Advertising And Promotion Plan - It's probably the toughest part of any business. How much to spend, where to place the ads, what message to send, and to who? While there are literally thousands of different promotion avenues available, what distinguishes a successful Advertising and Promotion Plan from an unsuccessful one is FOCUS. So think first of the message that you want to send to your targeted audience. Then look at these promotion possibilities and decide which to emphasise in your marketing plan.
Advertising - The best approach to advertising is to think of it in terms of media and which media will be most effective in reaching your target market. Then you can make decisions about how much of your annual advertising budget you're going to spend on each medium. What percentage of your annual advertising budget will you invest in each of the following:
Bloggers
Direct mail
HD Television
Internet
Magazines
Newspapers
Radio
Publicity - Another avenue of promotion that every business MUST use. Describe how you plan to generate publicity. While press releases spring to mind, that's only one way to get people spreading the word about your business. Consider:
Product launches
Special events, including community involvement
Writing articles and captioned photos
Getting and using testimonials
How to evaluate your ad results - Create a "tracking sheet" for each and every ad you produce in each type of media. This sheet will be filed with a copy of each print ad and the script for each radio or TV ad. Each sheet will contain two major tracking areas:
- First tracking area is the history of the ad. When was it run? What media? What days? What was the cost for the entire run of this ad? What amount was paid by co-op advertising, if any? Art and design charges?
- Second tracking area is the goal of the ad. Who was the ad directed toward? New customers? Regulars? Were projected sales met? Adequate inventory? Proper staffing? Weather? Other events that drew traffic to your area...etc
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