|
Small
Business, BIG Marketing™
by Will
Dylan ©2004
CHAPTER 3 - PAID
MARKETING TOOLS
Publicity
is a great way to draw attention to your small business.
Still, at some point almost every small business will use some
form of paid advertising to communicate with potential
customers.
This
is a major challenge for the small businessperson. An ad
in your local newspaper will cost hundreds of dollars.
Major dailies cost even more, and radio and TV get
expensive in a hurry. To be successful at advertising,
you must keep the concept of “payback” (or Return on
Investment) in mind.
You
need to measure the cost of the proposed ad against the
potential payback. If you sell widgets and you generate
$5 profit per widget, and the proposed ad in the
newspaper will cost $100, that ad needs to directly
contribute to the sale of 20 widgets for you to break
even. (20 widgets X $5 per widget = $100 payback).
Once you’ve worked this out, take a step back
and ask yourself if you can really achieve this goal
with ONE ad in the paper? That’s what you need to
determine before you spend the money.
Choose
your Weapons
Before
entering into a discussion over how to use advertising
vehicles, here’s a quick marketing 101 primer for you
if you need it:
Newspaper
: There are two
types of ads in newspapers – display and classifieds.
Display ads usually start as small as the size of a
business card and go up to 1 full page. Classifieds are
self explanatory, and less expensive than display ads.
The
issue with display ads is the cost of “creative”,
which is the marketing term for the actual creation of
the ad. Display ads often contain logos, specific
typefaces, graphics, etc. Big companies pay big
advertising agencies to create the look of these ads,
and then they provide the ad to the newspaper. Most
small business people don’t have access to an agency,
so you’ll either be relying on the newspaper to create
the ad for you or you’ll be doing it yourself. Be sure
to ask the newspaper if there is a cost for the creative
before you buy the ad and agree to have them create it.
Magazines:
Generally more expensive than newspaper ads because
magazines have a longer “shelf life”. (Newspapers
are thrown out at the end of the day, while magazines
are usually good for a month. They also have a habit of
hanging around in your doctor’s waiting room for much
longer than that).
Another
reason that magazine ads cost more is that most
magazines are national. It’s not like buying an ad in
your local newspaper, where a few thousand people will
see it locally. Magazines are usually sold across the
country, and thus your ad will be seen by people in some
very far away places. If you run a company that only
services your local area, steer clear of major
magazines. You’re spending money to reach people that
are outside of your trade area.
Continue Chapter 3 >>
<< Back to Table
of Contents
|
