Advertising
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
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.
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.
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.
Comparing Advertising and
Public Relations
Advertising
- Space or time in the mass media
must be paid for. - You determine the message.
- You control timing.
- One-way communication – using the
mass media does not allow feedback. - Message sponsor is identified.
- The intention of most messages is
to inform, persuade, or remind about a product – usually with the
intention of making a sale. - The public may view the message
negatively, recognizing advertising as an attempt to persuade or
manipulate them. - Very powerful at creating image.
- Writing style is usually
persuasive, can be very creative, often taking a conversational tone
- may even be grammatically incorrect. - (Vicki Hudson, Grand Rapids
Opportunities for Women, Grand Rapids, MI, 1/99)
Promotion
- Coverage in mass media, if any, is
not paid for. - Interpretation of the message is
in the hands of the media. - Timing is in the hands of the
media. - Two-way communication – the
company should be listening as well as talking and the various PR
venues often provide immediate feedback. - Message sponsor is not overtly
identified. - The intention of public relations
efforts is often to create good will, to keep the company and/or
product in front of the public, or to humanize a company so the
public relates to its people or reputation rather than viewing the
company as a non-personal entity. - The public often sees public
relations messages that have been covered by the media as more
neutral or believable. - Can also create image, but can
sometimes stray from how it was originally intended. - Writing style relies heavily on
journalism talents – any persuasion is artfully inserted in the
fact-based content.