Tag Archives: Advertising

How to Create An Advertising Plan

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Once you’ve set your marketing goals, you’re ready to create an advertising plan.

Ad Budget
Start by projecting sales for the next twelve months, then allow a certain percentage of those dollars for advertising. Numbers vary, but 3-4% of sales is average. Industry associations collect this kind of information and can tell you how much businesses similar to yours spend as a percentage of sales. Schonfeld and Associates produces Ad-To-Sales Ratios, which covers hundreds of industries. See how yours rates.

Target Market
Who is most likely to need the products or services that you are offering? Are they male or female? Younger or older? Married or single? What they are reading, listening to, and doing?

Where To Advertise
Which media’s audience best matches your target market? Your current customers can provide insight into how to reach more people like them. Which radio stations do they listen to? Which newspapers and magazines do they read? Meet with as many media people as you can. They’ll have valuable information about their users’ demographics, so you can compare how their audience matches with your target group.

What To Advertise
While you may be tempted to advertise items you want to get rid of, items that are desired by the greatest number of people will give you the best return on investment. More traffic through your store will mean higher overall sales and those clearance items will be more likely to sell, too.

When To Advertise
It may seem logical to spend your ad budget evenly throughout the year, but this may not be the most effective method for your business. Analyze sales by month from previous years and distribute your budget accordingly. The right message to the right group in the right vehicle still needs to hit them when they’re ready to make the purchase.  Once you’ve determined who your customers are, how you can best reach them, when they are most likely to need your service and how much you have to spend, you are on your way to developing an effective advertising schedule.

Hospitality Report Finds Tracking Is Important

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Make the most of your advertising dollars by tracking results. By continually asking customers what brought them to you, you will be better able to judge which media and promotions work best. If it’s working well, keep doing it. If it’s not, find out why and change it.

A new Cornell Study supports the claim that tracking is important. The report “Customer Loyalty: A New Look at the Benefits of Improving Segmentation Efforts with Rewards Programs”, found that lodging industry leaders who continue to re-evaluable their loyalty programs end up with more effective programs.

The report, by Clay Voorhees, Michael McCall, and Roger Calantone, is available online from Cornell Hospitality Research at no charge.

Is Cinema Advertising A Good Fit For Your Business?

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When analyzing different advertising venues, one option that is often overlooked is cinema advertising. For businesses that want to reach residents, this can be a cost-effective option. For advertisers who are looking to draw business from nearby, local cinema advertising can be a good fit. One and two-screen theaters draw people who generally live within a seven to 10-mile radius, who have already developed a pattern of patronizing local businesses. Megaplexes and larger regional cinemas draw from a wider area.

Unlike most other advertising vehicles, movie audiences are much less likely to be distracted by other activities. Without a remote control, video game or full refrigerator to fight for their attention, most moviegoers focus their attention straight ahead, at the movie screen. In fact, a 2008 study by IMMI research found that moviegoers are 157% more likely to see ads in a cinema compared to other media measured.

What does it cost?
Rates for on-screen advertising vary. Below are base rates for a handful of local movie theaters that offer on-screen advertising.

  • Crandell Theatre in Chatham averages 2000-2500 people/month and the fee is $60/month.
  • Cinema 1-2-3 in Hudson averages 4500-5000 people/month and the fee is $100/month.
  • The Spectrum in Albany averages 5000 people per month and the fee is $375/month.

How do you know if one these opportunities is right for your business? Start by thinking about what groups of people are most likely to be your customers (consider age, gender, income, etc). Then contact each theatre directly. They can provide you with their audience’s unique demographics and more details about their advertising opportunities.

If you are would like to learn more about onscreen cinema advertising, please call 518.392.0846 or email suzanne@trevellyan.biz.

QR Codes. Next Generation Bar Codes

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QR CodeThere are many methods for driving traffic to a website. Traditionally these included providing fresh content, encouraging other sites to link to yours, and optimizing keywords. Now there is a new method called QR codes and it targets the ever-expanding pool of smartphone users.

QR (short for Quick Response) is a type of barcode that can be read by reader-equipped camera phones. Like bar codes, QR codes hold information. While a typical barcode can hold up to 20 digits, QR codes can hold thousands!

A QR code consists of black modules arranged in a square pattern on a solid background. The information encoded can be plain text, a web address, or other data. The user points a camera phone at the code, and the phones’s browser opens up the link, video or image.

Created in 1995 in Japan by Toyota, the QR code was initially used for tracking parts. Today the uses are much broader. QR codes are found on signs, vehicles, packaging, periodicals, marketing materials, menus, tickets, receipts, business cards, and name tags. One of the more famous applications was by for the 2010 animated movie “9″ which was promoted with green posters containing only a QR code that took users to the movie trailer and special features.

Assessing advertising response rates with traditional media such as radio, tv, and print can be tricky. However, online advertising and applications such as QR codes are easily tracked. This information can help assess a promotion’s success or failure.

If you’re interested in incorporating QR codes into your marketing program, email suzanne@trevellyan.biz or call 518.392.0846.

Evaluating the Effectiveness of Advertising

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I am often asked, “How do I know if my advertising is working?” My response is, “Ask your customers.”

In my business, we track each new contact carefully. Each time we receive a phone call, we write down:

  1. the caller’s name and town
  2. the date they called
  3. the company they are with
  4. how they heard about us
  5. what service they are inquiring about
  6. whether or not we were hired

From this information we can evaluate the effectiveness of our advertising. What’s working? What’s not working? We have tracked changes in response rates after making layout changes, content revisions, and website modifications. We’ve learned which media outlets and messages work best for the different services we offer.

Times will change. New customers will move in and out of our market and our competition will change too. To stay competitive we will need to continue asking and recording, analyzing and revising.

While it takes persistence and commitment, by regularly tracking your customers’ comments, you will compile data that you simply wouldn’t have had without asking. You may have a feeling about what advertising is working best for you, but by asking specific questions and tracking those responses you will have solid data.

End of Year Marketing Tip #1

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If your business is not retail, there’s a good chance that activity will slow down during the holidays. You could put your feet up and relax, or you could begin developing your marketing strategy for 2011. I vote for the latter.

With 2010 still fresh in your mind, think carefully about what worked and didn’t work for you this year. What marketing efforts should you discontinue and what strategy should you expand on? Formalize your objectives by writing them down. Are there organizations you’ve been meaning to contact? Did you want to start a mailing list? How about your website – does it need work?

How you plan to accomplish your objectives is as important as defining them, so follow through by making plans and setting deadlines. Get out your 2011 calendar and be specific. You are more likely to follow through on your plans if your goals are clearly stated and include deadlines.