Tuesday, February 26, 2013

Channel Surfing, and Why Once Is Not Enough

Mark From Marketing Says...

In the process of marketing your business, advertising your products and services shouldn't be your first consideration. Knowing what you're selling, and to whom, comes first.

With this knowledge, comes power. In marketing, the power of your knowledge is the ability to clearly and effectively advertise your products and services.

Advertising, in its purest form, delivers your message directly to current and potential customers. The means by which you deliver this message, such as through a newspaper ad, radio spots, website ads, a banner on a little-league right-field fence or even the signage outside of your establishment are known as advertising channels. Think of a channel as just one road of many that you can choose to take in order to speak to your customers.

Your advertising campaign begins, as with everything else in your business, with a budget. A good rule-of-thumb is to devote five percent of your last-year's gross income to this year's advertising budget. This budget will need to cover the creation of your ads, the cost of their placement and any premiums or discounts you may choose to promote as part of your advertising.

This budget should also be an annual budget, not simply a budget that covers advertising created and placed for a few weeks or months. Whether your fiscal year matches your calendar year another date-to-date year, being able to keep all the money together for review and comparison purposes will make next year's budgeting process that much easier. Tracking your results will also show you which ads, and which channels were the most effective when you create next's year's advertising plan.

Once you have your budget, you then need to consider when and how often you intend to speak to your customers through your advertisements. If you are a retailer, for example, you already when the busy retailing seasons are for your products. If you provide a service, such as plumbing or lawn care, you also know when your customers need your services...and when they don't.

An important concept that you need to understand is the importance of repetition in advertising. Research has shown that a listener to advertising needs to see and absorb the advertising message a minimum of three times in order for that message to begin to adhere to the listener's consciousness. This is why you know who that cute lizard is on television. And which insurance company he works for.

In advertising your products and services, your goal is to maximize the number of times a current or potential customer sees or hears your message – called Impressions in the advertising business, and to maximize the total number of people who you deliver that message to – called Reach. Impressions and reach, along with your sales that result from your advertising, will help you to measure the overall effectiveness of your advertising.

Here's where your knowledge of your customers' wants, needs and preferences come into play, and will help you select the best channels to reach them. For example, older customers may prefer to read about special sales or other events in local newspaper ads, while younger customers might want to hear about the same sales via email. Radio spots on the local news-only station will speak to middle-age listeners, while younger males may pay more attention to the same spot when it appears on a sports-talk radio station. Your advertising needs to be where your audience is able to absorb your message, at a time they want to absorb it.

If you are not working directly with a marketing communications or advertising agency, you will be working directly with a sales professional from your local media outlet online channel outlet. These professionals should be able to clearly explain their outlet's Reach and the number of Impressions your advertisement can expect to receive, based on the number and frequency of placements your budget allows. Just remember to spread your advertising among several channels.

As any advertising sales person will tell you, there's a way to reach any target audience – and theirs is the best way to reach the maximum number of your customers!

Finally, let's consider some of the advertising channels that may be available to you:

·         Your Own Website: these days, owning your own website for your business is practically a necessity, and can represent a cost-effective way to advertise. Creating a website can be a do-it-yourself affair, but it's something that's best left to the professionals.

·         Website Advertising: Placing advertising on another website and owning your own website are not necessarily mutually-exclusive ideas. Websites to consider placing "banner" advertisements can include your local Chamber of Commerce's website, regional business or restaurant guide websites, and websites owned by local or regional newspapers, radio or television stations.

·         Radio: Radio is "red-hot," according to the ads that many stations run to attract new advertisers. It may, or may not be. But while it is true that people listen more to radio than watch television, the real questions are about which radio station has the audience groups you want to speak to, and as I mentioned above, when they listen. Away from the major-market radio stations, advertising rates can be surprisingly inexpensive, and the station may even throw-in free production of your ad spot to get your business.

·         Television: Again, away from the major-market cities, television advertising can be inexpensive. However, there is a level of complexity in creating a television spot that you may not want to attempt to tackle yourself. Plus, TV is all about showing the viewer something. Unless you own an automobile dealership, coming up with a product or service in a visually-interesting 30- or 60-second spot may prove to be problematic.

·         Newspapers and/or Shopper Publications: For many small business owners, advertising in the local or regional newspaper or shopper publication represents a cost-effective means to reach adult customers. Many local newspapers offer free circulation of their product within their service area, while most shopper publications are both free and found practically everywhere in the community. And while readers appear to be abandoning the big-city, large-market daily newspapers, research indicates these same readers are turning more and more to their local news and sports that the big newspapers won't cover.

·         Billboards: Essentially, your message – and maybe, your picture – written BIG! Advertising your message using this channel can also come with a big price, and a big challenge. Unless your billboard is located where traffic stops for an appreciable amount of time, drivers have perhaps two seconds to see the billboard and register your message. And then, they're gone. Some of the most effective billboards I've seen have been located right over the advertiser's parking lot – where saying, "Here We Are!" serves also as both navigational aid and local landmark.

·         Direct-mail: An important means to reach targeted audience groups. Direct-mail, such as large postcards or coupons, can be used to address audiences who live within a set geographic area, or those who match a certain age or other desirable attributes.

·         Door-hangers: Considered a cousin of direct-mail advertising, a door-hanger is a flyer that is either hung directly from, or otherwise stuck into, the front doorknob of a residence. Door-hangers are generally circulated within a specific geographic location, most often a neighborhood near the advertiser.

 Go get your board. The surf's up!

 

Mark Paulson is a marketing communications advisor and strategist with extensive experience in for-profit, charity and professional membership association settings. No matter the channel or setting, he is an eloquent communicator who can tell your organization's or product's story to your customers or specific audience groups.

 

Copyright ^©Mark E. Paulson 2013