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How do you improve the effectiveness of your advertising? Between fierce competition in a saturated market and an instant gratification, ad avoidance generation – it’s certainly not easy. That, however, doesn’t make it any less essential.
That’s why we’ve been asking our customers to rate us for our advertising effectiveness.
Each year, since launch, we've ran a benchmark customer survey to better understand how well we're delivering on the fundamentals of the services we provide. Currently, of all the large radio groups, we’re the only one asking our clients to rate us.
The survey allows our customers to evaluate our development against our vision, mission and values. In the graphs below, you’ll notice how we faired for relationships, service delivered, effectiveness and creativity.
Each wave represents a year since Communicorp UK launched 4 years ago. In this instance our customers were asked to mark us out of five for how much they associate these terms to our service.
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As you can see we’ve jumped quite substantially in effectiveness over the past few years. We can trace this jump in effectiveness to a few main attributes.
So, what exactly are we doing to see such big improvements in areas that matter?
Insights
Imagine advertising without knowing anything about the people who receive the advert. it’d be like trying to drive a car with your eyes closed. it’d be costly, stupid and dangerous. We've invested heavily in pre-campaign options, specifically research and insights because we see more value in solving our customers problems as opposed to selling media space.
It’s a fact: the better you understand your customer the better you can tailor a marketing campaign that can achieve results. Our clients customers are continually changing in what they need, how they like to engage and what is important to them. Research and insights enable our clients to meet customer expectations and stay ahead of the competition.
There are plenty reports out there but they can be too generic and based on where the market has been rather than where it is today.
The key is taking the data and building insights which are easy to understand. We use all available data and reports such as Mintel and many others and use this data to build infographics, short videos and other engaging options to illustrate the insight. For some clients we use bespoke telephone and in-field research to unlock deeper insights in to their customers. For all clients, you should be making insights readily available and easy to understand. Your job is to help them better understand their industry.
Through these insights our account managers become so much more than just sales people. they’re motor industry experts, insurance trend spotters and tech enthusiasts. from that we can deliver the best advice, build better relationships and better relationships lead to better results.
The Creative Process
Historically, we had quite a narrow approach to the creative process. We were taking the brief and diving straight in to generating ideas. this lead to a lack of focus. We generated a lot of ideas but didn’t have the clarity that defines brilliant ideas.
We decided to put more focus on the concept. starting with defining a challenge or a problem. Before even moving into creative ideas we’re making sure know the following:
- The problem
- The market
- The customer
Starting with each of these aspects before we get to the creative means a few things. firstly, our creative process is efficient and focused. Secondly, our creative concepts are much better.
An example of this in action can be seen in our work with a Manchester based driving school.
We knew from the brief that the school wanted to improve bookings, but outside of that, we were blind. Because we were using our new creative process we started with the problem and research. From this research we found out that most people placing the bookings are not the drivers themselves but their parents and grandparents.
Our new approach changed our creative. Whereas before we would’ve been generating ideas for young drivers, taking a step back allowed us to cut right to the core of the clients problem.
This doesn’t just stop with radio either. This extended to our outdoor and experiential. We were bringing a new level of cohesion between all marketing. We had a single-minded proposition.
As you can see from the results of the survey improving advertising effectiveness starts with research, building insights from that research and building the infrastructure that allows those insights to inform creative advertising ideas.
It’s a well-oiled machine. each cog is reliant on the next, it can be a difficult prospect to align them all and getting help with that isn’t something you should avoid. We can help improve the effectiveness of your advertising. experience for yourself the reasons why our customers are voting us as ‘highly effective’ for the 4th year running.
- Mark Lee