Advertising's Two Important Virtues

1. You have complete control. Unlike public relations efforts, you determine exactly where, when, and how often your message will appear, how it will look, and what it will say. You can target your audience more readily and aim at very specific geographic areas.
2. You can be consistent, presenting your company's image and sales message repeatedly to build awareness and trust. A distinctive identity will eventually become clearly associated with your company, like McDonald's golden arches. Customers will recognize you quickly and easily - in ads, mailers, packaging, or signs - if you present yourself consistently.

What Are Advertising's Drawbacks?

1. It takes planning. Advertising works best and costs the least when planned and prepared in advance. For example, you'll pay less per ad in newspapers and magazines by agreeing to run several ads over time rather than deciding issue by issue. Likewise, you can save money by preparing a number of ads at once.
2. It takes time and persistence. The effectiveness of your advertising improves gradually over time, because customers don't see every one of your ads. You must repeatedly remind prospects and customers about the benefits of doing business with you. The long-term effort triggers recognition and helps special offers or direct marketing payoff.

Getting Ready to Advertise - What is the purpose of your advertising program? Start by defining your company's long-range goals, then map out how marketing can help attain them. Focus on advertising routes complementary to your marketing efforts. Set measurable goals so you can evaluate the success of your advertising campaign. For example, do you want to increase overall sales by 20% this year? Boost sales to existing customers by 10% during each of the next three years? Appeal to younger or older buyers? Sell off old products to free resources for new ones?

How much can you afford to invest? Keep in mind that whatever amount you allocate will never seem like enough. Given your income, expenses, and sales projections, simple addition and subtraction can help you determine how much you can afford to invest. Some companies spend a full 10% of their gross income on advertising, others just 1%. Research and experiment to see what works best for your business.

The Advertising Campaign - You are ready for action when armed with knowledge of your industry, market, and audience, have a media plan and schedule, know your product or service's most important benefits, and have measurable goals in terms of sales volume, revenue generated, and other criteria.

The first step is to establish the theme that identifies your product or service in all of your advertising. The theme of your advertising reflects your special identity or personality and the particular benefits of your product or service. For example, cosmetics ads almost always rely on a glamorous theme. Many food products opt for healthy, all-American family campaigns. Automobile advertising frequently concentrates on how the car makes you feel about owning or driving it rather than performance attributes.

Tag lines reinforce the single most important reason for buying your product or service. "Nothing Runs Like a Deere" (John Deere farm vehicles) conveys performance and endurance with a nice twist on the word deer. "Ideas at Work" (Black & Decker tools and appliances) again signifies performance, but also shows reliability and imagination. "How the Smart Money Gets that Way" (Barron's financial publication) clearly connotes prosperity, intelligence, and success.