Business cards Essay

With business cards, people could keep them in their wallet or pocket, as they are small and light to carry around. Also, people keep them around their house just in case they need to contact a certain business and people do look at business cards to see what the business is promoting and looking to see if they need it. Posters Posters are a great way to catch someone’s eye as they are, bold, bright and in your face all the time. You can’t ignore posters as they are really big and your eyes just get a hold of the image and stares at it and you are attracted to it because of the vibrant colours. If Errol uses posters than he would get a wide audience, as many people would pass the poster whilst they are driving walking etc. With posters they are also a great way of promoting his business as they are outside with a wide audience. Web Page There is such a wide audience on the Internet, so with a web page on the Yellow Pages or Thomson Local site, there is a guarantee that lots of people would be browsing those sites in search of a service. With the web sites they are much easily organised and categorised so it would be very easy to locate something you may need and very fast. They even do it by area and business names as well so the searching is much faster and easier. I have got evidence of different marketing media’s of secondary research in the back of the coursework (appendices); there it will show the different types of ways you can advertise. Here I am going to write why I chose these pictures as evidence. Yellow Pages Pictures 1, 2 and 4 are from the Yellow Pages and in these pictures you can see how the person had laid out to advertise their business. Picture 1 the writing stands out as it’s blue and the background is white, but with picture 2 these people didn’t want to spend as much money on advertising so they kept it plain and simple and unfortunately with this advertising it is not going to catch anyone’s eye so they won’t get as much customers as picture 1 and 4 would get. Pictures 1 and 4 stand out much more, even though they are still small, they are so much bigger than picture 2. Thomson Local Pictures 3 and 5 are from the Thomson Local book. Picture 3 is quite representable as there are a variety of colours, but not so much colours so it keeps it subtle and calm looking and it doesn’t look overdone. The writing is also quite clear on it even though the ad seems to look quite small. But, picture 5 is huge; this stands out on its page and catches the reader’s eye to that ad straight away. The orange background helps it as it’s so bright, you can’t take you eyes off it, as it’s so attractive. Picture 5 also has a lot of information about the business, they have more information than picture 3 but you wouldn’t need that much information so that amount of information for both the pictures is just fine. The Leader Picture 6 is from the local Leader newspaper and this ad is quite good as it’s quite big and bold. There are only two colours but the reader’s eye is still wedged into looking at the advert. This ad has all the information you would want to know about the garage and the phone number is very bright so you wouldn’t need to squint to read it and all the writing is clear and is understandable and easy to read. Web Page Pictures 7 and 9 are both web pages. Picture 7 is from yell. com and picture 9 is from thomsonlocal. com. By doing web pages the customer can easily find what he/she is looking for as the searching is quick and easy, as everything is organised and categorised. It is very easy to find what you are looking for and it’s very sufficient, so if you lost the book of each of these sites than all you have to do is go to the web site and find what you are looking for there. These web sites have all the details you need to know about the business and it has ways that you can contact the business to. Business Cards Picture 8 is a business card and these are great to use, as they are small and easy to carry and people can keep it in their wallet and you can have all the information you need on them about your business. I chose this business card as the number is very big and takes up nearly the whole card and the name of the company comes next so people have a rough idea about what the business does. This business card is just right as it has just the right amount of information on it like a web site, phone number, companies name and as it’s double sided, there is more information on the back about the prices they charge. Posters Picture 10 is a poster about a motor garage. I think that the poster is very simple, it’s also very eye catching but it doesn’t have that much information on it. This poster doesn’t have as much information on it than it should have, but that’s ok in a way, as you wouldn’t want to squash everything up in one tiny poster. The colours are daring as they all just stand out and as the picture is animated it looks quite fun in a way as it looks interesting to look at. But there is no phone number or address to locate the business or get in touch with them. Leaflets Picture 11 is a leaflet’s front cover. As we can see it doesn’t give as much information away but that’s probably in the inside of the leaflet. The colours are again bright and a clever use of colours like a dark colour and a bright one so each colour makes each other one stand out. The title could also be quite catchy, as people wouldn’t want to get ripped off by a garage so they will look at this leaflet so they get a better deal; this title is a way people could save money. For each of the media stated which is appropriate to Errol, I am going to analyse it and say the advantages and disadvantages of it. Local Newspapers Advertising in local newspapers is great as the newspaper is free and everyone has one. So if Errol were to advertise in a local newspaper like The Leader than, loads of people in that catchment area would know about him and the word can spread around quick as everyone reads the newspapers. It costs about i 200 per week to advertise in the local newspapers, but if it was a regualr advertisement than it would get 20% discount off a week. On the other hand, in newspapers, people mainly look at the articles not the adverts so they tend to ignore them and newspapers get recycled and throw away so they won’t get looked at again. Newspaper adverts don’t get much attention and businesses don’t get helped by these adverts, so if you were to have an ad in the paper then it should stand out a lot and the reader should want to look at the ad. Radio Stations If Errol were to get an advert on the radio than it’s very likely that loads of people would be listening to the advert and it’s also very likely that people in the area if his business would be listening too. With the radio, there is a wide audience and adverts on the radio are more effective than adverts on the TV as you can change the channel, but with the radio people aren’t as bothered with the adverts because if they are driving they can’t mess about with the radio. If there is an advert on the radio than people like to paint a picture in their head about the advert, consequently making it more successful. The cost of advertising on the radio can be quite expensive and I have the figures of how much it would cost roughly: A simple advertisement for a small station will usually cost i 200-i 300. London stations and Digital Stations can cost up to ten times that. The price includes: script writing, audio production, actors to voice the ads, music (if used) and special effects (if used). All of this has to be licensed for broadcast for 12 months from the first time it’s played. Aim to spend at least 10% of your budget on the creative – for example†¦ A i 2,500 campaign on a small station over four weeks will probably run with one piece of creative which might cost you i250.   A i 25,000 campaign over a year will likely need a few different advertisements. At this level of investment, a jingle or audio identifier would be useful so listeners start to recognise your ads as soon as they hear them. A i 250,000 campaign over a year might be worth licensing a famous song for i 25,000 so your company really stands out. But listeners may not pay attention to the adverts and if Errol was to get an advert on radio than it will cost him a lot of money and as he’s just started the business it could lead him into bankruptcy. Sometimes motor garage ads on the radio aren’t as effective as people don’t pay attention to what the people are saying and they think that it’s boring. Directories Yellow Pages The Yellow Pages is a great place to promote your business, as the Yellow Pages is widely known, loads of people trust it more and as it comes free to your doorstep, every household has one. The Yellow Pages is also great as it has target areas so no one will be complaining about going too far to get a service as it’s all very near to them. Plus, it’s free to advertise in the Yellow Pages book, which displays your business name, address and telephone number under a single classification heading of your choice. However, the disadvantages of the big yellow book is that it’s heavy to carry and people wouldn’t want to be carrying that book around with them trying to find a suitable service and as there are millions of other ads, you are all competing and if your ad doesn’t stand out as much as the others or doesn’t sound very appealing than you will be losing customers as they will be going onto another business of the same service. So if Errol was to advertise in the Yellow Pages than he should make sure that his ad stands out the most on the page and that it looks appealing and trustworthy and to have the right information, like the information the customer would want to know not something they wouldn’t.