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¦reate a Plan of Action

Define Your Advertising Budget

Hunt for Affordable Opportunities

Know Your Target Audience

Advertise in Appropriate Mediums




 

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If there is a golden rule for running an advertising campaign, it is that you have to stick
to it.

Sustained Advertising = Recognition = Trust = Sales.

Your advertising campaign is a long-term investment that takes time to show a return.
Your budget must reflect this reality. Expect to run your advertising campaign for two to
four months before your phone really starts ringing. 

When setting your advertising campaign budget, there are two costs to consider:
production costs, and media costs. Budgeting for both is critical for success. 



 Advertising Affects Your Sales More Than Your Price Does





  

We certainly do not want you wasting money on your advertising campaign. With that in
mind, here is a fact that you should know: 

Companies that cut corners on advertising planning and production are wasting a large
percentage of their budget. 

Quality advertising production costs money - all of it up front. But that cost is spread out
over time. On an annual basis, production costs will only be a small fraction of your
media costs. You don't want to buy expensive media space to run poor quality ads. 

Is high quality advertising production really worth it for your advertising campaign? 

Let¶s say you spend 5% of gross sales on your advertising campaign. If you expect
$400,000 in sales this year, you have an advertising campaign budget of $20,000. 

If you did everything right with your advertising, in theory you could reach your target
market 100% of the time with the right message. But no company ever gets it 100%
right. The question is, how much will you miss it by? 

What if half of your customers never see your ad? Or don¶t immediately understand
your ad? Or don¶t get the information they need? Or are insulted by it? What if they
think that your advertising campaign is of a lesser quality than your competitors? What if
you make the wrong offer, or sell the wrong benefit? 

You will have wasted half of your advertising campaign budget ± or $10,000 ± in the
first year alone. 

And there is more. What if you have a great ad, but you pick the wrong media, or use
the media poorly? What if you pay too much for the media you are using? What if your
client never opens your direct mail piece, or doesn¶t get the right motivation? Good
planning and design pays for itself many times over. 

Here is one more thing to consider: Good planning and production work have a long life
span. Many companies never change their basic message and advertising. They start
with professional marketing and production, and they use it indefinitely. This is normally
a good strategy, assuming your advertising campaign is working. 

Make no mistake: Advertising planning and high quality production are critical to your
advertising campaign. Professionally produced materials make you look good, and they
bring you customers. That is what Professional Advertising is all about. 



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Setting a media budget for your advertising campaign can be tricky, especially for new
companies. But as you track and measure the effectiveness of your advertising over
time, you will get a better idea of how much to budget to generate the business you
need. 

Spending too little on your advertising campaign will cost you more than spending too
much. You need to stay in front of your customers. A random or infrequent advertising
campaign schedule equals wasted money. 

We can assist you with some industry guidelines, but as a general rule, we recommend
that you at least match your direct competitors spending on advertising as a percentage
of sales. 

If you want to grow your business, you will probably want to invest more than your
competitors are spending as a percentage of sales. [20% more would be a minimum
starting point]. 

In general, you will get a better response if you use more than one medium. A larger
company will do better to spend money on some combination of print, mail, radio,
Internet, outdoor, and/or television advertising than to spend the budget all in one place.
For smaller companies, you will do better to spread your advertising campaign budget
between print and direct mail to get the best return for your investment. 

But there are no hard rules in advertising. Much depends on your products or services,
and the relative effectiveness of each type of media for delivering your specific
message. Please read Using Media More Effectively and Advertising Planning for more
specific ideas on what media to use.

You will also get a better response if you run smaller, more frequent ads. Don¶t trade
frequency for a one-time big bang in your advertising campaign. Don¶t trade frequency
in print for a less frequent television schedule. 


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