Ad agencies talk about two kinds of ads: Direct Response versus Image, or “Brand” advertising. What’s the difference, and which one is right for you?
Brand vs. Direct Response
For any company, a ‘brand’ consists of all the visual, emotional, rational, and cultural images people associate with your product. The goal of image advertising is essentially to create a compelling association in people’s minds between product and image. Nike wants you to think of soaring, scoring, winning when you see their swoosh.
Once you’ve made that connection between your brand and its imagery, you hope the connection will lead to a loyal army of customers. With a strong brand you are able to sell more and sell it at a higher price.
If you are a CFO of a large company, you will have even put a dollar figure on your company’s “brand equity.” The strength of a brand name, like Coke, and its “refreshing” imagery can actually be measured in dollars and can be counted as part of the overall value of your company if it is ever sold.
As you can imagine, it’s expensive to build and maintain brand identity. You can blitz the market with a month’s worth of ads, and this blitz can create a favorable buzz. But once you stop advertising, the impression is fleeting and the impact falls off quickly. Without money to support the brand, its equity falls.
Smaller companies often can’t afford to advertise constantly. They can’t afford to maintain brand equity. Also, companies who are marketing to other businesses — rather than to consumers (business-to-business marketers) — may not have adequate outlets for keeping their brand name constantly in front of their potential customers. So what do they do?
Direct Response Advertising
That’s where direct response ads can be effective. If an image ad makes people think, a direct response ad makes them act. Pick up the phone; fill out a reply slip; clip a coupon; visit your website.
As a small company, your advertising message can disappear from view for a small period of time, allowing you to economize your funds and “work your leads.”
As we describe this, you may be thinking about direct mail right now.
But direct response advertising is a broader concept that can take on many forms: post-cards, print ads, emails, radio spots, infomercials. Regardless of what form you adopt, the goal in each case is the same: generate a pool of prospective buyers (leads), or generate an order (sales), or generate site visits (traffic).
That’s a lot different from generating an image that will translate into loyalty.
Look at your existing ads. Beyond a phone number and address, have you provided an incentive to act? If so, you are running response advertising.
The key to response is incentive. If you cannot afford to advertise constantly, you need to find creative offers that will induce customers to act when you do run ads. Effective, limited-time offers might include:
- Reduced price
- Free trial
- Bonus gift or service
- Free information
- Buy one, get one free
- Free evaluation / consultation
- Free delivery
- Free analysis
- Free upgrade
- Extended Warranty
Again, the goal is to generate maximum response from each ad you run so that you have plenty of prospective customers to focus on while your advertising is dormant.
Pure direct response advertising is usually designed to sell an offer, such as those listed above. The ad will talk less about the product being sold, and more about the special incentive you need to take advantage of NOW.
But in practice, at Admedic, we often find it’s preferable to blend “image” and “response” in the same ad. We believe that you should strive for response, but at the same time you should always groom your image.
To see examples of how we have blended image and response for other businesses, view our samples or contact us online.
