The “Where Do I Advertise” Advertising Decision

For many small business owners, advertising can seem like an impossible burden to wrap their heads around. Questions like “Where do I advertise?” “How much do I spend?” And “When is the best time to advertise?” come to mind.

As with most endeavors, the answer to the last question begins with the outcome that you desire! Too many times a business owner will simply buy a schedule or place an order because a convincing salesperson talked the business owner into something that ultimately fails because there were no realistic expectations and therefore it was improperly executed!

The beginning starts at the end!

What do you want to happen? What would define a “successful” campaign? Without being able to clearly define these questions you cannot expect any kind of realistic outcome. How do you start?

First… You must clearly define your target market. Who is it you are actually trying to reach? Your business may have either have a single focus or multi-focus in your desired customer targets. If you have a residential lawn care business, for example, it is simple. Where are your prospects located? What home value are you targeting? At what time of year should you focus?
If you are a dentist you may have multiple targets that are different. For example, an orthodontist may target only a certain younger age whereas dental implants would target at the other end of the spectrum! Both the medium and the message would be different in this case if you are to expect the maximum return on investment from your campaigns.

Next, you must define what you can realistically expect from your advertising efforts? Here there are basic definitions for a campaign. It can be “institutional” or “promotional” or both. “Institutional” means that you desire to create a positive “Top of Mind” awareness for your product or service. An example of this might be car collision repair. Here you would stress quality, experience, and reliability.

A “promotional” campaign would include a strong desire to act now to get an additional benefit because of a price reduction. The offers will be gone if you do not take action now. Any type of sale situation is an example of this. Most good campaigns will contain elements of both institutional and promotional elements to induce action and produce measurable results.

Not sure where to begin or end? Perhaps it is time to bring in the DIRECT MAIL XPERTS to help! Professional advertising and marketing consultants will guide you along the way from inception to execution with years of experience and expertise in creating campaigns that get RESULTS! Call today at 888-671-3115 or on the web at www.directmailxperts.com