Are your digital banners for marketing or advertising?

Digital banners are used in many ways for many reasons. The question is, will they be used as a marketing tool or are they being used for advertisement? Some business owners will use these terms interchangably, however there are distinct differences. In order to make your digital banners it's most effective you should decide what the purpose will be.

How do I know if my digital banner is for advertising or marketing?

Before we go any further lets look at the difference in the two terms.

Advertising - calling attention to a product, service or business through paid announcements, commercials, etc.

Marketing - a complete plan designed to create awareness, promote an image and brand your company for easy recognition, all used in conjunction with one another in order to bring in new prospective clients and maintain previous clients. Some parts of the plan may have no cost associated with them. A plan should be drawn up in advance and each step should be taken as needed to implement the entire plan.

You have a product in your store that you really want to "push". You have it attractively displayed near the counter so that it can be an impulse purchase. You could attract additional attention by placing a banner in the store, even near the POP to draw people to the product. This would be a form of advertising.

You are going to be carrying a new product. You want to create a lot of excitement before it comes into your store in the next few weeks. You hang a "coming soon" digital banner at your store. This is advertising.

You have designed a logo for your business and you want people to become familiar with it. You have a digital banner with the logo and the business name that you hang out front. This is marketing. It will be the corner stone of a much bigger plan. All of your forms, business cards, etc will now be carrying that logo. You are branding your business.

You sponsor a special project in your community and the digital banner has a big annoucement about the project while down in the lower right corner it says "Sponsered By ...". Definitely marketing. You are promoting your image through community involvement.

This is, of course, only a few examples to help you distinguish the two. Now when you are about to design a digital banner you should consider how it will be used. Will it be an advertisement or will it be part of a much larger marketing plan? One is not better than the other, they are two different purposes. You could even do a little of each at the same time!

Digital banners have a versatility that not all signage has. It can be placed indoors or out. Hung over head or on a wall. It is easily transportable and digital banners are not difficult to hang. They can be used for many purposes and because of their relatively low cost you can use them as a temporary display. The material used to make digital banners is designed to last a long time, so you can also have a long term banner that will continue to "sell" for you long after it has been purchased.

Digital Banners