[longish post]
Advertising. Small to mid-sized companies, whether B2B or B2C, want leads and buyers, not intangible awareness. As a result, they often decide not to advertise. They can’t track it, their sales people don’t probe inbounds for lead source, they have a limited budget and can’t run with any frequency, there seem to be better venues for their marketing dollars. And so on. There are all sorts of reasons (good and bad) why companies pull back from advertising.
Those that do advertise are increasingly pushing their agencies and in-house ad teams to prove that "traditional" advertising works. There are just too many choices for the promotional budget, and too many that CAN be tracked, for the dollars to flow quite so easily into huge media budgets.
It is perhaps more apparent in B2B, where direct mail and online marketing have really damaged the print media. In the technology sector, ad pages are way down from the heyday of 10-15 years ago, and quite a few publications have folded or gone online.
My belief: the right amount of advertising is good for the marketing plan. The key is figuring the right amount is for your market, your product and your situation. Where do we start?
First and foremost, always, is the marketing plan. What are your objectives? Under certain circumstances, an ad may be the best way to reach your audience. Here are just a few:
- New product launch. Ads are an effective supplement to your PR outreach, especially if you have something really new to offer. Yes, you are going to have a comprehensive PR campaign, but you don’t control that outcome. Ads, you do. When time is of the essence, a well-placed ad is often the best thing.
- Targeted market with specialized publications. If you know your prospect really is reading the publication, she is likely to see your ad. There are from two to six publications in just about EVERY market. You don’t need to be in all of them, all the time. Ask your customers what they read, and go there. For someone on a limited budget, these trade pubs are THE way to go. Smaller circulations mean lower ad rates, but if you’ve got the right target, nearly all the readers are your audience. Versus more general publications with more readers, but perhaps fewer readers of interest to you.
- You need to reach the audience and you ain’t got nothing new. Editors cover new products. Adding a little feature or a new color does not make a product new. It may get picked up, but it probably won’t. If you want the readers of a magazine to know about your OLD product, you gotta advertise. This is especially true in very competitive markets where the offerings from the competitors are not highly differentiated. Hard to break through the clutter. And there is an added benefit when you advertise. Typically the pub’s editorial staff reads its own pub. It’s in the job description 🙂 Advertising doesn’t guarantee that a reporter will write about you, but it improves your chances that she’ll remember your company and its products when she writes on the topic.
My rule of thumb: if a publication is of GREAT interest to you and your prospects –what we call a tier one pub for PR purposes — you should consider advertising. Not all the time, perhaps only in selected targeted issues. But you should support it, and take advantage of the editorial climate it offers to deliver a controlled message. When I was at SurfControl, we noticed that our direct mail responses (the staple of our marketing outreach) declined when we weren’t advertising. Clearly, the ads DID affect overall response, even if we couldn’t track it exactly.
So how do you maximize your ad expenditure?
- Always include a call to action. Tell the prospect EXACTLY what you want him to do next. Try to get your sales force to capture inbound source information.
- A simple message: Show the reader you understand his pain, tell her you have a solution, deliver the proof that your solution works, and give a call to action. One big benefit. Three features. Three facts. Action.
- Integrate integrate integrate. Use the same messages and images in your advertising as in your direct mail and PR. Repetition helps recall. Schedule things so your prospects get 2-4 impressions from different vehicles within short timeframes. Perhaps a couple of ads, a direct mail campaign and a PR launch or trade show. DO NOT let the members of your team splinter off to "do their own thing."
- Track as much as you can. Easier to do online, which is one of the reasons that I recommend ads (print and online) include a specialized URL whenever possible. Sure, a lot of your response will still come in through the front door, but if you give a good enough reason to go to the special page, you can gather better marketing information about the prospect. You should also track the publication dates of your advertising against your web hits. You may find an uptick when ads appear, which is good supporting data.
- You don’t have to run a full page four color ad in every issue. Look at the editorial calendars. Bracket trade shows. Run fractional ads (I like 1/2 page vertical). Challenge the ad rep to give you a good package. They usually have print and online inventory, plus special issues and sister/network publications to throw into the mix to give you a good rate. If you are a company placing the ads direct, DON’T FORGET TO TAKE THE AGENCY DISCOUNT. If you have an agency, negotiate the agency discount. Don’t give 15% away without good reason.
- Always include a call to action. Awareness advertising is next to useless. You’ll get awareness anyway, so don’t forget to ask for the order.
- Don’t let design dictate. The message is far more important than what color you use, and you are wasting your money if the ad design HINDERS reader comprehension of what you are selling. It’s an ad — the reader knows you are selling something, so don’t try to hide it with "cool design." Images and layout are important but the whole thing has to work together to tell the story, and make the prospect act. I can’t tell you how many ads I have seen in my lifetime where the design has actually obfuscated the message. Dumb dumb dumb.
- Did I mention a call to action???
I hope you find this information useful. I’d love to hear YOUR experiences and thoughts about how advertising fits in the marketing plan. Leave your comments or send me a trackback.** I’ll also do a summary post of any commentary in early January.
** call to action