In the world of advertising, marketing and promotion, there are a number of ways one can target and reach a potential customer. Television adverts, radio jingles, newspaper adverts, leaflets, flyers, billboards, internet banners and spam emails all unite in their unwavering determination to persuade a person in passing to walk into a certain shop or choose a specific service. What do these methods rely on in their powers of persuasion?
We have a number of senses which marketing moguls can target, and these all work in very different ways and vary with each person too. Some people have a predisposition toward visual stimuli, others are more responsive to audio and yet others prefer a tangible and tactile approach to product persuasion. Advertising that uses audio to access an audience, such as the radio, television and online ads works by creating an audio experience that is often subtly stored in the brain and works subliminally on the subject through repetitive encounters.
Visual ads often work by creating an idealistic image to which the audience is inclined to want to associate. Once again television and new media such as online content does this, but adverts placed in newspapers and leaflets also harness this power. The area where leaflet distribution has an advantage in the visual aspect is that high quality graphics can be used to maximum potential to provide an enticing and persuasive advert.
The quality obtainable in a newspaper is relatively low, and therefore does not have the same impact, especially for top end luxury products. However, magazine adverts have a greater impact due to the potential of high resolution colour images. On a tangible level though, placing an ad in the pages of a magazine often creates an air of inaccessibility, and many companies choose to promote a product or service by using a leaflet that is inserted in a publication.
Targeting a market this way ensures that a potential customer is targeted continuously through their own choice. Leaflets are removed from a magazine or paper and put somewhere where the information can be used at a later date. The clever part of this is that the potential customer is in fact creating subliminal advertising within their own home. The more often the leaflet is encountered, the associated desire for the product or service is built up and the more likely the targeted market is to make a purchase or use a service.
Subliminal advertising such as this is often used through product placement on television and even on the streets. For example, just about every film you will have recently watched will have contained a Mac laptop, a famous brand of beer, the latest mobile phone and a variety of incredibly popular foodstuffs and famous soft drinks. This type of advertising gradually saturates the recipient to the point where, through subliminal exposure that will choose a product automatically because it just feels right.
Utilising this type of marketing psychology with a consumer's home through leaflet distribution is particularly clever. The success of this method lies in the fact the person has already chosen to desire the product or service, and it is therefore a just a matter of time before they eventually go through to completion thanks to their own placement of an advert within the home. Although the technique of direct marketing is often derided as being unsuccessful, the truth is that for each flyer that reaches a targeted audience, a higher percentage results in a sale when compared to other forms of advertising.
About the Author:
Dominic Donaldson is an expert in the marketing industry.
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Leaflet Distribution and how direct marketinfg can boost your business at Mailbox nationwide.
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158
Date Published :
Dec 3 2008