There’s no ‘one size fits all’ when it comes to advertising but you should know your product or service best and if you don’t, I suggest you take some time to figure it out.
What do you sell? If your product or service costs a lot of money, then you can expect the sales to be fewer and later.
Let’s look at two examples in the same field. Company A is a car dealer, they specialize in second hand cars and their prices range from £1,000 to £10,000. Company B is a car dealer and they specialize in luxury cars; their prices are in excess of £50,000. Few people decide to buy a car on the spot and drive it away the same day. Usually, the idea starts to surface months in advance – this is a commitment and it’s a lot of money. You start thinking about it, you start browsing online for the type of car that you want, you check your finances, you do a bit more research, and then you start looking at specific dealers and decide who to buy with.
For Company A, this decision process is usually much shorter than for Company B because the amount of expenditure is much less. You are committing to much less and you probably plan to keep this car for a few years and then move on to the next one. The second company, company B, is selling you a car that you hope is going to be around for a long time, which means that you need to be certain that you’ve bought the right car.
There’s something else in this example which is worth looking at. Company A is selling a car that you’re likely buying out of necessity, Company B is selling a luxury item. When you need a car, you may not have the luxury of thinking about it for a very long time. When you chose to buy a luxury car, you have plenty of time to think about it – it’s not essential.
So, how long will it take? It depends on how long it takes someone to buy your product or service. As a general rule of thumb, high value products take a long time, low value products take less time.
The reason it is important that you know this is because people tend to dabble in advertising and you just can’t do that. You can’t dip your toe in the water and see how it feels. If you are going to run an online display campaign you need to commit to it wholeheartedly, otherwise you will end up wasting your money on what could have been an exceptionally valuable advertising campaign.
