Product purchase cycle The product purchase cycle refers to how many
times per week, per month or per year a consumer is looking to purchase your
type of product. For instance, the purchase cycle for food items, like one
week for milk, will be much shorter than the purchase cycle of five years
for televisions. The longer your purchase cycle, the longer you'll need to
advertise before you reap the rewards.
A general rule to estimate your ramping up period is to calculate 20% to
40% of your product purchase cycle. So, if your purchase cycle is 12 months,
you won't feel the effects of your ads for about 2.5 to 5 months.
Your percentage of the total ads for your type of product This is
referred to as "share of voice." For instance, if you sell digital cameras,
when shoppers research digital cameras on Google's Web site, how many online
ads do you have on Google compared to your competitors? How many television
ads do you have running in prime time compared to other digital camera
manufacturers?
The larger your percentage of the total ads for your type of product, the
shorter your ramping up period.
The persuasiveness of your ads If your ads only give information and
don't persuade people to take action, your ramping up period will be longer.
If you don't include a call to action of some sort, like "Call now" or
"Visit our Web site," no customer is going to be motivated to contact you at
all.
People are comparing your message to your competitors' messages, and
whoever convinces the consumer that they need this product is who wins. Your
message should be informative and persuasive. Show your product's benefits
and try to get the consumer to realize that they need your product now.
Your choice of ad delivery You basically have two options for ad
delivery: visual and audio. Of course, you can also have a combination of
both, as in a television commercial.
A common myth is that people remember more from seeing words, rather than
hearing them, but the opposite is actually true. Think about it – how many
songs can you sing compared to how many television commercials you can
repeat?
So you can surmise that products with a shorter purchase cycle should go
with visual ads and products with longer purchase cycles should choose
auditory ads, which is definitely a possibility. It's only a possibility
though, because of the other factors that influence the ramping up period.
As you can see, there are so many always-changing factors that it's hard
to pin down a definite time period to judge the effectiveness of your ads
by. Your best bet is to use the 20% to 40% estimate of your product cycle.
About the Author :
Kaye Z. Marks is an avid writer and follower
of developments in the
http://www.printplace.com/printing/poster-printing.aspx poster printing industry and how these improvements can benefit small to
medium-scale businesses.
