Intro

Marketing is not just about advertising, however advertising does play a part in your marketing plan and can play a significant role in your budget. Some businesses benefit greatly from a well structured advertising campaign and some types of businesses don't really need to advertise in publications. You need to identify your target market and work out what those people pay attention to then locate publications/avenues for you to advertise in that have those people as their audience. Complete our simple Research exercise and use our Research Gathering template to ensure you have all of the information needed to make decisions about your advertising effectively.

Definition

The method in which you expose your business to a mass market, a visual representation of who your are and what services/products you provide.

Benefits

• You are able to hit a lot of targets in one go; you can convey your message to a targeted audience (the specific readers of the type of publication you choose).
• If done well you may get a good response from advertising.

Pros

• You get massive exposure to a targeted audience
• There is the potential to gain a lot of new clients – depending on the ad and the call to action.
• It’s a really good way to get your brand out in to the market en mass

Cons

• Advertising costs money.
• Advertising takes time to work – you have to keep doing it to build up the brand recognition and trust.
• Placing an ad once or twice and expecting great results is a waste of time and money, you need to understand that continuity and consistency wins the race with advertising.
• You can lose money if you get the message wrong.

How to Implement this into your Business

Login to the Marketing Planner to get a pre populated list of tasks which take you through what you have to do to implement this into your business.

Tips

• Choose the right Publication
• Use our vast Media Kit Library to choose where you would be best to advertise, browse through the media kit library and open the relevant PDF’s if the publication appears to it your target market, then note down the  titles and how much it costs to advertise in them and add the data into your marketing planner as you go.

Effective Design and copy

• Make sure you are speaking directly to your target market – generic marketing doesn’t get as successful a result as when you target the message to your specific audience.
• Always add in a call to action
• Be clear and concise with your message – too much info confuses people – use our copy writer brief form to send to your chosen copy writer
• Keep the layout of the ad simple – it is wise to use a Graphic Artist to help you set up the artwork, why not use our graphic artist brief form to help you to tell the artist what you need.

Send Press Release to accompany ad

Consider sending a press release at the same time as you send your ad to the publication. A lot of publications work their editorial in with paying advertisers, so it is worth doing it to get a double whammy if they publish the story. We have a simple method of sending out press releases – simple fill in our press release submission form and we send you a quote.

Articles on this subject

Competitor and target market research exercise