Developing an Advertising Plan

Why Advertise?

Reasons for advertising will ebb and flow throughout the life of your business. The easy, finite answer is so the business makes money and survives. More detailed advertising objectives include, but are not limited to:

• Promote a product or service.
• Increase sales during goal periods.
• Discover a new customer base.
• Build awareness.

Once you’ve determined your purpose for advertising, you can start shaping the plan.

Establish A Budget

When writing a business plan, you include operating costs, goals and objectives for your company. Make sure to factor in a budget for marketing and advertising. While some forms of advertising are free, e.g. networking at business and social functions, other outlets, like direct mail, print, radio, television, online, promotional partnership and sponsorship, have varying cost and payment structures.

Frankly, many business owners neglect to establish an advertising budget upfront and thus, when they want to increase business, find they don’t have the money to do so.

Funding Sources for Advertising

Here are three general sources for your advertising budget:

• A gross amount set within normal operating costs by month or year.
• A percentage of estimated annual gross sales, usually two to ten percent, depending on the status of the company (new vs. established, for example) and purpose for advertising.
• As needed/as available, within the general operation of the business.

A retail outlet that can rely on consistent daily sales may be more successful pulling advertising funding from the week’s tally, while a service-based company might work from a monthly operational allotment.

Research Your Target Audience

It’s imperative to understand the habits of your audience to effectively advertise and maximize the impact of your marketing dollars. Will your customers only come from the west side of town? Do they respond to coupons? Are they online buyers, status buyers, relationship buyers? Once your company is known, what else do your customers need from you or need to know about your services?

Ask existing customers, study ad placement directed to the same audience and examine certain buying patterns for your product or service. These practices will help you customize a plan to reach your clientele.

If your business constantly needs new customers, tailoring your advertising message and the way it’s delivered will assist with this goal.

Talk with Experts

Different advertising experts can provide valuable guidance in the method you choose, so take some time to meet with a variety of advertising representatives. Granted, they’ll also want to call on you again the following week to secure your business, but the consultation they can provide of the inner workings of their medium will make developing an advertising plan easier.

A caveat: no one method of advertising is the absolute best. So consider a few options that target your audience and work within your budget, measure the results and reevaluate before moving forward. As your needs and goals change, so should your advertising.

Developing an Advertising Plan

How a company advertises for a grand opening is completely different from day-to-day awareness campaigns. An advertising plan is similar to a business plan in that it should be structured to accommodate:

• Various stages of growth.
• Sales goals.
• Obvious heavy sales cycles.
• Product/service promotion.
• General awareness.

A well-formed advertising plan considers all these objectives, and outlines them by month, year or sales cycle.

Plan It, Then Work It

For example, a tax preparation service might have four primary advertising opportunities, based on its obvious sales cycle:

1. January, for early birds.
2. Late February/early March, for those still gathering tax information together.
3. Late March, for procrastinators.
4. May, for those with extensions/unsatisfied with their previous tax preparation.

This same service might also have a business goal that includes capturing customers of a different level, such as entrepreneurs paying quarterly estimated taxes looking to balance the business out mid-year. So a secondary advertising window might be July through September in preparation for year-end accounting.

In order to create and place advertising for the upcoming year, the tax preparation service should develop a marketing plan as early as September, which incorporates primary and secondary advertising goals.

Measure the Results

Advertising without measurement is like throwing confetti into a tornado. But measurement vehicles differ as widely as the objectives and goals for a business, so when developing an advertising plan, have a direct form of measurement that correlates to the purpose for advertising.

Measurement may be simple, such as how many new customers responded to a coupon, or more complex, like did a competitor’s market share drop significantly once your product was introduced. No matter the size or type of your business, measuring the results of your advertising helps you establish goals for successful growth.