What do consumers consider the most effective advertising channels for your marketing messages?
If people are evaluating options, making a final purchase decision or getting rewards or information from a product or service provider, which channels do they consider to be most useful to them?
By addressing these questions, this study aims to give marketers insight into how people view different channels, help identify gaps and opportunities in a marketer’s current channel mix, and allocate spend to the channels most appropriate for engaging and influencing target segments.
10 key research findings
- Six out of 10 Australians are receptive to advertising messages.
- The top five channels consumers consider to be most effective for advertising messages are:
- I: Catalogues and flyers,
- II: TV advertising,
- III: Press (newspapers and magazines),
- IV: Radio advertising and
- V: Personalised direct mail.
- Consumers’ top channel preferences are remarkably consistent across demographics. However, variations further down the rankings can help marketers target a multichannel mix most effectively.
- Current marketing spend doesn’t match the consumer channel preferences reported. Three of the top five most effective channels experienced a drop in advertising spend in the past year.
- For industries such as banking and finance and utilities, when consumers are evaluating options, they consider websites and TV advertising to be the most useful channels.
- For the fashion and supermarket sectors, catalogues and flyers are considered the most useful channel for considering new purchases.
- For industries such as superannuation, utilities and telecommunications, websites, TV advertising and direct mail are considered the three most useful options when making a final purchase decision.
- For cross-sell, consumers consider websites and direct mail the two most useful channels.
- As existing customers, consumers view direct mail and email marketing as the two most useful channels through which to be kept informed.
When considering their options for switching and making a final decision, consumers consider websites and direct mail as the most useful channels.