Dedicated to training and assisting women in business or those who want to start a business.
Posts Tagged ‘Advertising and Marketing’
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Monday, November 19th, 2012
Once you have developed your marketing budget, it doesn’t mean that it’s set in stone. There may be times when you need to throw in another unplanned marketing tactic — such as hosting an event or creating a newspaper ad — to help you reach your market more effectively.
Ultimately, it’s more important to determine whether sticking to your budget is helping you achieve your marketing goals and bringing you a return on investment (ROI) than to adhere to a rigid and fixed budget.
That’s why it’s important to include a plan for measuring your spend. Consider what impact certain marketing activities have had on your revenues during a fixed period, such as a business quarter, compared to another time period when you focused your efforts on other tactics. Consider the tactics that worked as well as those that didn’t work. You don’t have to cut the tactics that didn’t work, but you should assess whether you need to give them more time to work or whether the funds are best redirected elsewhere.
Granted, some tactics are hard to measure — such as the efficacy of print collateral (brochures, sales sheets, etc.), but you need to consider the impact of not having these branding staples in your market tool kit before you reign in your graphic design and print funds.
Marketing plans should be maintained on an annual basis, at a minimum. But if you launch a new product or service, take time to revisit your original plan or develop a separate campaign plan that you can add to your main plan as an addendum.
At the end of the day, the time spent developing your marketing plan, is time well spent because it defines how you connect with your customers. And that’s an investment worth making.
Tags: Advertising and Marketing
Posted in Advertising | No Comments »
Monday, November 12th, 2012
Marketing takes time, money, and lots of preparation. One of the best ways to prepare yourself is to develop a solid marketing plan. A strong marketing plan will ensure you’re not only sticking to your schedule, but that you’re spending your marketing funds wisely and appropriately.
What can a Marketing Plan do for Your Small Business?
A marketing plan includes everything from understanding your target market and your competitive position in that market, to how you intend to reach that market (your tactics) and differentiate yourself from your competition in order to make a sale.
Your small business marketing budget should be a component of your marketing plan. Essentially, it will outline the costs of how you are going to achieve your marketing goals within a certain timeframe.
If you don’t have the funds to hire a marketing firm or even staff a position in-house, there are resources available to guide you through the process of writing a marketing plan and developing a market budget.
Tags: Advertising and Marketing
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Monday, March 19th, 2012
Public Relations is not: Advsertising, Marketing, Publicity or Selling
Public Relations is: Public positively views your business or service.
Be a friend to the media.
Keep updated media lists.
Write, Fax, Call or email about the event.
Send Thank you notes.
Comment, say something!
Tags: Advertising and Marketing, Managing Your Business, Starting a New Business
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Monday, March 5th, 2012
Your marketing plan is your plan as to how you will be selling your product or service through various types of advertising, public relations and sales techniques. A comprehensive marketing plan begins with research, and leads to objectives followed by strategy, execution and evaluation. Each element of any marketing plan is an integral part of the whole, so it’s vital that your plan include these necessary components.
Tags: Advertising and Marketing, Business Plan, Managing Your Business, Starting a New Business
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Monday, October 31st, 2011
Newspapers, radio, television, brochures, business cards, Internet, Facebook, Twitter, direct mailing, yellow pages, telemarketing, billboards, personal contacts, magazines, and networking are all ways to advertise.
What to consider: cost, frequency, what will be advertised and how will we measure the impact?
How do you measure advertisement strategies?
- Ask customers where they heard about your business, did they see your advertisement, if so when and where.
- Check sales with a new advertisement strategy.
- Use coupons and/or” give-aways”.
- Run your ad in two different publications, add an identifying mark for each and then measure effectiveness.
Tags: Advertising and Marketing, Business Plan, Managing Your Business, Starting a New Business
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Monday, October 24th, 2011
- Percentage of sales or profits – This is widely used, but if the sales go down, so do your advertisement dollars when you need them more.
- Unit of Sales – You set aside a fixed sum for each unit sold, based on your experience and trade knowledge of how much advertising it takes to sell each unit. You’re simply basing your budget on unit of sale rather then dollar amounts of sales.
- Objective and task – This is the most difficult and least used, yet it is the most accurate. It relates the appropriation to the marketing task to be accomplished. You set specific objectives to increase sales, determine what media best reaches your target market, and then estimate what you think it will cost to get that sales increase. You repeat this process for each of your objectives.
In closing, be certain that you budget something for advertisement, because without it you are doomed to failure.
Tags: Advertising and Marketing, Business Plan, Managing Your Business, Starting a New Business
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Monday, October 17th, 2011
Many think the marketing and advertisement are the same, but they are not!
Marketing is identifying your customers.
Advertisement is telling customers about your product or services in hopes that they will buy.
Once you have identified your customers, then you begin to explore different types of advertisement media. Develop materials that can be applied regionally and locally, and select the media that will provide the greatest amount of exposure and the most effective means of promoting your business.
Tags: Advertising and Marketing, Business Plan, Managing Your Business, Starting a New Business
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Monday, July 5th, 2010
“We tried it and it doesn’t work”…that’s the way many business owners respond when asked if they advertise their products and services. In most cases a single failed attempt at advertising makes them believe this form of building their business is not for them.
Let’s research a failed scenario at advertising. Usually, a new business owner gets excited about advertising for the first time, comes up with a modest amount of money for an ad and then sits and waits for customers to come pounding at the door. When this first attempt falls short, the entrepreneur curses and vows never to advertise again because “it just doesn’t work!”
A successful business owner once said that “the entrepreneur who saves money by not advertising is like a person who stops a clock to save time”. In the fast-paced business world of today, business owners have to use some means of advertising in order to make potential customers aware if their product or services. Even McDonald’s, the most successful food business in the world, spends millions on advertisement to support the recognition of their products.
Disappointed by the first failure, the entrepreneur doesn’t realize that not enough advertisement was done to even warrant a valid test of it s potential impact on your business sales. Placing on ad in the newspaper and then saying that it didn’t work is like opening your store and then closing it if the first day’s sales don’t meet your expectations.
When it comes to advertising, a lot of entrepreneurs really don’t know what they want, where to go and what to do after they have advertised! Effective advertisement takes time, creativity, and adequate investment, testing and retesting and measuring tactics. Advertisement is like an investment in your future and like an investment, you must find out all that you can about it before you decide to invest, according to Dr, Laino.
To give advertisement a valid test, you must determine the impact on your sales and the “bottom line”. Start with a specific budget amount that will allow you to get your message across to a target group at least a dozen times. It helps to get your customers’ attention by seeing your ad repeatedly and only then will your message begin to sink in. At first you may be disappointed in the results, but don’t quit, commit to spending the full amount that you allocated. Remember that the first time an ad is read it’s usually forgotten, the second time it’s given some recognition and by the fourth or fifth time, the reader thinks that perhaps your ad may have some validity. You should remember that it takes repeated exposure for customers to take notice and ultimately buy your product or services.
Every advertising medium has characteristics that give it natural advantages and/or limitations. Almost every home in the nation has a newspaper in it and reading it is a habit for most families. There is something for everyone from the comics for children, to the sports for the athlete. You can reach your particular customer-base by where you place your ad. Newspapers have professionals on staff that will help you prepare your ad, at no cost to you. Take advantage of their expertise and learn from them, then give your ad a chance.
If your ad fails to produce customers, then go back to the drawing board and develop some new and innovative approaches. Before you give up on advertising…forfeiting its power as a profit builder, it is vital that you take every step to make certain that you have developed a powerful campaign.
Once you have a winning advertisement campaign, stick with it and “don’t fix it if it isn’t broke”. Familiarity is important for getting customers to remember and respond to your ad. Keep your ads easily recognizable, simple, attention-getters, add some white space and motivate readers to buy right away.
The fact is that virtually every business benefits and profits grow from advertising. Although it may take time, investment and a few flops, the payoff will off set your costs many times over. Think about the famous companies that you have come to know and admire such as McDonald’s and Wendy’s. The odds are that they are successful advertisers because otherwise they would still be “mom and pop” stores.
Last but not least is to ask your customers where they heard about your products or services, and record their responses. Later on you can evaluate the effectiveness or your ads by the number of people who have responded to them. This is important because your profits are used to buy advertisement, so it better be effective!
Dr. Laino says, “Remember that you get up by an advertised clock, drive an advertised car and eat advertised foods. Why is it that some entrepreneurs wait to advertise until it’s an ad for going out of business?”
Tags: Advertising and Marketing, Managing Your Business, Starting a New Business
Posted in Advertising, Business, Home Based Business, Money | No Comments »
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