Advertising Basics for Business 5

Reprinted with permission from Janet Attard* Copyright 2004. All rights reserved.
     
Do I need an ad agency?

You probably do not need an advertising agency to create ads for local media until you’ve been in business for a while and are spending $50,000 or more a year on advertising. Newspapers, weekly shoppers, and even some radio and TV stations will offer some help and advice if you are creating ads for use in their publications or on their stations. Although a good advertising agency might be able to produce better results, your business may not be big enough to interest them. As your business grows, however, you may want to look into getting ad agency help. If you just need someone to create a brochure or other product literature, you might want to use a freelance commercial artist rather than an ad agency.

How can I judge how well ads are working?

If you are running several different ads at one time you will need to ask people where they got your name, or code ads in some way so you know which ads produced how many responses. Otherwise you have no way of determining which ads are working for you and which aren't, which should be continued and which dropped.

If you are using coupons in your ads, you can put a distinct number or letter in tiny print in a corner of each coupon to indicate which publication the coupon came from. If people will be responding to you by mail, you could key the responses to the publication by changing something noncrucial in the mailing address or adding something like "Suite 5" or "Dept. A" to your mailing address. You might also key an ad by using or not using your middle initial or using a nickname. For instance, if I had three classified ads running for the same product in three different publications, one might say to reply to Janet Attard, another to J. Attard, and another to Jan Attard.

How do I track the ads?

You need to keep a list showing which ads people responded to in which publications. If you have a computer you can keep this list in a database or a spreadsheet program for easy sorting. When you have only a few orders it may seem silly to do this, but as your business grows, you will need to know exactly which ads and which media produced the most orders so you can plan your advertising to get the most mileage for the least money.

How often do I have to advertise?

If your testing shows advertising does bring you customers, then you will probably want to advertise on a regular basis unless your business is seasonal. How often "on a regular basis" is will depend in part on your budget and in part on the media in which you advertise. If weekly publications bring you good results, however, you should probably advertise every week. If you are advertising in a daily publication, you may want to pick certain days of the week to advertise and always run your ads on those days so prospects know to look for your name and number on those days.

Should I advertise on radio or TV?

You will need to compare the costs and results of TV advertising to that of other media. TV advertising must be repeated several times a day for several weeks in order to be effective. It also needs to be aired at a time customers are likely to see or hear ads and respond to them. A tuxedo rental store in one town, for instance, did well with TV advertising right around prom time.

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