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 Most business owners and managers
keep a fairly close eye on their marketing budgets.
And nothing throws a budget out of whack faster than
advertising.
Advertising, or paying good money to get your message in
front of your target market, still has a place in your
marketing mix, although it's not quite as effective as it
once was.
If you're going to advertise, you need to be smart about
it -- or you can quickly find yourself with a blown budget
and not much to show for it. Below are seven questions to
ask yourself before writing out that check.
1. Do you need to generate customers/traffic/leads/etc.
right away? If so, then you better pull out your
wallet. Advertising is hands down the fastest way to get
your message in front of your target market. (You're
paying for placement after all.)
2. Do you have another way to get the word out about
your business? For instance, do you have a customer
database or an e-zine list? If so, then you might be
better off sending an e-mail (assuming you have customers'
e-mails). Although technically e-mail announcements fall
under advertising, I'm not counting it in this particular
case because it's more or less free (or very low cost).
Perhaps you have a good news angle and a good relationship
with a reporter. Or you have a high-traffic Web site
and/or blog. Or maybe you're an active volunteer with a
large organization and can use networking to get the
message out.
But if none of those really apply, then you'd better take
a closer look at advertising.
3. Do you need to augment your other marketing efforts?
Maybe you have articles featured on a Web site targeted to
your customer base. Great when your article is front and
center and not-so-great when your article is buried in
archives. A little advertising on that site can keep you
in your target market's sight all the time. Or maybe you
struck gold and got a big article written about your
company in the perfect trade publication. Fantastic for
that month and not-so-fantastic for the other 11 months of
the year. Or maybe it's taking you longer than you'd like
to drive traffic to your Web site. Advertising is good for
speeding things along.
Frequency is king when it comes to marketing -- if you're
out of your customers' sight, you're probably out of their
mind when it comes to buying time. Advertising is a good
way to beef up or speed up what you're already doing.
4. Are other marketing methods not appropriate in this
situation? Let's say you want to have a sale. But your
customer database is small (or nonexistent). Your Web site
has minimal traffic. And you aren't going to get any bites
from the media since having a sale isn't news. What do you
do? Run some ads.
5. Would you rather save time than money? Let's
face it. Running an ad is easy. Other marketing methods
are more time-consuming. If you want your marketing to be
easy, then advertising is about as easy as it's going to
get. (Now there is a caveat to this one, because you can
hire people to do some of those marketing tasks, such as
updating Web sites, running PR campaigns, etc. However,
not everything can be hired out so you still might be
stuck spending time you don't have.)
6. Are you planning to test a new campaign or a new
product/target market? Running small, inexpensive ads
can be a good way to test certain marketing aspects before
launching big, expensive, time-consuming campaigns. If you
want to penetrate a new market or if you have a new
product to launch or a new marketing message to try, buy
some ads and see what the response rate is. Another
strength of advertising is control -- you have total
control over your test.
7. Do other marketing approaches never quite measure
up? It happens. Advertising in one or two specific
media outlets seem to generate more sales and more leads
then anything else you've tried. If that's the case, then
don't mess with it. As the old saying goes, if it ain't
broke, don't fix it.
Creativity Exercise -- Advertising and your business
Is advertising right for your business? Try this exercise
and see.
1. What's your biggest marketing
challenge right now? Write it down.
2. Go through the above list of
questions and ask yourself each one. Does it apply
to your situation? If it does, write that down too.
3. Do some brainstorming. In
what ways can you use advertising to solve your marketing
challenges? What media would work best? Online? Print?
Radio? Television? Direct mail? Something else? Make up an
ad for a variety of media.
Now do the exact opposite. Think of ways advertising WON'T
work for your business. Brainstorm at least 25 reasons why
advertising won't work for your specific situation. Be
silly. It's a good way to loosen you up.
4. Go back and reread both your pro
and con lists. Now read your ads. Do you like what
you came up with? Do any of them resonate with you, even
now after coming up with your list of objections?
You may have just come up with your next advertising
campaign.
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