Attract Premium Customers with Branding Strategies

Many business owners need to realise the immense power of strategic branding. But branding lays the foundation for marketing success by attracting your ideal clients.

Branding is more than just a logo or visual identity. It is expressing what makes your business uniquely valuable. Branding shapes perceptions of your expertise and why clients should choose you.

With clarity on what you stand for, branding enables you to connect emotionally with those you seek to serve. You build relationships with clients who share your values and respond to messaging tailored just for them.

Powerful branding conveys the distinctive value you offer high-end clients. It elevates you above competitors by speaking directly to the aspirations and needs of your niche.

From visuals to tone of voice, branding cues prestige and exclusivity. Strategic positioning attracts premium clients by reflecting their preferences back at them.

Yet many businesses need to dedicate time and investment to intentional branding. This leaves significant ROI untapped, from boosted sales to improved customer loyalty.

When your branding strategy resonates with those you strive to serve, you become the obvious choice for those high-value clients. Brand clarity is the key to unlocking growth.

Make sure to pick this low-hanging fruit. Partner with pros to build branding that makes an impact and sustains real competitive advantage. Dominate your niche by showing ideal clients you understand them like no one else.

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The Fluid Brand: Flexibility Is Key in a Changing World

Brands need to remain flexible in order to grow and adapt in the fast-paced global economy of today. Your brand strategy must be continuously improved, repurposed, and redesigned in order to achieve this.

One of the most important partners when it comes to making the required turns is an advertising agency. The expectations and values of consumers change quickly.

Business models are instantly disrupted by tech trends. Brands must be flexible in order to connect in ever-changing contexts.

To adapt messaging, experiences, and designs to new needs, collaborate closely with your agency. Work together to develop innovations that convey enduring brand values and realign with audiences.

Adopt an attitude of brand agility. Continue to move forward by regularly refreshing your brand with innovative ideas and consumer insights.

The specialised knowledge of an agency makes necessary brand pivots easier. Even when the definition of success evolves, their strategic, creative, and analytical skills aid in achieving brand goals and objectives.

If you want to know when and how to improve your brand, trust the experience of your agency. They find growth prospects through purpose-driven messaging or new market opportunities.

Maintain a balance between change and continuity in your partnership. Rethink brand expressions while keeping true to your roots. Meet today's needs without losing sight of tomorrow.

Brands need to stay flexible because consumer behaviour is changing so quickly. Working with an agency gives you the insight, experience, and flexibility to strategically innovate your brand.

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When Information Design is a Matter of Life or Death

In 2008, Lloyds Pharmacy conducted 20-minute interviews with 1,961 UK adults. Almost one in five people admitted to having taken prescription medicines incorrectly; more than eight million adults have either misread medicine labels or misunderstood the instructions, resulting in them taking the wrong dose or taking medication at the wrong time of day. In addition, the overall problem seemed to be more acute among older patients.

Almost one in five people admitted to having taken prescription medicines incorrectly; more than eight million adults have either misread medicine labels or misunderstood the instructions.

Medicine or patient information leaflets refer to the document included inside medicine packaging and are typically printed on thin paper (see figures 1.1–1.4). They are essential for the safe use of medicines and help answer people’s questions when taking the medicine.

If the leaflet works well, it can lead to people taking the medicine correctly, hopefully improving their health and wellness. If it works poorly, it can lead to adverse side effects, harm, or even death. Subsequently, leaflets are heavily regulated in the way they need to be designed, written, and produced. European and individual national legislation sets out the information to be provided, in a specific order, within a medicine information leaflet.

Adding to the design challenge is the fact that the guidelines for how medicine information leaflets are designed to change from country to country, and the guidelines are often vague.

One of the changes in the 2004 European Commission directive was to ensure that all medical information leaflets ‘reflect the results of consultations with target patient groups.’ In other words, when producing a leaflet, user testing (or ‘readability testing’ as it is also known) must be done. A satisfactory test outcome is when the information requested within the package leaflet can be found by 90% of test participants, of whom 90% can show that they understand it.

The diagnostic testing method for medicine information leaflets also raises a unique challenge when designing leaflets and is more rigorous than the level of user testing most designers are used to.

Additionally, medicine information leaflets are required to be reviewed and approved by a competent authority, which varies from country to country, before being included in the packaging with the medicine.

Possible Design Improvements

How can these materials be designed so that people end up taking the medicine as directed?

One issue with medicine information leaflets seems to be that most people do not read the document from start to finish, although it contains important information. Reasons for not reading or only skimming the leaflet from start to finish could be due to the amount of information or the leaflet design.

Competing sources of information introduce additional confusion. Sometimes the pharmacist will attach to the packaging a sticker with dosage instructions. That sticker can cover the dosage instructions printed on the packaging itself.

There are now potentially three sources of dosage information: the sticker, the packaging, and the leaflet, all with different densities of information. This creates an assumption on the part of the patient that everything they will need to know will be on the sticker–a dangerous assumption because patients do not read through the whole of the medicine information leaflet.

Medicine information leaflets are usually long and contain a wealth of information and complex terminology. An option would be to provide the document written to different educational levels.

Sometimes leaflets do not make the most of headings and sectioning, which keeps people from finding quickly the information they need. Medicine information leaflets are usually minimally treated, featuring only plain text with headings in bold.

Could a more designed and illustrated appearance lead to people taking the medicine in the prescribed manner? A study suggests this is the case: Layouts that reduce text density, use purposeful sectioning, highlight key messages, and use a logical type of hierarchy helped people to find the right information more quickly.

The example shown in figure 1.5 is a step in the right direction; the different types of information have been given a diversity of treatments to provide emphasis.

Layouts that reduce text density, use purposeful sectioning, highlight key messages, and use a logical type hierarchy helped people to find the right information more quickly.

In a similar vein, the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently proposed a redesign of nutrition labels on food packaging. Among the changes were putting calorie counts in large type, adjusting portion sizes to reflect how much Americans actually eat, and additional information about sugars in food.

The Lloyd’s Pharmacy research stated that older people make the most mistakes when using medicine information due to either misreading medicine labels or misunderstanding the instructions. Clearer written instructions would solve the comprehension issue; a more ‘large print’ design would enable both older and a wider variety of people to better use the leaflet.

Medicine information leaflets are often printed on thin paper and folded many times to fit into the medicine package. There is a lot of show-through from the information printed on the back of the leaflet, which decreases readability. When the leaflet is unfolded, the paper crease marks affect the readability of the text (see figures 1.3 and 1.4). A possible improvement would be to print the leaflet on a thicker paper. 

Article 63(2) of the European Commission, 2004, states that:

‘The package leaflet must be written and designed to be clear and understandable, enabling the users to act appropriately, when necessary with the help of health professionals.’

Diagnostic testing is examining an existing design to find out how it performs against the agreed performance requirements set at the scoping stage; for example, a satisfactory test outcome is when the information requested within the package leaflet can be found by 90% of test participants, of whom 90% can show that they understand it. Diagnostic testing takes the actions of people using the document as symptoms of the document’s health and is concerned with finding out what is wrong with a design. Diagnostic testing should be used iteratively—that is, repeated until its performance reaches the agreed benchmark. Diagnostic test questions are designed to see whether a consumer can find information quickly and easily and perform actions appropriately.

Conclusion

Earlier research from Lloyds Pharmacy1 and Dickinson et al. demonstrates that design and writing has the potential to make a real difference in regard to medical errors and that design, writing, and production of a medicine information leaflet can have a real positive effect on people’s health.

The design of medicine information leaflets provides some interesting challenges because they might not be seen as a typical creative graphic design job. Just because they do not contain overly designed text or graphics, however, does not mean creativity is not needed, in fact creativity is usually lacking in leaflets typically produced.

Furthermore, creativity when designing medicine information leaflets usually comes in the form of clear writing, clear layout, and user testing—more of an information design challenge rather than graphic design.

The designer’s job is to clearly communicate the desired message. The designer also has to follow guidelines—in this case, not corporate identity guidelines but guidelines laid out in legislation and vetted by a regulatory body.

Effective design can make the difference between a person deciding to read a leaflet or not, or getting the information they need about the medicine they are taking or not. And that difference can be a matter of life or death. The not so typical design challenge of medicine information leaflets shows the importance effective design can have.

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What allows the Brand to grow?

Brand growth - boost your business

Every brand needs constant growth for a few reasons. One of them is obviously higher profit. Whatever is your main reason to seek opportunities for your business, you still need to know what encourages brand growth. The knowledge will help you focus on actions and operations that are crucial and profitable. Here's what makes the brand grow.

Brand differentiation and distinctiveness 

There is a rule in marketing that is repeated over and over again like a mantra. If you want to have a successful brand, you need to make it different, or even better, distinct. What does it mean? A brand, in order to grow, has to stand out from the crowd of others. It has to be recognisable, needs to offer something unique and spring to the customers’ minds the minute they need to buy a product or service. Only distinctiveness and differentiation (or one or the other) support brand growth.

Brand availability

The brand grows when the products are sold to more and more customers every month or year. To make sure it will happen (and your audience will expand), you need to secure the brand’s availability and visibility. What good does it do to you when your brand is well-strategized, and you have put the effort in its creation, promotion and introduction on the new markets, but you have forgotten to make it available? The customers will buy those products they can find without any effort. No one will spend hours searching for a brand they heard of once or twice. If it’s not in front of my eyes, I’m not looking for it - that is the customers’ approach.

Brand growth and advertisement

If you want your brand to grow, you need to make it available and well-known to your customers. That’s when a good advertisement takes up the reins. Properly created ads will pump up your business and bring you profit. The advertisement gives some useful tools if you don’t know, e.g., how to measure brand growth.

Those who live and breathe the brand

More or less, every brand that is not entirely new on the market has its own zealots - the biggest fans who buy products, support the brand and advocate for its actions. Those are the people that can bring you, new customers, by means of word-of-mouth marketing or simply by increasing your reach online. Find those enthusiasts, those regular customers, and take good care of them. It will undoubtedly pay off in the form of a growing and thriving brand. 

Questions / Enquires - hello@RadkaAdvertising.com

Design Without Design

One of the most fascinating aspects about building a design history (especially graphic design history) is finding and tracing an artifact from the past to present. So many large and small companies and firms that practiced in some way or another design, typography and printing no longer exist, while others have surprisingly bridged generations and survived shifts in technology and demographics. When I found the catalog below for Kaeser & Blair, suppliers of all manner of business paper and graphics, I was taken by its demonstrative un-designed design. The material is quaint in a nostalgic sense but historically significant as a marker in that the design is routine, conventional yet visually tied to its context in the 1930s. As an artifact of its time, the catalog (and pages shown here) tells a story.

What makes the story even more interesting is that Kaeser & Blair are still functioning as a programmatic service that helps “companies generate brand awareness through creative advertising and promotional products and services.” Not too far from what you see below, but nonetheless strategically different models.

The Company was founded in 1894 as the Cincinnati Printing and Paper Products Co., in Cincinnati, Ohio. In 1923, Dutch Kaeser and Bill Blair purchased Cincinnati Printing and Paper Products Co. and incorporated the Company into what is now known as Kaeser & Blair, Inc.

Kaeser & Blair revolutionized the industry by selling advertising, branding and promotional products that were marketed through independent sales professionals. This new approach produced an exclusive national network of independent sales professionals and Kaeser & Blair experienced significant growth prospering through The Great Depression. The Company eventually expanded its offerings to include more than just paper products; adding items such as imprinted pencils, matchbooks, calendars and more.

In 1951, Bill Blair retired and Dutch Kaeser forged an agreement with his entrepreneurial sons Dick Kaeser and John Kaeser to merge and acquire their successful printing business, Kaeser Incorporated. Together, the Kaesers continued to build their business through solid strategy, purposeful leadership and sound business practices focused on marketing through independent sales professionals.

Dutch Kaeser passed away in 1970 and Dick and John Kaeser each held a term as President of the Company between 1966 and 1983. During this time together, the brothers continued to grow Kaeser and Blair, Inc. and built upon the success and legacy of their father. This continued growth and success eventually lead the Kaesers to pursue advertising and marketing products that were not manufactured in Kaeser & Blair’s manufacturing facilities. These products were called “advertising specialties” and provided Kaeser and Blair’s independent network of sales professionals access to thousands of new products and opportunities from leading brands.

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8 Design Elements Whose Time Has Come

The old “Embrace, Extend, Extinguish” philosophy hasn’t really helped in the browser war. IE continues to lose browser market share to Chrome and will continue to lose ground if Microsoft cannot keep up with the beautiful innovations present in Chrome, Firefox, and even Safari. In November 2013, Google announced that it would stop supporting IE9, which usually signals that the rest of the UX community will soon follow suit. This is great for the future because your UX can only be as strong as your weakest link. Catering to ancient IE versions always ensures Microsoft’s browser costs you the ability to innovate.

4. Skeuomorphism

A hot topic with design nerds, the skeuomorphism vs. flat design debate raged all of last year and will likely continue into 2014. Arguably, Apple has been the biggest proponent of skeuomorphism through their iOS design choices and their historical majority of users over other mobile systems (prior to 2013). In contrast, Google has championed flat design for years. As Android market share increased dramatically—and with Microsoft jumping aboard the flat train with their new Surface and mobile OS—Apple had to make a choice: Either continue leading a design trend that feels less fresh (and debatably creates a less-friendly UI), or embrace this new trend. With iOS7, Apple went flat, extinguishing the final major skeuomorphism flame.

5. Flash

Although the previous point tabs Apple as a latecomer to the flat design game, they won the Flash battle. When Apple launched the iPhone and iPad with the conscious decision not to support Flash and those platforms took major percentages of web traffic, advertisers, site administrators, and developers embraced this new “HTML5” fad. Now, in 2013 we’ve seen a serious decline in Flash advertising, let alone sites built on that tool. Many of the Flash programmers I know have since embraced Adobe Edge, which is supposedly a grasp at regaining some relevance within the web developer scene, but it seems like too little too late when there are tons of (arguably better) open-source tools available for everything. Originally released in 2011, with major updates in late 2012, Adobe is really pushing Edge, and although Flash is still available and supported, it doesn’t get nearly the developer love it used to. You’d be hard-pressed to find any major sites using Flash components anymore.

6. Web Pages

Web pages are still around, but they’re undergoing some serious innovation lately. Not to harp on a previous point, but the quicker we move away from old IEs that harsh our collective mellow, the sooner we can abandon individual web pages altogether. This trend is a combination of design and technical innovations that appeared a couple of years ago and are now gaining traction. We’ve seen a major shift towards the “application” of websites, which has most likely been employed by platforms that neither need nor want to make native apps to cater to the tablet and mobile users. Sites like Quartz, Facebook and Google Apps exemplify this trend and constantly receive accolades for their approach to UX on the web.

Gawker Media was an early adopter of this approach, with a major shift to a much-maligned and short-lived hashbang-driven experience in 2011. Their site leveraged the pageless design with a new-at-the-time HTML5 standard called PushState which updated content asynchronously without refreshing the navigational elements of the page. Pitchfork.com was another early adopter of this technique and helped popularize a few tools such as PJAX and TurboLinks, the latter of which has become a core feature in Rails 4. We’ve seen more and more sites move this way, and as the barrier to implementation lowers, we will see a greater number of sites take this approach because it makes them leaner, faster, and cheaper to run.

7. Shared Hosting

While I would say “colours” (short for colocation centres) are on their way out, they’ll never completely die since major companies require physical servers (even if we’ll only have Google and Amazon data centres in the future). Regardless, the concept of “shared hosting” is something that makes little to no sense given the massive migration to cloud computing and Platform as a Service (PaaS) offerings. Why spend £20 per month with GoDaddy to host something you have no control over when you could spend a fraction of that to serve precisely the amount of bandwidth you need? Why would you also share your server with someone else you can’t see, creating bottlenecks that you can’t fix? Now, almost every hosting company (GoDaddy, MediaTemple, etc.) has a cloud or virtual server options to compete with big dogs like Heroku, Amazon Web Services, and Google App Engine.

8. “m.” Sites

Until the adoption of responsive design, there was only one good way to deliver content to users who visit sites on a tablet or mobile device: read the initial request, check the user device, and redirect to a mobile version of the same site. The mobile site had to exist as a separate code base with an entirely different set of features. Whenever publishers updated one version of the site, they had to do the same on the other version, complicating maintenance and driving development costs. That said, there are reasons why “m.” sites lasted beyond the advent of responsive design. For example, advertiser platforms took a while to adjust to a single page being able to deliver two entirely different inventories. To handle this issue, advertisers had to serve all ads to every page, and then render only mobile or desktop ads depending on the device. This specific problem has long since been solved by most ad platforms, and now that “responsive design” is basically a household term, the cost benefits of supporting a single platform rather than two presentation layers are clear.

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What is Skeuomorphic Design?

In the early 1900s, electricity was scary.

The lack of understanding surrounding this new technology contributed to a great deal of public fear.

The sign pictured below, from a turn of the century hotel, offers us a glimpse of what it must have been like for guests to make sense of the confusing installations of metal, glass, and wire they found lurking in their rooms.

When it comes to emerging technologies, the stakes for design are high. One misstep and a promising new product can become yesterday’s news. To be effective, designers must set their sights well beyond easy-to-use. We need to convey more than "how". We need to convey "what" as well. We need to be interpreters, to contextualise new products and concisely convey their identity, purpose, and value.

One approach, commonly called design metaphor applies a known concept to a new context to help people make sense of new products. As in literature, repurposing known concepts is a shortcut for accessing shared cultural memory—tapping into the past to make sense of the present.

Skeuomorphs and Affordances

Since the introduction of iOS 7, the blogosphere has been alive with debate on Apple’s departure from skeuomorphism—the yellow lined legal pad of Notes, the leather-bound folio of Calendar. We are now deeply mired in a flat vs. skeuomorphic debate that reduces skeuomorphism to coddling kitsch and equates flat design with high-modernism. Both sides have missed the point.

Skeuomorphs in design aren’t useless decoration, but contextual clues. Like design metaphors, they are the visual equivalent of figurative language—enabling designers to quickly tap into shared cultural understandings and convey complex meanings in a straightforward way. They work as a new kind of affordance, one that communicates not function but identity.

“We shouldn’t abandon cultural affordances like skeuomorphs because some find them tacky or overused.”

Affordances, a concept originated by James Gibson, are an object’s inherent possibilities for action. Donald Norman evolved this definition to encompass the act of communicating possibilities for action through design. These perceived affordances are lingua franca for product designers. Every day we shape things to emphasise their utility, to show how this device operates or to illustrate how to use that application. Until now, this approach has been primarily focused on utility and operation.

A designed affordance: The classic example of a rotating door handle [flickr: sk8geek]

The design of a rotating door handle, for example, suggests how to use it, but does not give us context for what it is or why we should use it. Smartphone or lawnmower, before we figure out how something works, we usually ask what kind of a thing it is and why we should use it in the first place.

Reconsidering Skeuomorphs as Cultural Affordances

Skeuomorphs are stories of utility frozen in time. A new kind of affordance—a cultural affordance—provides the context we need to understand the possibilities for action. They don’t work because they coddle or educate the user—digital wood grain shelves and page-flips didn’t teach people how to read ebooks—they work because they leverage a user’s past experience and apply that understanding to something new.

Take this electric kettle for example. Though thousands of variations exist, we still understand the basic shape as a vessel for heating water. Designers have used a variety of cultural affordances to communicate this purpose. The tapering shape—originally larger on the bottom to maximize contact with the heat source—is no longer a requirement, but remains a key feature. The exaggerated, arching handle amplifies the kettle-ness of the object. Even the electric plug plays a role. Expanded to the scale of a stovetop heating element, it indicates where to put the kettle for use, though this modern version transmits electricity, not heat.

The kettle retains the basic shape of its ancestors and through that shape conveys its purpose. Its form is no longer tied to its literal function, but rather to functional analogues of the past. In the digital realm, where there are fewer precedents for utility, figurative design has long played a critical role in helping people make sense of new products.

The tabbed folders and icons in the Xerox Alto interface

Xerox Alto, the first commercially available graphical user interface (GUI), laid the groundwork for design metaphors like representational icons, tabs, and "spatial" organisation. But there are many more ways to guide users through an interface beyond the ubiquitous tabbed folder metaphor introduced by the Alto. Other metaphor-like conventions like visual synecdoche, where a part can stand for the whole—a letter icon for the inbox—or even playful visual puns, where multiple meanings can be attributed to one object, can also help people make sense of unfamiliar digital territory.

From tabs and folders to the digital "click" on today’s cameras, many cultural affordances have become standard patterns that are used by UI designers without a second thought. But as the hotel sign at the beginning of this article attests, emerging technologies without the necessary cultural affordances leave us wondering. What is it for? How will it be used? It can also leave us even a little afraid of the possibilities.

The Untapped Power of Cultural Affordances

In the last 10 years, over a billion people have started using iPhones. At least a few of those users made the mental leap between the yellow legal pad motif—the one that makes digital designerati stomachs churn—and the idea of a place to quickly jot things down. With the potential to communicate not just functionality, but identity and purpose on that scale, we shouldn’t abandon cultural affordances like skeuomorphs simply because some find them tacky or overused.

Faced with the ever-increasing digitisation of formerly physical products, we should not retreat to the functional, literal design of the past for shortsighted aesthetic reasons. We need to expand the conversation about what design can do through cultural affordances—not simply to address ease of use, but to communicate context, identity, purpose, and value. If we don’t, we may find our users just as wary and confused as the hotel patrons who first encountered Edison’s innovative new electric lights.

Why you need to be investing in advertising at all times

94% of the WORLD is aware of the Coca-Cola brand.

Why?

Because they invest.

They invest HEAVILY in their advertising.

You see it everywhere - Sports, Music, Charity… you name it. They’re involved. On average Coca-Cola spend over £4 Billion a year on the advertisement.

To be a pillar in YOUR industry you have to make YOUR brand be known. You need to be investing in advertising.

This isn't a cost... This is an investment… In your brand, and in yourself. Hoping someone comes across you is a waiting game that no one wins.

Actively putting yourself in front of your potential clients? That’s taking action…

Set global domination aside for a second and ask yourself - who knows you in your city…? 94%???

Time to take action!

Questions / Enquires - hello@RadkaAdvertising.com

Some Thoughts on Being Flat

Now that we've all had a few months to play with it, I think most of us can agree that iOS 7 offers some very exciting user experience features that set it apart from its predecessors.  

Features like the use of translucent layers to keep navigational context, the added depth of parallax movement effects and transitions, better and more intuitive gestures, reduction of information overload, and the removal of some of the unnecessary visual noise through flattening and thinning the design all have plenty of merits.

It’s not surprising there are many opinions on the updates since this is the first full rethinking of the UI since the first iPhone. With the trend to go simple and flat, some design elements have been purposely avoided. As has been well documented, the new iOS has eliminated some of the common skeuomorphic, or metaphorical design, that has been so strongly associated with Apple.

Forbes contributor Tim Worstall describes skeuomorphism as a “catch-all term for when objects retain ornamental elements from the past, derivative iterations–elements that are no longer necessary to the current objects’ functions.” Some believe this design technique is only meant to be a bridge from getting people to this new mental model and association and is not needed long-term.

I think it makes sense for Apple to move away from skeuomorphic design now that users are familiar with the way things work since this is not the first iPhone. When we think about skeuomorphic design, some of the old metaphors may not be relevant to the new users. For example, many tech users rely primarily on digital calendars and not the standard wall-mounted calendars that used to adorn everyone’s offices and homes. We no longer “tape” on VHS or use records for music consumption or do our note-taking solely on lined paper–our way of life has evolved and so have our metaphors. Even though the skeuomorphic design has disappeared from iOS 7, many users can understand the different features through muscle memory and the jump from analogue to digital in many processes.

““Our way of life has evolved and so have our metaphors””

In his article “Does Skeuomorphic Design Matter?” John Payne discusses how “Skeuomorphs are stories of utility frozen in time. These new cultural affordances work because they leverage a user’s past experience and apply that understanding to something new.” He raises many good points, but I think when it comes to digital, there is a new normal, as many have discussed. We use things in different ways and these skeuomorphic design elements are meant to be the bridge to get users over the hump and adopt a newer mental model.

I do think, however, that the new iOS lacks some perceived affordances. The lack of containers around buttons and spinners and floating airy text is cause for confusion—it causes me to wonder, “is this a button or floating text?” And soon after its release, there were some thoughts on whether this new flat approach is affecting its usability. Some think the pendulum has swung too far to be simple, and many agree a skeuomorphic approach just adds complexity.

Since we have had some time to get familiar with the new design, our mental models have shifted once again. Skeuomorphic design and the analogue metaphors helped us make the jump from our old non-digital world to our new mobile space. But the old way of thinking is gone—we no longer associate mail with an envelope or lined paper with note-taking. Skeuomorphic design helped us get to where we are today: independent of old mental models of a bygone era.

Questions / Enquires - hello@RadkaAdvertising.com

Traditional and digital advertising - which one is better?

Traditional and digital advertising - which one is better?

When you manage a business, to earn money, first, you need to spend them. Without a doubt, investing in advertising is essential. Fortunately, it pays off. But what kind of advertising is more effective - traditional or digital? Take into consideration the benefits and the problems connected with these two options and choose what is best for your company.

Traditional advertising

Sometimes operating online is not enough. Such is the case with hosting special promoting events. Only in real life, your guests have an opportunity to use their senses to familiarise themselves with what your company has to offer. Operating locally, you can take care of maintaining strong business relationships with your loyal clients. Face-to-face interaction is a vital issue. Additionally, not everyone uses the Internet, and there still is a big group of people left to whom you should aim traditional advertising. If your target audience is, for example, the elderly, it is better to use traditional advertising, such as an ad in a newspaper. 

Unfortunately, not every one of the traditional forms is durable. Look at billboards, for instance. They can be easily destroyed by the weather. Leaflets, on the other hand, are often treated as rubbish. 

Digital advertising

Promoting your services or products on the Internet is very beneficial. Online, your advertising can be widespread easily. Then, there is a greater chance of being noticed and remembered. Since so many people are constantly using social media, digital advertising on such platforms helps you engage with a greater number of consumers and reduce costs. Moreover, it enables you to interact with clients faster. You can also tell the world more about your company, the employees and the values you cherish. 

Running a blog is a good way to promote yourself online too. Due to a company blog, you can take care of your image as a professional in your field. You can show commitment by sharing your knowledge with your clients and giving them advice. This way, you will gain their trust. To encourage potential customers, you can insert the links to your blog entries on social media platforms. 

Managing many social media accounts and a company blog may be demanding. New content should be added regularly. You need to stay relevant so that internet users won't forget about your brand. However, it's worth the effort.

What type of advertising is better for your company in particular? It depends on its characteristics, needs, and circumstances. Both traditional one and digital one have their pros and cons. In general, nowadays, digital advertising is necessary to keep up with the competition. Nevertheless, you shouldn't limit yourself to only one option. It will be best to advertise using different methods to increase your chances of success.

Questions / Enquires - hello@radkaadvertising.com

Advantages of online advertising

Everything goes online these days, and there is practically no place for good old tools of marketing. Alright, let’s not be dramatic, there are still ways of advertising that are as ancient as the newspaper itself. Nevertheless, successful online advertising is an undisputed ruling king. If you want to be seen, you better be seen on the Internet. If you don’t feel encouraged (yet) to make a digital shift in your business, here are some reasons why you undoubtedly should.

Hit the bull’s eye - all around the world

Online advertising has one great advantage over traditional ads. It’s global. Access to the Internet is easy in the USA, Europe, or Asia, and it’s the same network. That means that your ads will reach potential clients all around the world. If you’ve never thought about expanding the business abroad, this will give you a chance. The best part is that, although you reach people worldwide, you might only get to those who are your target audience. Online advertising allows more accurate targeting of the ads, as it filters and selects the recipients based on their preferences. For you, it means more clients, earned money, and less spent on missed advertising.

Sit back and measure your successful online advertising.

Advertising in an online world gives you a chance to measure and track how the ads serve (or not) their purposes. There is a number of different tools you can use to make sure that the money was wisely spent. Analytics tools show you which of your ideas were brilliant and what part of your advertising is a waste of time. As a result, you invest right where you should and save time (and obviously money) for something more productive. It is a win-win situation because you invest less (in comparison to traditional advertising), and you lose less (because you avoid missed campaigns). 

Get rid of the distance

A traditional ad tells the consumer that there is a company that does or sells this and that. Eventually, where to buy their product. In other words, it’s read and forgotten. Successful online advertising helps you get closer to your clients. When posting ads on Facebook, Instagram, or other social media, you can add links, clickable elements that move the users from site to site, directing them straight to the place where your product is available. Being online also means that you can interact with the consumers there and encourage them to choose you over your competitors.

Those are not all advantages of online advertising, but a few to make you realise that it is the future. If you haven’t invested in an online world yet, now’s the time. With an advertising agency or all on your own, but just do it.  

Questions / Enquires - hello@radkaadvertising.com

Advertising agency - can it really help your business?

Are you wondering if hiring an advertising agency is a good solution? Or maybe you know it is, but you just seek some reassurance? Whatever your reasons, below you will find out why is it worth hiring an advertising agency and how can it benefit your business. Do not doubt it, it truly can. See what a good advertising agency can do for you.

What does it do? Good advertising agency in action..

For smaller businesses, especially new ones on the market, hiring an accountant is an obvious choice. But a marketing agency? Who needs that? Well, it turns out, you. Every business needs an advertising strategy, and if you are new in the business, or not-so-new but inexperienced in the field of marketing and advertising, such an agency is there to help. It can not only take care of your advertising strategy but also create brand identity, improve content and website optimisation. In other words, a good advertising agency will help your brand to be seen, noticed, and remembered. It will make your business stand out and earn for itself.

A marketing strategy expert - when it’s not you

As we like to point out, a marketing strategy is vital, and so is an advertising strategy. If you do not know how to create one, an expert from a successful agency will give you a helping hand. Such a strategy requires thorough research and thinking through the goals and operations of a company. It takes not only knowledge and understanding of marketing and advertising, but also time. Quite a lot of it. You can’t possibly spare enough time to do it right, especially if your business is on the verge of rapid growth, and that’s what you need to take care of. A good advertising agency will help you save this time by doing all the work for you. 

An expert will share his knowledge with you, and you will, no doubt, benefit from it. They have years of experience, they follow the trends on the market and among the customers, and they truly understand their job. Is there still any doubt as to why hire an advertising agency? Here are other benefits - they take care of every detail, of social media ads, display ads, commercial and printed advertisements, PR, budget management, and whatnot. It is saving time and making money by expanding a brand at the same time. So, should you hire an expert from an advertising agency? Oh, you know well the answer now.

Questions / Enquires - hello@radkaadvertising.com

Brand Awareness - why your Brand should be a celebrity?

The general notion of brand awareness is actually simple, and there is nothing twisted about it. To explain it as plainly as possible - it refers to the consumers’ familiarity with a given brand. It describes who, and how, remembers and associates this particular brand and, as a result, what are the chances (if any) that a consumer will become a customer.

Recognising and recalling - what is brand awareness?

Brand awareness is often interchangeably used with brand recognition and brand recall. These two notions are not the same, as they are narrower terms than the idea of awareness itself. Brand recognition is related to the so-called aided awareness, which means that a consumer can name a brand on the top of their head when asked about an example. Brand recall refers to the situation when a person has recognised a brand, but only when shown on the list.

Make yourself known

Building brand awareness is crucial when entering a new market but, sorry to disappoint, the effort never ends. Even if your business thrives for some time, you need to take care of increasing awareness. Why? The answer is the same as always - more customers, higher profit, expanding business. The more people recognise you, the more of them trust you and buy from you. 

Brand awareness can be, and is, built entirely from scratch. Here are some key elements that will help you understand, how to increase brand awareness:

• Your brand is their friend - people tend to trust and choose those brands that they find appealing. How to make it attractive? It’s best to give it a face, present the brand as something more than just a money-making machine. There are many ways to do that. Be active in social media, comment, post, intrigue. Make sure that your content is not only about products or services, but also informs, gives advice, or entertain. Engage people to interact with your brand, and they will be more willing to stay.

• A story behind everything - everyone, and everything, has a story to tell, and people generally like to hear some good narrative. Don’t be coy and share the history of your success, the anecdote or the tale. The choice is yours, but storytelling is an invaluable marketing tool.

• Be associated - the well-remembered brands are the brands associated with something. If you want to be recognisable, engage in sponsorship, social actions, or other events. Find something that corresponds with the message and idea behind your brand and stamp it with your logo, so the participants of the event will keep the brand in mind.

Is it fame yet?

How can brand awareness be measured? It is a tough task, but not impossible. The easiest ways are traditional surveys (although in a modern, online form), in which you can ask respondents if they recognise your brand among others. You can also ask them which brand comes to their minds when they think about a given product or service (so-called aided brand awareness). Other tools might be helpful, like site traffic statistics or social engagement notifications. 

Questions / Enquires - hello@radkaadvertising.com

Plan the future — benefits of a strategy session

Planning ahead and foreseeing the future of a company might be a challenge. Even if the leadership meets every week to strategise and plan, more often than not, they meet the dead end. What’s the reason and how to change that once and for all? The answer is nothing else but a right strategy session.

We meet and then what?

What is a strategy session, and why should you decide to hold it? Generally, it’s a meeting of the company’s leadership with a competent strategist. The session aims to plan future actions for the business, improve (or create from the scratch) a successful brand and make it stand out from the crowd. The process might last a few hours up to a few days, depending on the state of the business and its goals.

A well-conducted strategy session consists of two parts. It starts with getting to know each other, or, rather, getting to know the brand. The brand strategist gets an insight into the company. It’s no sense to play hide-and-seek at this point, as the session is for your own good. The strategist will want to know about the industry, the business itself and its operations, but also a tad bit about the leadership, the core values of the brand, its competition and the target audience. The second part of the session is planning on the basis of the gathered information.

What does a strategy session give you?

A well-conducted planning session is like giving you a helping hand in a time of crisis. It might really work wonders. The strategist is an experienced specialist, and that in itself is a great advantage. Innovative ideas, unbiased opinion and knowledge are what the strategist brings to the table. The person from the outside, not involved personally in the company’s operations, is an opportunity to see the potential where the leadership couldn’t. The strategist has all that's essential to make it work — to make the business work. What’s more, the vast knowledge helps bring the brand closer to the audience and distinguish it from the competition. The strategy session makes the business float when it was on the verge of sinking.  

To book your strategy session visit - https://bit.ly/3c6uxrS