Ever hear these buzzwords? "Fragmented advertising" or "consumer-centric camp signs"? You will if you talk to just about any Fortune 500 company executive or advertising agency about promotions and advertising. You'll dive into long conversations about the perils and strains of hatching impressive advertising campaigns today.



Simply put, fragmentation is the increase in the quantity of methods at hand that you can get your idea across to your market.

One of the prime strains faced by any promoter is that advertising has changed and evolved over the last few years.It now consists of visual, audio and electronic media.

Go to Google and do a search for "advertising" and you will get over 450,000,000 results (that's 1 1/2 times the amount of people in the US) and results like local advertising, prize giveaways and pay-per-click advertising. It's enough to make a person feel dumbfounded.

Well, what about traditional advertising like billboards, television, magazines and radio then? Are they dead?

Not by a long shot. Traditional advertising methods still work, according to one advertising mogul, so they're still around.

The trick is to figure out who your target market is, what they want, and how they look for that information.

"Many a small thing has been made large by the right kind of advertising," Mark Twain once said.

By fully understanding your customers, you can avoid wasting your money on useless advertising mediums and focus your money on those mediums that your customers actually use.

If your customers are senior citizens over the age of 65 then it doesn't make sense to advertise to them online. It would be better to spend your advertising dollars on radio, television, newpaper and magazine ads that they are reading, listening or watching.

Whether your target market is working parents or divorced fathers, you really need to know how, when and where they get their information. What radio stations do they listen to? Is it on the Internet? Do they watch television? What magazines are they reading? How? When? Why?

When you set out to create a highly impressive advertising campaign, you need to determine what your best ways are.

Here are four ways simple steps:

1. Know your client. What do they need? Where do they dine? What do they play? How old are they? Where do they like to go for fun? Your product or service... do they need it? Can they afford your service or product or is it too expensive for them?

2. Know your competitors. Be primed to do a a touch of detective work. What are your three prime competitors doing to advertise? How often and where are they promoting their business? Have they been running their advertising for very long? Are you trying to reach the same customers? Do you have the same idea as your competition?

Look at what they're doing right, and figure out creative ways that you can make your advertising just a bit better, or differentiate yourself from the crowd.

3. Next take a look at what the "big dogs" in your field are doing and see if you can adapt some of their methods to your target market and your budget.

4. Know your message. What are you trying to get across to your customers? What do your customers want to hear? Why should they buy from you, and not someone else? Make every word count.

Dollars to donuts, your customers are probably more technologically savy than they were even just one year ago let alone five years ago. While the Internet has made it possible for your customers to uncover just about any piece of information that they need, the Internet has also created another massive problem... information overload.

Another problem that the web has created is that it has groomed your customers to expect "instant gratification". They want it, and they want it now. Are you able to meet your customers' demands and give them what they want, when they want it?

A highly impressive advertising does not try to be everything to everyone. Keep it simple. Your advertising should address one person... your ideal customer. You don't want your ads to be a nuisance so, to avoid that, give your customers what they want and they will see the value of your product or service.

Pay attention to who your customers are and what they want and you will be at an advantage. Traditional advertising is not dead... far from it!