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advertise your business

Media Advertising
Publicity
Press Release Components
Alternative Methods
Calculating Your Advertising Budget
Tips & Tactics 


Advertising is the means for getting information about your product or service to the buying public. While developing your marketing plan as described in the previous chapter, you identified your potential customers in your area of service. Now you must determine the best methods for reaching them. While this is an inclusive chapter, we suggest consulting with an advertising agency.

Media Advertising

Media advertising and publicity can be obtained through interviews, articles and paid ads in newspapers, magazines and on radio and television.

Newspaper advertising reaches large audiences, has a short life span, is relatively inexpensive and is quickly and easily changed.

Magazine advertising is often thought to be too expensive for a small business, but you don’t have to run your ads in the entire edition. You can reach specific geographic and demographic markets by placing your ad in a regional edition.

Radio advertising is usually local, reaches a pre-selected audience, can be changed frequently, is limited to brief copy, is relatively expensive and can be repeated frequently. It is priced according to the length of the message, time of broadcast and frequency.

Television advertising reaches large marketing areas, is relatively expensive and is limited to brief copy. This form of advertising is usually highly professional and is priced according to length of message, time of broadcast, frequency, time of year and whether the station is a network or independent.

An Internet marketing strategy is something that absolutely every modern-day small business start-up needs. While a good starting point is a Web site, Internet marketing requires more than a couple of static Web pages. Instead, successful Internet marketing mandates a dynamic and well-rounded Web presence that builds relationships in addition to sales. A comprehensive Internet marketing strategy replaces newspaper ads with banner ads, yellow pages with search engines, snail mail with e-mail, town squares with social networks and sales letters with custom content. A Web site allows you and your business to have an ongoing “conversation” with customers.

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Publicity

In addition to paid advertising, don’t overlook publicity. It creates news about your business. Research your local media and call them to see if they would do a feature on your business or whether they could use you as a resource in your field of expertise.

It is not enough to just tell them about your business. You must be prepared to present a unique angle. The information you submit and the ideas with which you approach the media must be timely, important and interesting to a large segment of their audience.

You may wish to submit a news release to let people know who you are and what you have to offer. News releases should be short and contain important facts. News releases follow the inverted pyramid style, most important information in the first paragraphs diminishing down to least important in the final paragraphs.

There are three keys to a successful press release:
  • A quality news angle (never send a press release if you don’t have real news).
  • A well-written release (following proper formatting, writing styles, etc.).
  • A tailored press release distribution plan (there isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution to distribution).

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Press Release Components

Release time - The top of a press release should either have “FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE” or an embargo date listed (EMBARGOED UNTIL DATE) if the news isn’t to be published immediately.

Headline - The headline is like the title of your press release. It should grab the reader’s attention, make them want to click or read more, and still manage to introduce the news angle itself.

Summary - Press release summaries are popular in online press release distribution. This should be a two to four sentence summary of the news, expanding on the headline but not as detailed as the press release body. When using offline press release distribution methods, this can be substituted with a oneline sub-heading.

Dateline - The dateline of a press release comes directly before (but on the same line as) the opening body paragraph. It will include the hometown of the company issuing the news release as well as the release date.

Press Release Body - The first body paragraph of a press release should briefly answer the questions of who, what, when, where, and why. Following paragraphs will include supporting details and often a quote from a representative of the company.

Boilerplate - A press release boilerplate is a short backgrounder on the issuing company, person, or organization, generally no longer than one paragraph.

Call to Action - The call to action invites the reader to get in touch with you for any additional details they may need in writing a story.

Contact Information - At a bare minimum include a media contact name, phone number, and e-mail
address. It never hurts to include a mailing address, cell, or fax number as well.

Closing - All news releases should contain a closing mark (often ### or -30-), which signifies to the reader that there’s nothing more to come. If a release goes to a second page, the first page should be marked with something like -more- to make it clear that another page will follow. You can list any addenda (such as photos) just before the closing.

To get a free press release format, visit Free Press Release Writing Guide for some templates you can download.

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Alternative Methods

There are other means of getting the message about your business to your customers. Here are some alternative ideas:
  • Community involvement or sponsorship: Membership in local clubs and organizations can give your business exposure.
  • Direct mail: Goes into your target market’s home or business and into their hands.
  • Telemarketing: Using the telephone to contact new customers or to maintain contact with current customers can be an effective way to reach your market.
  • Networking: Exchanging information about your business whenever possible at meetings, receptions and other social gatherings.
  • Promotional gimmicks.
  • Trade shows: Displaying information about your business at shows that tap into your market is well worth the investment in time and money.
  • Discounts.
  • Yellow Pages listing.
Pay attention to advertising and promotions for your business. How you spend your advertising budget is more important than how much you spend. Spend it wisely.

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Calculating Your Advertising Budget

According to Work.com, taking the time and effort to calculate your ad budget will help you:
  • Ensure that you’re not wasting money by either overspending or under-spending.
  • Better manage your total budget.
  • Determine whether you need additional capital to build your brand (and how much you’ll need).
  • Learn how to measure return on your advertising investments.
  • View advertising not as an expense, but as an investment that ensures your company’s success.
There are several different ways to calculate your ad budget.

Many small businesses simply use a percentage of revenue as their guide for how much to spend on advertising. If you’re going to use this method, you need to figure out two things: what percentage, and what revenue? Rather than generalizing (5 percent revenue) it’s better to use your industry’s average percentage as a guide. For the most accurate number, base the percentage on an average of the last few years’ revenues, or on the average of last year’s revenues and your projection of next year’s revenues.

To find your industry’s average percentage of revenue spent on advertising, search the Dun & Bradstreet Web site.

The unit-of-sales method relies on your experience, plus averages for your industry, of how much it costs to sell a certain specific product. Determine the number of such products you want to sell, multiply that number (1000 widgets X five cents per widget) and you’ll get your total budget ($50). The unit of sales method works well for companies with only a few different products to sell, and for product lines with limited or circumscribed availability (an artist can make X number of carvings per year with one apprentice, for example).

Your need in the unit-of-sales method is to get good key numbers — try your industry trade association. Search for it on the U.S. government’s Consumer Action Web site.

Tie advertising investments to rent expenses. Entrepreneur magazine suggests an unusual way to calculate ad budgets, which should work well for retailers and others whose facilities play a role (any role, limited or significant) in their brand identity. The calculation, which is slightly too complex to repeat here, will provide you with a very specific budget range. Use the tutorial, “A New Way to Calculate Your Ad Budget,” at Entrepreneur.com Web site. Search for the tutorial title.

Another way is to calculate your budget by task and objective. Although this method is the hardest one to use, most experts agree that it’s the most accurate way to come up with the right ad budget. It’s hard because you must first create a marketing plan. What are your objectives? Rank them in order of importance, because you may find that you can’t afford to achieve all of them. Determine: 1) who you want to reach, 2) how frequently you want to reach them, 3) where (through which combination of media) you’ll get the best exposure, and 4) how much it will cost. Add it all up. Too much money? Reduce your objectives.

To use the task and objective method, you need a good marketing plan. If you need a marketing plan outline and want professional help, contact your local SBDC consultant.

Online tools make it easier. There are a variety of calculators online, geared to different industries. Just plug in your numbers and go!

Want to figure out how much your advertising impressions will cost? Visit Marketing Today for an Advertising CPM (cost-per-thousand) calculator and for information on internet marketing.

We should also mention pay-per-click. Nothing has made the analysts who work in the advertising industry happier than the rise of pay-per-click ads and other search engine marketing techniques, because it’s easy to measure their return on investment.

For a great tutorial on measuring your pay-per-click ROI, or “return on ad spend” (ROAS) see Google Adwords Learning Center.

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Tips & Tactics
  • Test your ads; measure the ROI; tweak them, and measure again. It’s the only way you’ll
    really know what works.
  • Trying to build market share? You’ll have to spend more than the industry average
    percentage of sales on advertising.
  • Keep an eye on what your competitors are doing. Maintain a reserve ad fund for those
    times when you must respond to unusual or highly competitive conditions.