The Ultimate Guide to Advertising

Learn how to use advertising to build a magnetic brand that attracts customers, establishes a following, and generates revenue.

When you hear the word advertising, what comes to mind?

Do you think of banner ads on your favorite website? Those hilarious Super Bowl commercials? The billboards along the highway or posters in the subway stations?

While most of us have a pretty good idea of what advertising looks like, we often struggle to nail down exactly what it means — and how to do it well.

From the printing press to pop-up ads, advertising has certainly changed with the times. Despite this, though, the need for advertising hasn’t changed, and neither have the techniques and best practices that make for quality advertising. That’s what we’ll cover in this guide.

What is advertising?

Advertising is the act of creating messages and using different psychological techniques to persuade and motivate someone to take action, most likely to buy a product or service.

Advertising is one of the oldest types of marketing and aims to influence the actions of its audience to buy, sell, or do something else.

Good advertising is designed to be extremely influential, memorable, and, at times, risqué.

But, how does advertising work?

How does advertising work?

Advertising has a simple principle — get people interested in a product being sold.

After arousing interest, the goal is to persuade people to purchase the product, even if they hadn’t previously thought about buying it. Ads work by using psychology to influence the way people think and feel about a product or service.

Depending on the goals of your ad campaign, advertising can go to work for your company in a variety of ways:

• To raise awareness of your brand

• To drive potential customers to your business

• To promote sales for both new and existing products

• To introduce a new product or service to the market

• To differentiate your product from your competitors’

Advertising can also be executed in various ways. Radio commercials, billboards, branded t-shirts, and social media endorsements all count as advertising — as we'll discuss later on in this guide.