Reduce Your ADVERTISING Costs

 You can waste a lot of time and money if you use inappropriate advertising.

When business is good it pays to advertise.  When business is bad you’ve got to advertise.

Target your messages to specific groups of clients and potential clients and try to measure returns on your advertising investments.

Five of the best tips when advertising a product or a service

* Define your target audience

Precisely, who do you plan to target? The more specific you can be the more effective you will be. The less it will cost.

* Research your prospective customers

Once you know who they are you must find out their habits. Where do they get their information from?

How literate are they? What languages do they speak? Do they watch television? What radio stations do they listen to?

What newspapers or magazines do they read and how well do they read them?

* Select researchers who understand the problems

Your best research is often carried out by someone similar in age and experience to the target group.  For example, if you are marketing a product to the elderly, use well-trained retired people; if targeting farmers, use retired farmers or farmers’ wives.

Employ people who can relate to your target groups and speak the same language.

* Plan your advertising campaign

When you have found out the needs, wants and habits of the people you plan to target you will be in a good position to plan a campaign.

What is the size of your advertising budget?

Can you get free publicity with press releases or news stories?

Can you support good causes or sporting events?

What media do you plan to use? Will you be using handouts, radio, TV, newspapers or internet messages? There are many other ways to consider when planning to get your messages heard or read.

Position your service or products clearly and competitively appealing to people’s hearts, their heads and your budget.

* Analyse the returns from your marketing investment

Blind scattered marketing is wasteful, ineffective and costly. Wasting money on postal drops, for example, is a waste of time and money.

You must know how much money you spent, how much your income increased and how many new clients or customers were attracted by your advertising campaign.

If you have an excellent product or service you will need less advertising. Your customers and clients will do the advertising for you by word of mouth.

–Geoffrey Moss (mossassociates.co.nz)

“The best and cheapest advertising is to give your clients a quality service.”

Source: “Secrets for New Managers”. A collection of guidelines and helpful advice, First published by  Moss Associates Ltd, New Zealand and Cengage Learning, Asia. Also available as an e-book from Amazon.com and VitalSource.

          Most of the articles were first published in the Singapore Institute of Management magazine, “Today’s Manager”. For permission to reprint, I am grateful.