits and fitting the proper ads to the apps they’re using. The number of smartphone owners will increase as well in years to comeg, so not targeting unique audiences with tailor made advertisements will be a terrible thing to waste. The mobile universe is expanding, and so are the ROI’s that come with it.
Stay social:
Social media marketing is usually a guaranteed success and nonetheless vital for a business’s growth. With more and more businesses understanding the necessity of social media, the various platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Linked have become a fertile ground for advertisement opportunities. Although many businesses still don’t fully comprehend social media (if at all), those that do foresee the future and expand their user base. Reaching out on Twitter has proven to be smart advertising, opening doors for new users to engage with. Pages that have millions of followers or likes on Facebook show their dominance in the social jungle. Once you go social, you vastly enhance your chances of better engagement with your users, who in return will invent their time, and more important, their money in your product.