What Advertising
Can Do For Your Business
- Remind customers and prospects about the benefits of your product
or service
- Establish and maintain your distinct identity
- Enhance your reputation
- Encourage existing customers to buy more of what you sell
- Attract new customers and replace lost ones
- Slowly build sales to boost your bottom line
- Promote your business to customers, investors and others (Learn more)
What Advertising Cannot Do For Your Business
- Create an instant customer base
- Cause an immediate sharp increase in sales
- Solve cash flow or profit problems
- Substitute for poor or indifferent customer service
- Sell useless or unwanted products or services
Advertising's Two Important Virtues
- You have complete control. Unlike public relations efforts,
you determine exactly where, when and how often your message will
appear, how it will look, and what it will say. You can target
your audience more readily and aim at very specific geographic
areas.
- You can be consistent, presenting your company's image and sales
message repeatedly to build awareness and trust. A distinctive
identity will eventually become clearly associated with your company,
like McDonald's golden arches. Customers will recognize you quickly
and easily - in ads, mailers, packaging or signs - if you present
yourself consistently.
What Are Advertising's Drawbacks?
- It takes planning. Advertising works best and costs least when
planned and prepared in advance. For example, you'll pay less
per ad in newspapers and magazines by agreeing to run several
ads over time rather than deciding issue by issue. Likewise, you
can save money by preparing a number of ads at once.
- It takes time and persistence. The effectiveness of your advertising
improves gradually over time, because customers don't see every
one of your ads.
You must repeatedly remind prospects and customers about the benefits
of doing business with you. The long-term effort triggers recognition
and helps special offers or direct marketing pay off.
Getting Ready to Advertise - Drawing the Blueprint
1:Design the Framework
- What is the purpose of your advertising program? Start by defining
your company's long-range goals, then map out how marketing can
help you attain them. Focus on advertising routes complementary
to your marketing efforts. Set measurable goals so you can evaluate
the success of your advertising campaign. For example, do you
want to increase overall sales by 20% this year? Boost sales to
existing customers by 10% during each of the next three years?
Appeal to younger or older buyers? Sell off old products to free
resources for new ones?
- How much can you afford to invest? Keep in mind that whatever
amount you allocate will never seem like enough. Even giants such
as Proctor & Gamble and Pepsi always feel they could augment
their advertising budgets. But given your income, expenses and
sales projections, simple addition and subtraction can help you
determine how much you can afford to invest. Some companies spend
a full 10% of their gross income on advertising, others just 1%.
Research and experiment to see what works best for your business.
2:Fill in the Details
- What are the features and benefits of your product or service?
When determining features, think of automobile brochures that
list engine, body and performance specifications. Next, and more
difficult, determine the benefits those features provide to your
customers. How does your product or service actually help them?
For example, a powerful engine helps a driver accelerate quickly
to get onto busy freeways.
- Who is your audience? Create a profile of your best customer.
Be as specific as possible, for this will be the focus of your
ads and media choices. A restaurant may target adults who dine
out frequently in the nearby city or suburban area. A computer
software manufacturer may aim at information managers in companies
with 10-100 employees. A bottled water company may try to appeal
to athletes or people over 25 who are concerned about their health.
- Who is your competition? It's important to identify your competitors
and their strengths and weaknesses. Knowing what your competition
offers that you don't, and vice versa, helps you show prospects
how your product or service is special, or why they should do
business with you instead of someone else. Knowing your competition
will also help you find a niche in the marketplace.
3:Arm Yourself with Information
- What do you know about your industry, market and audience? There
are many sources of information to help you keep in touch with
industry, market and buying trends without conducting expensive
market research. Examples include U.S. Government materials from
the Census Bureau and Department of Commerce. Public, business
or university libraries are also a good option, as are industry
associations, trade publications and professional organizations.
You can quickly and easily learn more about your customers by
simply asking them about themselves, their buying preferences
and media habits. Another, more expensive, alternative is to hire
a professional market research firm to conduct your research.
4:Build Your Action Plan - Evaluating Media Choices
- Your next step is to select the advertising vehicles you will
use to carry your message, and establish an advertising schedule.
In most cases, knowing your audience will help you choose the
media that will deliver your sales message most effectively. Use
as many of the above tools as are appropriate and affordable.
You can stretch your media budget by taking advantage of co-op
advertising programs offered by manufacturers. Although programs
vary, generally the manufacturer will pay for a portion of media
space and time costs, or mailer production charges, up to a fixed
amount per year. The total amount contributed is usually based
on the quantity of merchandise you purchase.
- When developing your advertising schedule, be sure to take advantage
of any special editorial or promotional coverage planned in the
media you select. Newspapers, for example, often run special sections
featuring real estate, investing, home and garden improvement,
and tax advice. Magazines also often focus on specific themes
in each issue.
- For additional information:
Read SBA's "A Primer on Advertising"
Read SBA's "How to Improve Your
Yellow Pages Advertising"
5:Using Other Promotional Avenues
- Advertising extends beyond the media described above. Other
options include imprinting your company name and graphic identity
on pens, paper, clocks, calendars and other giveaway items for
your customers. Put your message on billboards, inside buses and
subways, on vehicle and building signs, on point-of-sale displays
and shopping bags.
- You might co-sponsor events with nonprofit organizations and
advertise your participation; attend or display at consumer or
business trade shows; create tie-in promotions with allied businesses;
distribute newsletters; conduct seminars; undertake contests or
sweepstakes; send advertising flyers along with billing statements;
use telemarketing to generate leads for salespeople; or develop
sales kits with brochures, product samples, or application ideas.
- The number of promotional tools used to deliver your message
and repeat your name is limited only by your imagination your
budget.
- For additional information:
Read SBA's - 15 Foolproof Ideas for
Promoting Your Company
Read SBA's - 12 High-Impact Marketing
Programs that You Can Implement by Next Thursday
Inc's
Word-of-Mouth Marketing
The Advertising Campaign
You are ready for action when armed with knowledge of your industry,
market and audience; a media plan and schedule; your product or
service's most important benefits; and measurable goals in terms
of sales volume, revenue generated, or other criteria.
The first step is to establish the theme that identifies your product
or service in all of your advertising. The theme of your advertising
reflects your special identity or personality, and the particular
benefits of your product or service. For example, cosmetics ads
almost always rely on a glamorous theme. Many food products opt
for healthy, all-American family campaigns. Automobile advertising
frequently concentrates on how the car makes you feel about owning
or driving it rather than performance attributes.
Tag lines reinforce the single most important reason for buying
your product or service. "Nothing Runs Like a Deere" (John
Deere farm vehicles) conveys performance and endurance with a nice
twist on the word "deer." "Ideas at Work" (Black
& Decker tools and appliances) again signifies performance,
but also reliability and imagination. "How the Smart Money
Gets that Way" (Barron's financial publication) clearly connotes
prosperity, intelligence, and success. |