Whether your business is online, offline, or a combination of the two,
you will need to find cost-effective advertising resources to give your business the greatest chance at success.
New business owners often make the mistake of making advertising an afterthought. They concentrate on doing all the things
that make their businesses attractive, without focusing on how to get as many targeted prospects introduced to their website,
products or services as possible. You may have even fallen into this trap yourself. Perhaps you've spent too much energy,
money and time on "dolling up" your company - hiring hotshot web designers, spending weeks on the best slogan, etc.
Although "bells and whistles" are important, they will not find paying customers for your home or small business.
The best way to approach advertising your business is to prepare a marketing plan that details an affordable
monthly budget, takes advantage of offline and online resources, and measures the results of campaigns.
How much should you spend on advertising monthly?
The general rule of thumb is that you should put about 5 percent of the cost of your expected gross sales toward
advertising. If this is the first time you are advertising your business, however, you will need to go with what you consider
to be a very conservative estimate of this, and work up from there.
What offline advertising should
you consider?
Classified & display ads in newspapers and trade magazines
Business
cards Word of mouth Direct Mail
Yellow Pages
Cable TV Advertising
What online advertising should you consider?
Create an e-newsletter Twitter Craigslist Blogging
Article
Marketing Directories
Pay-Per-Click (PPC) ads
The best way to quickly bring in targeted traffic to your website is
to use Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising from sources such as Google Adwords, Microsoft Adcenter and Yahoo Marketing Solutions.
How should you measure advertising results?
For measuring online campaigns, try using Google Analytics ( http://www.google.com/analytics ). This is
a free resource that will allow you to see a very detailed profile of your online visitors, and allows you to set up measurables
for each conversion (ie., sale or signup) that occurs on your web site.
For measuring offline campaigns,
make sure you find out from each new customer how they came to find out about your company. This can be done through a combination
of methods including, general verbal inquiry, customer surveys and courtesy calls. Document all customer responses and reference
the results back to your ad campaigns.
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The Essential Contents of a Marketing Plan
Excerpt from On Target : The Book on Marketing
Plans
by Tim Berry and Doug Wilson
Every marketing plan has to fit the needs and situation. Even so, there are standard components you just can't do without.
A marketing plan should always have a situation analysis, marketing strategy, sales forecast, and expense budget.
- Situation Analysis: Normally this will include a market analysis, a SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities,
and threats), and a competitive analysis. The market analysis will include market forecast, segmentation, customer information,
and market needs analysis.
- Marketing Strategy: This should include at least a mission statement, objectives, and focused strategy including
market segment focus and product positioning.
- Sales Forecast: This would include enough detail to track sales month by month and follow up on plan-vs.-actual
analysis. Normally a plan will also include specific sales by product, by region or market segment, by channels, by manager
responsibilities, and other elements. The forecast alone is a bare minimum.
- Expense Budget: This ought to include enough detail to track expenses month by month and follow up on plan-vs.-actual
analysis. Normally a plan will also include specific sales tactics, programs, management responsibilities, promotion, and
other elements. The expense budget is a bare minimum.
Are They Enough?
These minimum requirements above are not the ideal, just the minimum. In most cases you'll begin a marketing plan with an
Executive Summary, and you'll also follow those essentials just described with a review of organizational impact, risks and
contingencies, and pending issues.
Include a Specific Action Plan
You should also remember that planning is about the results, not the plan itself. A marketing plan must be measured by the
results it produces. The implementation of your plan is much more important than its brilliant ideas or massive market research.
You can influence implementation by building a plan full of specific, measurable and concrete plans that can be tracked and
followed up. Plan-vs.-actual analysis is critical to the eventual results, and you should build it into your plan.
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