Awareness advertising is a strategy that supports the demand creation objective. Sales Promotion would be another strategy but a bit further down the funnel. My banner ad example is a tactic that can be used to support an awareness strategy. Many marketers don’t think about their marketing communication in terms of the two objectives. So they measure the effectiveness of banner ads, which are better equipped to build awareness and create demand, using clicks, which is a response or demand fulfillment metric.

Another example is balancing organic search with paid search. Marketers object to using branded terms in paid search because they terms rank high, usually on the first page, in organic search. But, test after test shows that clicks from organic search convert at a much lower rate than clicks from paid search. Organic search supports demand creation. These consumers are higher in the funnel and are willing to, in fact want to look around the web site to learn more about the product or service. Consumers deep in the funnel use paid search to fulfill their demand. We’ve trained them to expect instant gratification when they click on a paid search ad. That’s why it’s such a bad idea to use the print ad’s copy, demand creation (awareness), on the landing page, demand fulfillment (conversion).

In the days of three TV channels, radio, magazines and newspapers thinking about advertising as “salesmanship in print” made some sense although it might have been overly simplistic even then. At the highest levels marketing communication, in its various forms, is still “salesmanship in print” but to achieve your goals in today’s fragmented media landscape I think you need to understand where each communication channels functions best and understand the mind set of your target consumer so you can tailor the message to be appropriate. I’ve seen marketers repeat the “print ad” on the landing page. Really bad idea. Consumers are at the landing page because they’ve seen the print ad and other demand creation advertising, they already know what you stand for, and now they want to take action so give them a good reason to buy now.