Discover the Parts of an Advertising Strategy that are Right for Your Business

This is a great article I just read on MSNBC.com.  Recaps the benefits of various types of advertising media, and how to get the best ROI to keep your business afloat these days…

Which Ad Strategy Is Right
for You?

Rev up your ROI by
choosing the best medium for your message

By Rosalind Resnick, Entrepreneur.com

updated 1:00 p.m. ET, Wed.,
Aug 19, 2009

Half the
money I spend on advertising is wasted, Philadelphia department store magnate
John Wanamaker was famously quoted as saying. The trouble is I dont know which
half.

Wanamakers dilemma remains the bane of advertisers today–especially
small-business owners on shoestring budgets. Unlike big-name advertisers like
Pepsi, Nike, Apple and Ford, small-businesses cant afford to throw millions of
dollars at Super Bowl commercials or glossy magazine ads. Whether your ad budget
is $5,000 or $50,000, youve got to make every dollar count.

And that means doing the math to calculate the return on investment on every
advertising campaign you run.

Whats ROI? Think of it this way: Lets say you rent a targeted list of 100
dentists in your local zip code and send them each a package containing free
samples of your revolutionary new dental floss. After adding up the cost of
printing, postage, list rental and samples, you may end spending $3 for every
package you mail. This means that your campaign will have bring in at least
$300 in profit in order to break even and $600 to double your money.

Heres the good news: With the double whammy of the recession and the Internet
hurting traditional media channels like newspapers, magazines, TV and radio,
theres never been a better time to buy premium advertising at bargain-basement
prices–even for a small-business buyer.

The key is finding the advertising channel that best fits your company and your
industry and use it to get the biggest bang for your buck. At the end of the
day, its not about how much you spend or how many eyeballs you reach. Its about
how many customers you can bring in the door while still making enough money to
float your boat. And, while no advertising strategy is foolproof (theres always
going to be some initial trial and error before you figure out what works),
youll get better results and waste less money if you do your homework ahead of
time.

E-mail marketing, television, search marketing and yellow pages typically yield
a better ROI for unknown or unbranded direct response offers, says Michael
Weinstein, CEO ofPrimary Systems, a South Salem, N.Y., Internet marketing
firm.Banner advertising, print and social media are better for companies with
existing visibility. For example, Toyota will do better with a banner ad while
a one-time act now offer would excel in print or television.

Heres a quick guide to help you decide which advertising strategy is right for
you:

Print
Despite the gloomy predictions of the death of the newspaper and magazine
industries, print can still be a great way to target a niche market. For
example, if youre looking to sell pre-paid phone cards to Indian immigrants in
Queens or Mexican-Americans in L.A., local ethnic newspapers can be a low-cost
way to reach the entire community in one shot and to deliver discount coupons
that let you track response to your offer. Likewise, a targeted local or
national magazine can offer an inexpensive way to reach quilters or new
parents. Depending on the size of the market and the size of your ad (quarter
page, half page or full page), newspapers will typically charge $5 CPM to $25
CPM (cost per thousand impressions). National magazine rates average $6 CPM.

Broadcast
No media outlet reaches more people than television, which is why its still so
popular among advertisers but also why its so difficult to measure ROI. While
TV may be a great way to market a new car to the roughly 100 million people who
watch the Super Bowl, its not a cost-effective way to reach your target
market–even if you could afford $2.6 million for a 30-second spot. TV
advertising ranges from $10 CPM for a local broadcast to $35 CPM for a
commercial on a popular network sitcom. That doesnt include the cost of
producing the spot.

If a general demographic description is all you need, then TV can be great,
says Jerry Shereshewsky, a New York City ad agency veteran and CEO
ofGrandparents.com. But as soon as you need to get narrower, youre out of luck.

Direct TV is a better bet for small-business owners, especially inventors who
have a blockbuster new kitchen appliance or fitness machine that must be seen
to be believed. Both broadcast and cable television networks offer 30-, 60- and
120-second direct response commercials at a fraction of the cost of traditional
spots. Because DRTV spots usually contain a call to action, you can flash a
toll-free number or Web address that will let you measure your ROI to the
penny. If your product is hot, you may even land a deal with a DRTV production
company to foot the bill for your infomercial in return for a share of the
revenue.

If youre looking to reach a targeted demographic while theyre commuting to work
in the morning or driving home at night, theres nothing like radio. With an
average CPM of just over $4, radio is a low-cost way to reach loyal listeners
of popular DJs and talk show hosts. Radio advertising packages offer more than
just a pre-recorded spot. They often include on-air introductions to your ad
plus interactive contests and giveaways that can help you track and monitor the
effectiveness of your campaign.

Directory
Advertising in the Yellow Pages may be old school, but, if youre a plumber,
electrician, locksmith or other emergency repair technician, you cant afford
not to be there. According to the Yellow Page Publishing Association, 96
percent of U.S. households have at least one copy. When a pipe bursts, a toilet
overflows or someone locks himself out of his house at 2 a.m., you want to be
the first to get the call–even if nobody remembers that the name of your
company is AAA Aardvark Plumbing.

But theres more to advertising in the Yellow Pages these days than listing your
phone number in big bold numbers. With consumers and businesses increasingly
turning to the Internet to find the service providers they need, it may also
pay to list your business in online directories. AT&Ts YellowPages.com
claims it generates over 140 million monthly searches and that 55 percent of
their users have purchased a product or service from a merchant they found there.
Merchants can enhance their listings with interactive features like video
profiles, premium inventory listings, websites and search engine optimization.

Outdoor
Outdoor advertising the signs you see on billboards, bus benches, subways,
trains, airports, even elevators is almost impossible to quantify in terms of
ROI, but it can work wonders for dentists, lawyers, podiatrists and trade
schools looking to reach busy commuters. And, at an average CPM of $2.26,
theres no cheaper way to reach a captive audience. So, while a small resort
hotel may not have the ad budget of a Marriott or a Hilton, theres no better
way to tell weary commuters about your hotel than with a sign that says Pats
Bed and Breakfast, Exit 16.

Internet
No longer an experimental ad vehicle, Internet advertising will total $24.5
billion this year, up 4.5 percent from 2008, according to research
firmeMarketer. Unlike print and broadcast, Internet advertising is easy to
measure thanks to tools that track site traffic and click-through. And its
often cheaper than traditional media because many online publishers charge on
performance, not traditional CPM-based metrics.

Internet advertising falls into three basic categories:

Banner Advertising
The online sister of print and broadcast, banners can give your ad constant
exposure on a popular website or advertising network, letting you associate
your brand with a publication that your prospective customers already trust.
Banner ads generally work best for e-commerce companies that sell directly from
their web pages and boast well-established brands. These are the types of
companies that can take advantage of the fact that their next customer may be
just one click away. Susan Wilson Solovic, CEO ofSmall Business Television,
says banner ads work well for branding campaigns and established brands with a
simple call to action.

To get the most out of banner advertising, its best to run your banners on the
kind of sites that target your desired demographic–working moms, sports car
enthusiasts, business travelers or senior citizens. If youre selling luxury
trips or expensive watches, for example, it may be worth paying $7.50 to $15
CPM to advertise on The Huffington Post. If youre looking to tap the affluent
baby boomer market, you may not mind spending $25 CPM to $45 CPM to run your ad
on AARPs site. But beware: Click-throughs on banner ads are notoriously low, so
make sure youre not spending more on banners that you can realistically recoup
in sales.

E-mail Marketing
Unlike traditional direct mail with its hefty postage, printing and
handling costs, you can blast out an e-mail marketing campaign for little more
than the list rental cost alone–and start ringing up sales within minutes.
Depending on how narrow the market youre trying to reach (for example, divorced
female fly fishers, ages 35 to 45, in Jackson Hole, WY), you can spend a tenth
of a pennyto morethan $1per e-mail addressfor a targeted list of
permission-based e-mail addresses.

Once youve picked your list, the rest is easy. Just whip up some copy, remember
to pop in a link to your website and hit send. Whether you send out your e-mail
campaign to loyal customers or hot prospects, you can easily track ROI by
inserting a URL in your message that contains a special tracking code or which
sends recipients of your mailing to a specific page on your website. A word of
caution: Spam lists containing e-mail addresses compiled from websites,
directories and other sources without their recipients permission continue to
circulate on the Internet. Beware of bargain-basement lists that promise
millions of e-mail addresses–or else you may find your mailings blocked and
your company booted off your ISP.

Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
On the Internet, every store is only one click away. Thats why one of the
most cost-effective ways to drive customers to your site is sponsoring search
terms on Google, Microsoft, AOL and other popular search engines. Unlike banner
advertising and e-mail marketing, which are typically sold on a CPM basis,
pay-per-click marketing requires you to pay only when a prospective buyer types
in the relevant keywords and clicks on the link to your website.

Search is now the tool of choice for shoppers, replacing both local newspaper
advertising and yellow pages, Shereshewsky says.

Even so, its important to choose your keywords carefully and closely monitor
your budget. Because popular keywords like toys, shoes and travel can be
expensive, its often more cost-effective to sponsor more targeted terms like
extra wide womens shoes or luxury hiking trips Nepal. Make sure to test the ROI
of the keywords you sponsor (along with your ad copy and landing page) before
you roll out your campaign in a big way.

In addition to paid advertising opportunities, the Internet also offers the
chance to conduct no-cost grassroots marketing campaigns through blogs, social
networks and bookmarking sites. But dont expect the kind of ROI from Facebook
or Twitter that you get from banners, e-mail or search engine marketing.
According to Weinstein, social media marketing is a great forum to communicate
with your customers, but it takes constant care and feeding and isnt suitable
for marketers looking for an immediate return.

Whether you choose an online, print, broadcast or directory advertising channel
for your next campaign, it pays to do the math before investing your companys
hard-earned dollars. A little planning now will ensure that youll know which
half of your advertising budget is working–and which half youd be better off
employing elsewhere.