I’ve been working with small businesses for long enough to know that most standard advertising is fairly ineffective for generating sales pipeline. Sadly I have learnt this the hard way, by wasting money on adverts that have generated a negative return on investment – the negative element being the loss of cash and moral! So why then do I occasionally get caught out by advertising sales reps?
A question I had to ask myself recently when I booked a quarter page ad in a publication in London that turned out to be a bit of a toad. The reason I would hazard a guess is twofold:
1. the skill of the sales rep in presenting a compelling opportunity, and
2. the client’s real need for new leads in these difficult economic conditions made me think twice
Of course when I learnt my advice on this one was a little wayward, I did the only decent thing and offered to cover the cost of the advert should the promised sales leads not appear. Watch this space to see if I have to get my cheque book out.
The other result is that I’ve decided to compile a checklist of questions I must ask and fully understand before I place an order. With the aim of helping everyone to get a better return on their advertising investment, I thought I’d share this here.
- Is the publication readership the same as my target audience / decision maker? (note it is important to really understand your target audience first!)
- Do I clearly understand the target audience description provided by the publication?
- Have I heard of the publication or is it launching?
- What is the format of the publication – A4, A5, glossy, newspaper, portrait, landscape, colour or black and white etc?
- Exactly what size will the advert be?
- Can I secure a guaranteed right hand page? (important as an advert placed on a right hand page generally outperforms those on the left hand page)
- Are any of my competitors advertising?
- What is the publication date?
- What is the publication’s reach – not just the circulation, but total reach?
- Will they offer any guarantees – cost per enquiry for example? (unlikely but worth asking)
- Can the publisher help to put together the creative?
- Have any of my competitors / peers advertised in the publication and if so what results did they achieve? (also, could I have their contact details so I can talk to them and find out about their experiences?)
- What is the total price?
These questions will help me to better understand whether the opportunity will present a return on investment i.e. a value of sales greater than the cost of the advertising. Ultimately, there are lots of other factors which will impact the success of the advert which are not the responsibility of the publication.
In particular, the quality of the text and images used in the advert and the strength of the call to action. For some guidelines on good advert copywriting, check out this post by freelance advertising copywriter John Kuraoka.
I’d very much like to hear the experiences of other small business advertisers as to how you measure and interpret whether an opportunity will present good value?
The best way to avoid disasters is through communication. If our clients do not communicate exactly what they expect, what they feel their weaknesses are, we have a very hard time developing a marketing strategy that fits their needs. No one wants to pay for any research when the research will show you what will work the best. They rather just throw some money aroung and see what sticks and blame you for what didn’t. A lot of marketing companies like ours really do care and want you to succeed and be happy with our services so you use us again… but if your not willing to develop the communication we need to do our job… It is going to be a disaster… when we have the ability to conduct research for a client, the advertising works every time… Smart businesses know this and they always have a great ROI.
This is a must read for anybody involved in advertising. You just don’t want to spend any amount of money over something that hasn’t been helpful in the business. It is essential to be able to analyze the flow in the market, including your competition.
Once i tried PPC but no luck found, rather just wasted my time and money to dealt with PPC, but i cannot advice not take a chance with it because i read all other comments above and found some few people got lucky towards PPC experience.
Thanks for sharing. The most problems for small business is about advertising just like you said mostly it become disaster when feedback unequal with profit and I think marketers learn alot from this articles to push themself find unique niche ways of ads for gaining big profit with smart and smallest cost.
Nice sharing
I totally agree with you. These two points are very important in order to be successful in the advertising campaign. Companies must be careful on these steps because it’s very important to every company success.
Just like any transactions made, anyone should study first the actions taken. Companies are well aware of what they wanted in order to gain, however they should also amount the money to be spent in the ads they are going to generate. This could help in any company or business involved. Thanks for sharing.
You took a risk i must admit. Reading through that list you made geave me a few ideas of my own. You should have made a SWOT analysis in my opinion, weighing all the cons and pros of your actions. Interesting read, thanks.
It takes responsibility to avoid any disaster. It also needs to have good communication with the people directly and indirectly involved in the transaction. The tips you’ve given are of good help in avoiding any ad disasters. It happens once in a while but it helps when you know what you’re doing.
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Let’s be profesionals. In order to have a good and profitable advertisign campain, and before you do a ‘waste of money campaign’, you have to see the right target audience. If you fail in reaching the right audience, the advertising is completely failed. No body will buy and you are exactle like before starting campain
Advertisement is the most crucial part in the marketing department of every company. As far as I know, it has the most biggest budget among the company operation every year.
In order to be successful and avoid advertising disaster, you really need to have a reliable plan that can give you positive result in the future. Feasible plan including extensive research for your target market and reasonable budget are few factors that you must consider.
I totally agree with you. These two points are very important in order to be successful in the advertising campaign. Companies must be careful on these steps because it’s very important to every company success
yeah advertising have now become disaster ,If we really want to avoid advertising disaster then we will try to give best to do client according his demand and grow up skill about sale.
Avoiding advertising disasters by not advertising.
Instead:
- Use social media to the max.
- Submit Press Releases to free PR websites
- Offer a free version
This topic covered up the number of points that surely useful for the client who want to publish their ads