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13 Types of Advertising

Last updated: June 14 2020

Written and researched by experts at Avada Learn more about our methodology

Along with the development of the economy, the number of businesses being born every year is increasing. It means that the level of competition in the market is also becoming increasingly fierce. Therefore, the forms of product advertising play an important role in the survival and development plan of businesses.

To bring products and services closer to consumers, advertising needs to be constantly developed. However, the selection of effective content and advertising following the goals as well as the financial capacity of businesses in the present time makes many enterprises have a headache. So what is the most effective means of advertising in the form of advertising today?

In this article, I would like to briefly introduce 13 types of advertising to promote your products that are currently favored by businesses.

Why do you need to advertise your brand and product?

Reason to advertise your product
Reason to advertise your product

Advertising is derived from the Latin word “advertiser,” which means “to turn your mind to.” Today, Advertising is understood as a form of paid propaganda to introduce information about products, services, companies, or ideas. Advertising is a non-direct communication between people in which people want to pay for the media to bring information to persuade or impact the recipient.

Advertising is considered as a form of marketing communication. It influences customers’ buying behavior by providing convincing sales messages about the seller’s products or services. In the types of marketing communications such as sales promotion, public relations, personal selling, direct marketing, point of sale (POS), e-communication, advertising is the most effective form of marketing communication. All media such as TV, books, newspapers, banners can be used for advertising purposes.

So why do we need to advertise our brands and products? The answer lies in the main purpose of advertising and the most crucial goal of businesses, which is advertising to optimize reach and sales. Advertising uses every media available in this era to promote products that can attract people and influence them to buy it. So it takes your product information wherever the media can go. Thereby improving your brand image as well as making people know your product more. That is the optimal way to improve sales.

Besides, advertising also has several other tasks such as Building an image for the brand, attracting more new customers, conveying the business philosophy that the company wants to target, etc. In general, advertising is a modern and popular means of communication to help the company locate the brand and increase its revenue.

13 Types of advertising to promote your product or service

We all know that advertising is crucial, but if you do not use the right advertising method, you probably will not be able to promote your products and services in accordance with the business strategy that your company has set out before. In order to carry out a truly successful advertising campaign, you need to make sure the message you want to send will be delivered correctly through the most appropriate media. Fortunately, now with the explosion of digital media, there are many types of effective advertising being born. Here are 13 reliable advertising types to promote your products and services. Check it out!

1. Google Adwords and Adsense

Google Adwords and Adsense
Google Adwords and Adsense

The most popular way to advertise these days is display ads. Dozens of years before, when the newspaper still dominated, advertising would be printed in small sections of newspaper pages. However, in this era of technology, this type of advertising is mostly used in digital form. It is the same concept, but advertisers will buy the space to display this ad on appropriate online sites. These ads may display in the form of text, banners, or even background images for that site.

One of the most trusted online platforms to run ads is two platforms from Google, Google Adwords, and Google Adsense. Google Adwords is often used by businesses to advertise their brands and products. They can create and display these ads on Google’s linked sites and Google.com. The purpose of Google Adwords is to generate leads and businesses that spend money on these things to drive traffic to their websites and get conversions. On the other hand, Google Adsense is used by the publisher or website owner to allow advertisers to display ads on their site. They do that by allowing advertisers to advertise on the site, and they will get paid every time a site visitor clicks on the ad.

These types of ads are usually calculated according to Pay Per Click (PPC). It means that you bid on keywords that are most associated with your service or product and pay for your results at the top of the search engines. Another calculation method is Cost Per Thousand (CPT), which means you will have to pay a fixed percentage to display in search results for 1000 times.

Running ads on Google’s platform is very popular because Google owns a huge number of websites. Your ads, regardless of form and context, may have the right space to reach potential customers.

2. Social Media ads

Social Media ads
Social Media ads

We are no stranger to social media sites like Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, etc. However, sometimes we do not know these social media sites also provide relatively cheap advertising compared to the limited marketing budgets of many companies. Paid social media ads focus on reaching your target audience, with the amount you pay adjusted to the number of viewers and engagement. Social media advertising is a type of advertising that creates a lot of effects on social networks, and it is easy to spread out.

Let’s imagine posting something to your business Facebook page if followers click Like and tag a friend - it’s a free ad to post and make people aware of what you have to offer. Every platform, whether it’s Facebook, Instagram, works nicely, but understanding every issue can ensure that your business reaches the right people at the right time.

In April 2017, Starbucks introduced a new drink called Unicorn Frappuccino during the introduction of Frappuccino Happy Hour. It was only for a short time that the purple-pink drink caught everyone’s attention and especially exploded on Instagram. There are about 155,000 posts with the hashtag #UnicornFrappuccino that is listed on this social network. We can see Starbucks knows how to manipulate what will activate its young audience and social media.

3. Video ads

Video advertising is a form of advertising with a video conveying the message to customers in the most directly and vividly. Video ads help you convey the message more completely in a more vivid way than other forms of advertising. From there, you can increase the memory and effectiveness of advertising for users. The clickthrough rate for video ads is also superior to conventional banner ads. On the market today, Video ad includes 3 main types, they are:

  • In-Stream Video: A form of advertising in the form of online clips. The clips may be similar or similar to the regular advertisements on TV; but appear before, during, or after the content of the content video.

  • In-Banner Video: A promotional clip placed in a standard IAB banner, for example, 300 × 250. In-banner videos usually appear on websites with text content.

  • In-Text Video (Out-stream Videos): appear naturally between the article. The user has the option to stop to watch, drag the mouse over the ad, or turn off the ad. The advertiser only pays from 5 seconds of the promotional video and is displayed 100%.

A relatively successful case of using the video ad is Always with the “Fight like a girl” campaign. How do you impact the feminine hygiene market, something most people want to spend as little time as possible? Always finds that they are losing points to competitors in attracting young audiences on a more emotional, humane level and addresses topics such as the meaning of being a woman. So they did some research. As a result, their promotional video was generated with the main content of promoting confidence and self-esteem for girls in puberty. They chose YouTube pre-roll ads as their primary means of maximizing views and reach and social posts and outreach. The video has been shared more than a million times.

Fight like a girl campaign
Fight like a girl campaign

4. Email marketing

Email marketing
Email marketing

Email marketing is a form of using email (email) to bring information about information/sales/marketing/product introduction to the customer that you want. Each email sent to potential customers, or existing customers can be considered as email marketing. When conducting marketing campaigns, advertising products is definitely the first thing you think of. Simply because email marketing is a very useful advertising method for marketing campaigns.

Email marketing will help to thoroughly save design costs, shipping costs, and rental costs. It also helps businesses build brands in the eyes of consumers, increasing relationships, and creating trust with customers. When using this method to advertise, you can have detailed statistics on the number of people who click open mail, click on the links from which you will be able to find out the needs of customers, identify the correct market. Customer tastes to make the appropriate adjustments.

Argos, a toy store, jewelry store and furniture retailer based in the UK, has launched a successful email marketing campaign. They re-target customers who have abandoned their online shopping carts with personalized tracking messages in their inboxes using browsing data and joining emails. Tracking emails will provide up to six replacement products that customers may be interested in, based on their abandoned shopping carts and demographic information. Argos has acquired all its information legally, and the campaign has boosted its conversions and revenue.

5. Podcast show

Podcast
Podcast

Podcasts are increasingly known as a means of advertising. The number of listeners increased, and successful podcasts attracted the attention of many marketers. Podcasts are digital media for sharing information, news and ideas in multimedia media environments. The content of today’s podcasts ranges from movies, music to business and education. Anyone can create a podcast - you just need a computer and audio content - businesses are sure to find a podcast related to their product or service.

The premise of podcast ads is similar to any other ad on websites or even radios. A business will create an ad, and the podcast owner will play it during the recording. Research shows that people who listen to podcasts are rich, with an average income of $ 75,000 or more. This is great information for advertisers because listeners are willing to spend a lot of money on interesting products. Moreover, podcast listeners are also quite active on social media, which is also considered a marketing advantage.

A successful case of advertising on Podcasts is The Adam & Dr. Drew Show. In the 14th minute of Episode 1240 - Mikey Like it, you will hear them talk about the importance of health and mental health and balance everything. And when they analyzed “other things to consider” when it came to health, they naturally mentioned the underwear of Tommy John, one of their sponsors. In addition, they also offer a good deal, and most importantly, they repeat it throughout the ad. Tommy John’s sales have skyrocketed after this ad.

6. LinkedIn advertising

Linkedin is a social network with users who are mostly professional members focused on businesses and individuals who have a job offer or job connection. While other social advertising channels such as Facebook and Instagram are currently quite competitive, advertising in a niche is also a good choice.

Currently, when running ads on Linkedin you will have 2 options: Ad Texts and Sponsored Ad. Ad Texts is the ad link appearing on the right side of Linkedin’s Newsfeed with a limited number of characters. Sponsored Ad also appears on Linkedin’s Newsfeed but with larger and better image sizes and an unlimited number of characters.

7. Out of Home (OOH) advertising

Out of Home advertising
Out of Home advertising

Outdoor advertising includes all forms of advertising to reach people when they step out of the living house. In the past, outdoor advertising was simply defined as a type of advertising which just appears on the streets, especially on the busy highways. But as the evolution of the times, the term outdoor advertising has changed from “outdoor advertising” to “out-of-home advertising” (OOH) to emphasize the nature of outdoor advertising as it appears in the eyes of consumers and in the environment outside the house. Some popular forms of outdoor advertising include:

  • High-level billboard: huge size (the smallest is 40 square meters, and the largest can be up to hundreds of square meters). This form usually appears on big streets with lots of people traveling and usually exists for at least 3 - 6 months for an advertising campaign. The most common are hoardings, billboards

  • Low-level billboards: more compact size, more numbers, more diverse location. Some common forms are bus shelters, lightbox signs, banners, banners …

  • Advertising on vehicles such as taxis, buses, cars, trains, airplanes

  • Advertising outdoor roadshows including walking roadshows, bicycle roadshows, motorcycles, cars, etc.

  • Advertising outdoor digital screens such as Led, Lcd, Frame applying digital technology

The advantage of outdoor advertising is being able to reach a large and diverse audience. Everyone can see and receive content transmitted via OOH, regardless of age, gender, interests, and income. In addition, outdoor advertising always appears on the street, from day to day, each time going back and forth to see, it will surely remain in the minds of consumers.

With the large billboards placed at the intersection and the plaza, Enigma campaign of Cornetto was a great success. This campaign has attracted 45% of low-income workers, 44% but young people aged 18-24, etc.

8. Event advertising

Event marketing is an advertising strategy that involves direct contact between companies and their customers at special events such as concerts, fairs, and sporting events. Brands use event marketing (like shows, contests or parties) to reach consumers through direct sampling or interactive displays. The practice works because it attracts consumers while they are in a position to be ready to participate.

A successful event marketing campaign provides value to attendees in addition to information about the product or service. Discounts, free samples, charitable links or fun events will make customers feel like they are getting benefits and not just attending a live ad.

In contrast to traditional advertising, booming millions of consumers with the same television message, radio or billboard. Event marketing targets specific individuals or groups at collection points, hoping to create a quality personal impression.

Marketo Roadshow
Marketo Roadshow

Roadshow is often used a lot for event marketing. It is presented in the form of a series of live marketing events spread over a given area. Activities include business meetings and conferences. They are the key to attracting customers in different geographical territories. Marketo has organized nationwide roadshows in 11 different cities around the world and they have adapted their events to the culture of each location. The broader theme of innovation provides the foundation for each location, but tailoring each event to a specific audience is what really guarantees its success.

9. Ads in the theatres

Ads in the theatres
Ads in the theatres

Advertisements that are played in theaters before films begin or during the beginning period are called movie ads. This is one of the most expensive forms of advertising because people can not ignore the advertising video or change channels or leave the theater. Many companies have started to choose for movie ads because it ensures that the company’s entire message will be delivered to the audience. Unlike online advertising, audiences cannot interfere until the ad is finished.

10. Global advertising

Global advertising
Global advertising

As I mentioned above Google ads are an attractive option that companies always want to use. With its huge network of websites, Google allows ads to run all over the world. From there, you can expand access to customers. That is what we call global advertising. This global advertising method should be strongly applied because it allows a single ad to run in all countries where it is available, regardless of its audience and language.

One of the examples of effective global advertising can not be excluded from Apple’s advertising. They do not need to hire any celebrity to advertise the product. Their ads are homogeneous and run worldwide in English. As a result, Apple still maintains its leading position in the technology world.

11. Magazine advertising

Magazine advertising
Magazine advertising

Magazine advertising, also known as periodic advertising, is the type of advertising that companies will choose a magazine for weekly or monthly advertising. The ad will be printed at the corners or across the magazine and sometimes an extra page can be inserted simply for advertising. Ads will be classified and separated according to the magazine category. For example, life magazines will have ads from furniture brands, while entertainment magazines will have ads from apparel companies.

12. Brochures or handouts

Brochures or handouts
Brochures or handouts

Brochures are flyers used to advertise a specific product. Brochures are usually provided at one point of sale and distributed at different locations. Brochure ads are not the same as any type of magazine or newspaper advertisement. This can be considered as an independent and separate design of each company for different sales campaigns

13. Newspaper advertising

Newspaper advertising is a long-standing advertising method, so far it has remained effective. Newspaper advertising also includes advertisements ranging from marriage services to job hunting, to notices and circulars from the Government. However, with the advent of the Internet and online newspapers increasingly flourished. So newspaper advertising also switched to digital to match the format of tablets or phones.

Tips for optimizing your advertising strategy

Tips for optimizing advertising strategy
Tips for optimizing advertising strategy

1. Target right audience

One of the best ways to save money that you need to spend on your advertising is to make sure you can target the right audience for your business goals. Instead of spending a lot of money and effort running ads on all means of media to expect to get the customers. You just need to identify the audience that you want to sell your product or service to. To do this, first, create a profile of your target customer. You can conduct a survey based on your current customer data or refer to the demographic information you have collected about your audience, including details in mailing list subscriptions. When you have a target customer profile, choose the advertising platforms that are right for that audience and make sure your target customers see your ads.

2. Advertise on suitable sites

Once you’ve found your target market, conduct research on the different advertising platforms to ensure your ads will reach your target audience. For example, if your target audience is mostly young people aged 18 to 25, advertising on social networks like Facebook and Instagram might be a great option. If you are considering running outdoor advertising, make sure you have a media kit ready before buying ad space to reach your goals.

3. Track and measure result

It is extremely important to run ads for products that you must evaluate the performance of the advertising campaign. From there, you can make informed decisions about future advertising decisions. Digital advertising makes it easy to track the results of the entire process of running ads. You can find out how many people clicked on your digital ad and what percentage of those people continued to make a purchase or perform another desired action on your business website. With outdoor advertising it can be harder to measure success. You should use only one URL, email address, or phone number in those ads, so you can measure customer’s interest. This also applies to discount codes on your site. If you use a unique code for each ad you create, you’ll be able to compare data for all of your ads.

4. Get the timing right

In fact, not every company has enough budget to run ads for a long time. So the best way to save costs and still achieve high efficiency is to run your advertising campaigns during the most efficient time of the year. Research your business revenue and determine the period of time when your goods or services are bestsellers. Advertising when people are most likely to pay for your products and services can increase your investment return.

5. Try remarketing strategies

Remarketing is related to targeting your ads to people who have visited your website before but have converted into paying customers. You can create highly personalized ads to attract these users based on what they have seen before on your site. These ads will then be more relevant to customers, and with attractive discounted offers, you can expect some conversion from your customers.

Summary

There are many types of popular advertising, from traditional advertising on television, newspapers to modern and new forms such as advertising on websites, Facebook, forums to help your business. Whether your company is big or small, you can interact with users to find customers quickly and effectively to help businesses and companies survive and develop sustainably by using those types of advertising. Hopefully, through the information that I provide, you can find appropriate advertising methods to help your business go further and further.

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Sam Nguyen is the CEO and founder of Avada Commerce, an e-commerce solution provider headquartered in Singapore. He is an expert on the Shopify e-commerce platform for online stores and retail point-of-sale systems. Sam loves talking about e-commerce and he aims to help over a million online businesses grow and thrive.