Advertising is, of course, the key to the success of any business. How to attract customers? How best to promote your product or services? These questions are asked by every entrepreneur. And today he has a wide selection of advertising technologies.
In this article, we would like to consider the main types of advertising, understand their merits and demerits, understand how effective they are.

Internet advertising - unlimited opportunities
Advertising on the Internet opens the widest opportunities before any categories of advertisers - from small firms to the international corporations, irrespective of what goods they advance and on what audience are aimed. At the same time, online advertising is characterized by availability, interactivity and the availability of tools for planning and tracking performance.

There are several types of online advertising:

Contextual advertising is an advertisement or text with a hyperlink, thematically similar to the contents of the pages of the Internet resources on which they are displayed.
Media advertising - text and graphics materials posted on popular Internet sites containing a link to go to the website page of the advertised company or product.
Teaser advertising is an advertising message with an eye-catching image and an intriguing text that prompts the user to click on the link to find out detailed information about the product or service.
Advertising in thematic blogs - banners, advertising reviews, praising of goods, advertising links in posts, posted on the pages of the thematic blog and designed for interest and trust from regular blog readers.
Advertising on thematic websites is the placement of text ads, graphic and animated banners, the themes of which are similar to the content of a site that acts as an advertising platform.
Advertising in social networks is an effective way of promoting goods and services through the Internet, using open methods - placing banners, and in hidden ways - creating thematic groups, holding promotions, attracting friends.
Advertising on news portals is an excellent way to influence a wide audience of users who visit this type of web resource daily to get acquainted with the current news.
Press-release - PR-tool, which presents a brief information message, description of the event, news about the company's activities, designed to cause the audience a positive reaction.
Search engine optimization of the website - work on internal factors of the Internet resource, which play a fundamental role in the ranking process and allow you to bring the site to the first positions in the delivery of major search engines.
Mailing list - has a high engaging effect sending letters and promotional materials, allowing at a minimum cost to talk about their products and services to the maximum number of potential consumers.
The choice will depend on several factors: the type of product being promoted (contextual advertising, as a rule, attracts those who are ready to make a purchase right now, and the media is designed for long-term prospects and increasing brand awareness), the target audience (choose those communication channels that are close Your customers) and, of course, the budget.

Outdoor advertising: the main thing is laconic content
To outdoor advertising is everything that we see in the urban environment: billboards and plasma panels on walls and roofs of houses, signboards on the facades, shields and stretches on the roads, posters in the subway, outdoor billboards, sandwich people, ads on the body Vehicles, etc. Everything that is designed for visual perception of passers-by. Outdoor advertising is set for a long period, during which it excellently attracts attention of a large audience: almost anyone who passes by sees it. It is relatively inexpensive (unless, of course, it's not a huge screen on Fifth Avenue).
But this method of promotion is not suitable for all advertising purposes. So, she is unlikely to inform the consumer of serious information: its purpose is rather to remind of a known product or to help a person navigate. Specialists recommend posting a short text (no more than 7-8 words) and a catchy, but meaningful image. Therefore, for the successful operation of visual advertising, it is necessary to seriously work out its content. You should also choose the right place for installation - otherwise advertising risks "getting lost" among similar ads.

Television and radio advertising: effective, but expensive.
Television is the most effective way to convey information to people. No doubt, television advertising is extremely effective. It combines all means of attracting attention (brightness, dynamics, music, etc.), different channels of perception are involved. In addition, it has a huge scale of coverage. But not all of them are able to use such advertising - first of all, because of the high cost of airtime. Small companies may be able to pay a few repetitions of their commercials on a regional television channel, but in order to make the advertisement memorable, you need to "twist" it regularly, intensely and at the right time (in the morning or in the evening).
In addition, a low-quality plot can lead to a strong reverse effect - anti-advertising. And the services of advertising agencies that have a good reputation in the field of TV advertising are very expensive.
On television, also such methods of advertising are used, as a running line, television shops or sponsorship. However, they attract a smaller audience and are perceived much worse than the videos. A separate view - advertising in the movie (product placement, hidden advertising): it has great success, but can afford only large and solid companies. Radio advertising (narration announcements, music screensavers) is perfect for products designed for young people. For better memorization, it should be scrolled regularly, as the numbers (in phone numbers, etc.) are memorized by ear quite badly. Qualitative musical performance, which will cause interest in the audience, will help the information "crash into the memory." The choice of time is also important: radio stations listen, as a rule, in the morning or in the evening. By the way, the cost of radio air is also high.

Advertising in print media: informative, but not too effective
Advertising in print media (newspapers and magazines) is a traditional way of distributing advertising information. It is characterized by excellent targeting capabilities (you can reach out to the right audience by publishing ads in specialized media), informative content, and duration of impact. Such advertising is quite affordable, so that IP is widely used by small and medium-sized businesses.
The disadvantage is a weak impact (there is no sound, no movement), as well as a small number of the audience: newspapers and magazines are read by less and less people.

Paper advertising: simple, inexpensive, without guarantees for success
This includes all printed promotional products: advertising booklets, brochures, leaflets, calendars, business cards, flyers, etc. Cheap and simple, and the effect is ambiguous. For example:
- Leaflets on poles - an outdated way of information transfer, besides short-lived. And if you paste them in elevators - it can work: the person in the elevator has enough time to study all the details and even write down.
- Business cards: a business card found by the client in time will provide a new order, but the mass distribution of business cards on the street can lead people into an irritated state.

For each advertising campaign - its own tactics
As you can see, these and other types of advertising have their own characteristics, which depend on goals, audience, budget, location and many other factors. Therefore, it can not be argued that some advertising is more effective than the other. We can say, for example, that Internet advertising is the most universal and flexible way of promoting goods and services. But for each specific case you still need your own advertising tactics. And the most effective option - the use of several types of advertising in the complex.