Neil Owen is a designer who has worked on the CFJ and Tile and Stone Journal publications over the past 15 years in both print and online. Here he provides his own personal experiences of promoting businesses online.
When I first arrived at Kick-Start Publishing, CFJ didn’t even have a website and the first attempt we had was very basic. As time has gone on the websites developed and expectations have grown. However, it wasn’t until just before the pandemic that I felt I could really grasp the true worth of online advertising.
Having taken a web and marketing role in an attraction based in Brighton for a couple of years alongside working for CFJ, I’ve been able to see what not only effective marketing is, but why and how it works. I joined the event attraction business just after launch and as such it was even more important to make sure that we reached the audience we were targeting.
We advertised in lots of different ways including a variety of online platforms, as well as magazines, billboards, TV and radio.
The attraction itself began to grow, gaining awards including Brighton and Hove’s Tourist Attraction of the Year, but one thing we couldn’t figure out was why we were gaining more paying customers, but such little conversions from our online advertising. It was very difficult to pinpoint which of our many advertisements were causing the ticket sales we were generating and caused serious doubt if our online adverts were working at all.
As a result of this we kept spending a significant sum of money each day in all sorts of advertising, unable to focus and find the best place to spend our budget.
It wasn’t until Covid-19 that we got a better idea of what was working. Having closed for long periods and now with a much more limited budget, we were forced to put all our eggs in one basket. Our bet was with Facebook advertising and it paid off. No more printed adverts and none of the other online advertising we were doing beforehand.
And yet, it worked so well that we were now getting even more sales than before the pandemic when we had a much larger, but widely spent budget.
From dropping to virtually no traffic, to visitors returning in full force and with increased ticket sales. Despite the obvious connection between the advertising and sales, conversions were still very low.
At this point it became increasing clear that customers would visit the site and return at a later date through Google to complete the booking. People wanted time to think about, check dates, or check which friends and family wanted to go with them.
Now although Facebook advertising worked well for the attraction, it is important to understand the reason for it, and why not something like Google AdWords.
The answer is branding.
Facebook allows you to include something visual that people remember such as a logo, and images which are critical to any sort of successful marketing campaign.
When filming an interview at The Flooring Show last year, Martin Cummins who was there on behalf of Bostik made a very profound statement: ‘The word branding, this is what it’s all about, demonstrating who we are and the product range. We’ve brought everything together so our smoothing compounds, our adhesives all look the same – it makes it simpler for the contractor, simpler for us as suppliers, and really the gecko [which is the image that appears on their logo] sticks to things and that’s the big name, Bostik!’.
Although Facebook advertising was successful for the attraction I worked at, you still must target your brand to the right people and when it comes to reaching flooring contractors, in my experience Facebook is unfortunately too broad.
It’s not always all about the clicks
This brings me to the point of why CFJ is an outstanding place to advertise. With thousands of flooring contractors reading CFJ each month there is an opportunity to reach a large and highly desirable audience with your brand.
Unfortunately, the misconception is that you will gain a large amount of clicks with banner advertising. This is not the main objective, as you must remember that most of our dedicated readers visit the site each month, so it’s highly unlikely that they are going to click on your banner each month, especially as they are likely to already be familiar with your company.
What it is going to do is align your brand with CFJ, a publication which thousands of our readers trust, which acts as a recommendation to any brand that advertises.
So, when it comes to advertising on the CFJ website, what’s my advice? Similar to Martin Cummins. Keep it simple, make your logo and branding very clear and don’t overcomplicate your adverts so your brand stands out and is memorable.
If you want to tell more people about new products, or something new and exciting, please provide us with more editorial. A good combination of advertising and editorial will allow you to maximise your branding, whilst reaching the many CFJ readers.
