How To Craft A Message With An Ad Agency
For many organizations, working with an advertising agency is critical to creating and spreading messages. You will need to do more than find a killer ad company to do the job, though. Customers need to contribute to the process by specifically targeting their efforts. Here are four ways you can help an ad agency produce something impressive.
Know Your Target
Whenever the team at an ad company brainstorms ideas, one of the first questions always covers who the target is. You have to be able to describe your target customer. If you ask an advertising company to create an ad appealing to folks in their early 20s, for example, it won't be a surprise if audiences in their 50s miss the message due to the generational gap.
Bear in mind, there's nothing wrong with crafting multiple messages for different groups. A financial services firm might ask an ad agency for a wholly different message to appeal to individual investors versus corporate clients, for example.
You may need to research your target customers, too. If you don't have access to the resources, an ad company can usually help. They will typically either have in-house resources or relationships with outside firms that can provide relevant data.
Identify the Goal
What do you want the target customer to do? A retailer may want them to visit a store and buy a product. A political campaign wants someone to vote a certain way. You should clearly state what actions will follow if the ideal audience member receives the message and wants to act.
Narrow Your Message
People see lots of ads in the course of a given day. Consequently, they usually have a swift filter. Every message needs to be tight to have any hope of getting through.
You don't want to rule out any particular message before visiting an advertising company. However, each message should grow from one or two ideas and feelings. The classic "Cat Herders" Super Bowl commercial, for example, focuses on organizing chaos and the humor inherent in visualizing what herding cats, a common tech industry phrase at the time, would be like in real life.
Tell a Story
Even if you put out a picture of a person on an otherwise blank page, the audience will imagine who they are. You want to fill in the blanks so the audience follows your preferred narrative. Some companies tell jokes and develop spokespeople into everyday characters in customers' lives. Others use documentary styles to lay out what a company does. An ad agency can help you choose a story and tell it.
For more information, reach out to an advertising agency near you.