3 Tips to Reduce your Advertising
Costs
Advertising
costs are a bitter pill to swallow for many small
businesses. Many businesses rely on advertising to keep
customer traffic up, but the cost of a continuous
advertising presence can be overwhelming for some small
business owners especially in today’s sluggish
economy. Here are 3 tips to help you reduce your
advertising costs while maintaining your advertising
effectiveness.
Piggyback:
Do you regularly send out flyers or mailers to the local
market? Why not share that cost with another small
business. If you normally buy the back page of the
weekly community newspaper, why not split that page with
another reputable retailer? Piggybacking your ad on
another ad, or allowing another retailer to piggyback on
your ad essentially cuts your cost in half. While it may
also reduce your ad response somewhat, it is an
excellent method of maintaining a continuous advertising
presence and saving money. The key is to piggyback with
a reputable partner. If you reduce the size of your ad
you put the control over who gets the other half in the
hands of the newspaper or magazine. Instead, buy the ad
yourself and work out a deal with a pre-selected small
business in your area to ensure that your shared ad is
not shared with a competitor, or a company that you
would prefer not to be associated with.
Reduce
your Frequency: Advertising is usually measured in
two ways: Reach and Frequency. Reach is the number of
people that actually see your ad, and Frequency is the
estimated number of times that those people see your ad.
So a low reach, high frequency campaign will result in
your message being heard often by a fairly small group
of potential customers.
If you
have to sacrifice one of these, it should be reach.
Target your audience very carefully and ensure they hear
from you over the campaign period.
Look
to PR: Advertising is expensive. PR (Public
Relations) is essentially free. If you can gain some
exposure through your local media outlets, you can be
sure that it will generate a better response for your
small business than your typical ad campaign. One
article about your business in a local newspaper or an
appearance on a local TV show is better than advertising
because of the credibility it brings to your business.
You could easily drop a few ads from your campaign if
you land some publicity for your business. By keeping
your local media informed of your business activities,
including things like major sales, expansions, or trends
in your business that customers would find interesting,
you may open the doors to free publicity and save
advertising dollars along with it.
By
piggybacking your ads with those of other companies,
slightly reducing your frequency, and seeking PR
opportunities for your business, you will be able to
reduce your advertising costs without greatly affecting
your advertising response rates.
Article
contents © 2007 by marketingyoursmallbusiness.com
Will
Dylan is the Author of “Small Business Big
Marketing” a powerful e-book for small businesses
available through his website www.marketingyoursmallbusiness.com
. You can contact Will at askwill@marketingyoursmallbusiness.com
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