Do Business Well

My business plan should include how I intend to approach the complicated issue of advertising. The issues that should be addressed include:

1. How much will I budget for advertising the first year?
2. What basis will I use for determining your budget in the second and ensuing years?
3. Whom do I expect to reach with my message?
4. What advertising media will I use to reach my audience?
5. What message do I expect to convey with my campaign?

It’s the rare business that can build beyond a meager beginning without advertising. At the very least, most businesses should have a presence in the Yellow Pages. At the other end of the spectrum, entertainment firms such as nightclubs or movie theaters have to spend a good portion of their start-up money getting out the word that they’re in town.

If your business depends on the Yellow Pages, you may wish to plan your opening around the date of the distribution of the next issue. I’ve heard many tales of—and have twice experienced—the incredible difference in business that can occur the day the phone books are delivered. If you open shortly after the cutoff date, and have to wait a year for the next edition, you might not be in business to enjoy the benefit.

In determining your advertising strategy, begin by writing down again, in detail, who your customers are. Are you selling to consumers, dealers, OEM’s, the government? Are you selling in a five–zip code area, tywide, across a five-state region, internationally? Are your custo ers a certain age and sex, or do they fit into some other special oup?

It’s important I realize that you may have more than one type of customer who needs to be reached by your message. Take the case of a manufacurer, for instance.

A manufacturer may be selling to a wholesaler, who in turn sells to retailers. The retailer finally sells the same product to a consumer. The manufacturer ends up having at least five customers to whom it will be advantageous to deliver information about theproduct.

He must sell the buyer at the wholesale level. If the wholesale buyer isn’t convinced about the need for your product, the retailer and consumer will never have a chance to make a decision. At this level it may also be important that the buyer’s supervisor and/or the owner of the company is also knowledgeable about your product and feels confident it can be sold.

Next in the chain is the salesman who represents the wholesaler. If he doesn’t take the time to show your item, or is not convincing when he shows it to the dealer, you may find your product bottlenecked at the wholesale level.

The wholesale salesman’s job will be made easier if the owner or buyer at the dealer level is already aware of the product when he walks in. Thus you may wish to advertise to this level also.

It does little good to persuade the retailer to purchase your item if his salesclerks don’t know why the consumer would ever want one. This clerk represents the fourth link in the chain.

Finally, if the consumer visits a retailer and is already primed to buy, you can create some real excitement that may be translated all the way back up the distribution chain. If the dealer sells out quickly, you can be certain that he’ll reorder. If he reorders, the salesman will spread the word to his other customers as well as to his fellow salesmen. If the wholesaler quickly empties his shelf, he may place a larger second order.

As a manufacturer I often wish I had the resources to reach all five of these levels at once. Unfortunately, it would break the company’s back. As a result, each year we must decide which of these levels is the most important to attack.

One year we may spend most of our ad dollars on trade magazine advertising. These ads are designed to reach the wholesale buyer, his salesman, the dealer, and his clerk. However, if we want to be certain to reach the wholesale buyer with a message that is not appropriate for the dealer, we’ll more likely use direct mail.

Another year we might allocate most of our ad budget to consumer magazine advertising. In our industry, the dealer and wholesale personnel also read these special interest magazines. However, if we’re specifically trying to reach the consumer, we might also try in-store merchandisers such as brochures or displays.

Write into your business plan a list of “customers” to whom you need to communicate your message.

The following is a list of media that are available with a short paragraph about each. The Appendix will suggest some further reading that can provide more depth.

Trade magazines. Almost every trade has specialized magazines, newsletters, and/or buying guides that are distributed to members of the trade at very little or no cost. The cost of advertising in these publications is usually very low. Do some research into how well read the trade publications in your industry are. One may be quite popular, while another may go right into the trash.

Specialty magazines. These range from slick four-color magazines to four-page newsprint club papers. Often, use of them will enable you to reach the consumer of your product or service more efficiently. For instance, if you’re selling professional ice skates, you’ll be better off advertising in a magazine read by professional ice skaters as opposed to, say, Sports Illustrated, which is marketed to a more general audience. There is a wide range of pricing for this type of magazine, depending upon circulation and quality of the publication.

General interest magazines. You will want to consider such magazines as People, Business Week, TV Guide, and so on only if you have a product that appeals to the majority of the public, and if you have a national distribution network. It’s rare indeed that the owner of a business with fewer than ten employees will want to risk the cost of an ad in these publications. The cost of a single page can be tens of thousands of dollars.

General circulation newspapers. Local or regional retailers and service providers may do very well advertising in newspapers that serve their customers. Newspaper advertising is fairly expensive, however. Additionally, you, the advertiser, are competing for the reader’s attention with a lot of other advertising.

Outdoor advertising. Billboards, bus benches, and other outdoor media are a much overlooked method of getting exposure. It’s possible to get into this in a big way or a small way. One friend of mine took only a single ad on one bus bench near his retail store with excellent results. Many restaurants off the main drag use a billboard on the main drag to direct potential diners to theirlocation.

Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)
I Made My Own Advertising Work part 1

• Home-run Service businesses: WRITING SERVICES
• Expenditure on Advertising: Would I have made more Profit if I had Spent less on Advertising? (10-18)
• I Made My Own Advertising Work part 3
• Advertising Loves to Entertain; Its Real Objective Should Be to Generate Excitement
• Expenditure on Advertising: Would I have made more Profit if I had Spent less on Advertising? (1-9)
• How Will You Promote Your Product or Service?
• Writing the Business Plan
• How to arrange Advertising, Photo or Article which has the persuasive power?
• Previewing the Business Plan: The Best Type for You
• Launch Your Digital Marketing Program part 1

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