Talk to almost any advertising agency, or Fortune 500 company exec about selling and promotion, and you will almost certainly hear the buzz words "fragmented advertising" and "consumer-centric campaigns" and long discussions about the many pitfalls and difficulties of generating good branding campaigns today.

What is fragmentation exactly? Its the increase in the number of available methods for taking your message to your audience.

One of the main difficulties faced by any entrepreneur is that selling has changed and evolved over the last few years. It now includes visual, audio and electronic media.

In fact, if you do a Google search for selling , you might feel overwhelmed by all the options available to you now -- if you just look at the options for your Website you will find popups, popovers, audio messages, flash video, RSS, even animated "sales everybody" that may be programmed to appear right on your Website and interact with your customers. And thats just the tip of the iceberg!

So is traditional promoting -- which includes billboards, radio, television, newspaper and magazine -- dead?

Not by a long shot. According to one top selling mogul, traditional selling methods are still around because they still work.

The trick is to figure out who your target advertise is, what they want, and how they look for that data .

Mark Twain said, "Many a small thing has been made large by the right kind of branding."

If you know customers, you might spend your promoting dollars on the mediums they use to look for answers.

If your customers are senior citizens who are not online, then focus the majority of your promoting dollars on the newspapers, magazines, television, and radio that they are reading, watching or listening to.

If your target market are working parents, you need to understand how, when and where they get their information. Is it on the Internet? What radio stations do they listen to? What magazines are they reading? Do they watch television? When? Why?

So what are your best options for generating an effective advertising campaign?

Here are some simple steps:

1. Know your audience. What do they want? Where do they shop? What do they read? How old are they? Where do they hang out? Do they positive need your item or services? Can they afford your item or services?

2. Know your competition. Be prepared to do a little detective work. What are your three main competitors doing to market? Where are they branding? How fairly often? What types of branding methods are they using? How long have they been running? Are you reaching the identical audience? Is your communication different?

Look at what theyre doing right, and figure out creative ways that you might contruct your advertising just a little bit better, or differentiate yourself from the crowd.

3. Next take a look at what the "big dogs" in your field are doing, and see if you can adapt some of their methods to your target audience and your budget.

4. Know your communication . What exactly are you trying to say? What do your customers want to hear? Why should they buy from you, and not someone else? Make every word count.

Chances are, your customers are much more technology -savvy than they were five decades ago, or even one year ago. The Internet has made unbelievable amounts of understanding accessible, but it also has contributed to the "knowledge overload" consumers complain of.

Another side effect of the Internet is that your customers have most likely become used to acquiring "measure gratification" when they are looking for knowledge, products or services. They want it, and they want it now. Are you giving your customers what they want, when they want it?

If you want to have an efficient advertising campaign, dont try to be everything to every one . Think of your selling as a conversation between you and your one "ideal" customer. Remember, if youre giving your customers what they want, they dont perceive your ads as a nuisance, they see them as a accomadation .

Traditional selling is not dead and you may utilize it to your advantage if you pay attention to who your customers are, and what they want.