Evaluating Advertisement Campaigns: Analyzing Customers
Marketing forms the lifeline of every organization. It is the most essential aspect of business, as this is the only method of reaching out the people and showcasing the values offered by the company. Products and services are the offerings which are provided by business organisations, but the only way prospective customers know about is effective advertising. Company's use innovative marketing strategies and storylines with celebrities by shelling out millions for advertising. But does the right values proposition, brand image and product information reach the customer? To counter this dilemma, organisations opt for one pivotal process: Advertisement campaign evaluation for estimating and analyzing its effectiveness.
Advertisement campaigns are an essential component of brand building and marketing. The most important, popular and effective ways of advertising is print media, TV ads and the latest being viral marketing on the internet. No matter where the advertisement is shown, the ultimate aim of an advertisement is to catch the eye of the prospective customer, and to make sure that he purchases the product.
Ad campaign evaluation is basically understanding the fact whether the customer has actually understood the message of the advertisement, the features of the product and how has the ad influenced the individual.
Ad campaign evaluation comprises of a few basic steps in understanding its reach and effectiveness.
The first step in this process is preparing a questionnaire which would cover all aspects of the ad campaign. The most pivotal point is the recall value of the ad campaign, brand name and the product. Recall tests should be first done with unaided recall and then with aided recall. Unaided recall is a process of asking the target about whatever they remember about the ad campaign i.e. product, story-line, theme, locations etc. After that aided recall is used to compare and find out about the quality of the ad, appeal to the customer, influence on buying decision and overall quality of the ad campaign.
The second part of the evaluation includes surveying a sample of the target market as a pilot study, which should include existing as well as prospective customers. This is essential as it would help in analyzing brand loyalty, brand switching and also in finding out about customer preferences.
The final step of the ad campaign evaluation is the analysis of the information and finding the interdependence on various factors on each other. This would help organisations understand the mediums of media which were successful and mediums which failed.
A lot of money is pumped by organisations in advertising their products. Thus it becomes essential to follow-up on the quality, recall and influence that ads have on its customers. Such evaluations enable organisations to continue a successful campaign or stop any failed campaign. Thus, an important technique of studying advertising effectiveness is the process of ad campaign evaluations.
