To most businesses, advertising in multiple media means expense, headaches and frustration. Often it's the only way to get the attention of your audience. Here is a way to simplify the process and get the job done.
Let's preface this discussion by saying that the more specialized your business is, or if your average ticket is high, the better this methodology will work.
If budget is a concern, and it almost always is, you want to determine the best media for your business that will give you the best return on your investment, called ROI. Generally speaking, the more targeted a media is the more it will cost per unit, but since targeting allows you to select far fewer units, the overall price may actually be lower. So by using targeting, you can actually increase your ROI. So how do you target?
If your a typical small business, your customers come from a certain geographic area. If your a home service provider or medical professional, that area may be a county, certain zip codes, or a city. If you have a retail, restaurant, or automotive business your target will be much smaller, so a radius or an area with street boundaries may be more applicable. So look at your current customers and determine where they come from geographically.
In the geographic area you just mapped out, make a list of the different media that are available. That list may include a city wide newspaper, local newspapers, TV, radio, direct mail, billboards, mobile, and of course online. There certainly are others.
If a particular media cannot target the aforementioned geography of your business, scratch them off your list. An easy example to understand is radio, because radio is not able to target geographically. Same thing for TV. One of the biggest mistakes made is when a business with a single retail location advertises on radio or TV because they received a great price. That is until they realize that the majority of the audience that heard the commercial are too far away to do business with them. TIP: Determine where 80% of your business geographically comes from. That is the geography where you want to spend your money in.
Now that you have a short list of media, ask which ones are able to target the demographics of your business. Demographics are the ages, incomes, home types, education, etc. of your customers. Many media can target demographically, including radio and TV, but you may need to ask. A good example would be if you are a home service provider that does roofing, you may want single family homes that are over 15 years old and over $300,000 in value. Again, determine where 80% of your business comes from demographically. Now ask your short list of media companies if they can target those demographics.
The list of those left standing will be very short. Now your targeting your advertising and maximizing your ROI!
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