Marketing

The goal of any advertising campaign is to promote the sales by getting the right message to the right audience at the right time. Most business thus start an advertising campaign by identifying its target audience and find the suitable media to reach them. Targeting is vital to the success of advertising campaign and one way to reach the prospects who is most likely to be interested in your product or service is through the on-line Banner Advertising placed in the commercial (or noncommercial) websites.

The objective of putting up a banner is to get as many viewers as possible to see the banner of your product/service or lead them to your website (in case of click- through banners). In third countries and even in India, on-line banners are already established as powerful tools for driving traffic to your site and business and the trend is slowly catching up in Nepal too.

If you are also considering buying space for the banners, here are some of the principles of successful banner creation to help you make sure that you get what you pay for.

To come up with an effective advertising nothing beats planning. This is also true for banner advertising campaign. Before you buy the advertisement space for banner, clearly define the objective for putting up the advertisement and carefully select the appropriate site/s keeping the target audience in mind. Search engines could help you produce a list of potential sites where you can place your banners.

Banner advertisements may be of various sizes based on the amount of graphic and animation and thus the charges for the space may vary accordingly. However standard banner sizes are beginning to emerge on the web. According to International Advertising Bureau (IAB), standard size for full banner is 468 x 60 pixel, half banner 234 x 60 pixels and square button advertisements, 125 x 125 pixels.

Smaller file size means faster download time and quicker your banner shows up in the user’s page the more likely they are to see it and click on it. Reducing the number of colors and the resolution of the graphics is one way to reduce the size. Also, some site may place a size limit on its size. One needs to check this out too.

Designers recommend the bold colors such as green and yellow for the banners as such bold (but not offending) colours outperform the lighter ones like white or beige.

Banner advertisements come in variety of formats. The most common is the GIF format; either in one image or series of animated images. JPEG is also used sometimes. These days Java and DHTML format banners are also used but bear in mind that a big number of web users are not equipped to view advertisements in this format.

According to on-line marketing company ‘emarketer’, animated banners are preferred by over 70% of web surfers. Use animated GIFs to add motion to your banners and make your banners come alive.

Being creative in case of banner advertising means conceptualizing the design of the banner that will grab the reader’s attention. Some of the considerations that is required for a creative banner are as follows:

The text of the banner should include a message that resonates loudly with your target audience. For example, if your shop provides a discount for a season, then "30% discount" on your banner will resonate with bargain buyers more strongly than with the message " Low cost apparels’ ‘or ‘discount available’. Most advertisers play with the 5 themes, vis. curiosity, fear, humour, promise and warning to grab the attention of the surfers.

Neat text maximizes readability. Choose an easy to read font and stay away from San-Serif font when using small font size. Make sure the text is not squeezed inside the banner.

Make sure that the words and images in the banner compliment each other. Graphics should have direct relation with your product or service.

As in any other form of consumer communication your banner advertisement should be designed with your audience in mind.

Include your company name logo with banner advertisement to build brand recognition for your company. It also helps to increase visibility of off-line advertisement in print or TV.

If your banner is a click through banner, make sure that it leads to the right page of your website. The visitors will lose their interest, if they have to move through many pages to get the information they are interested in.

Once you get the perfect banner working, design another one because sooner or later even the best banner will run out of steam. It is generally accepted that after a prospect sees a banner for the third and the fourth time, the likelihood of a click goes down. There the banners need to be continuously changed and tested to keep it alive and produce strong click-though for many months.