Advertising Medium & Process
There are several types of advertising medium including display ads, “Run of Press” ads (small reseller ads for Fry’s, CompUSA, Best Buy, etc.), television (ads and infomercials), and radio. An ad campaign can be an
effective way to announce product, increase brand awareness and generate leads. Advertising, however, is just part of an integrated promotional plan. It should often be combined with direct response, event marketing
and on-line initiatives.
Note: This advertising section concentrates on trade display ads. Other forms of medium are not within the scope of this section.
Following are the major steps to setup an effective ad campaign:
- Budgets. Before you can do anything, you must have budget money to invest. Select the link to see how to justify your budgets based on return on investment (ROI). If you
can’t get the budget...don’t bother viewing the rest of this process--you can’t afford it ;-)
- Media Selection. This is the process of identifying which media will most effectively reach your target (the buyers and influencers).
- Media Buying. The process of negotiating the best rates and placement within the media you select.
- Ad Design. The process of designing a campaign that will generate the greatest positive response--leads.
- Tracking & ROI. The process of capturing leads, converting them to profitable sales, and analyzing effectiveness for ongoing refinements.
- Ad Evaluation. A review of numerous ads for effectiveness.
Please select the appropriate link (either above or from the fly-out menu) to find out more.
In addition, an example of how this process was applied in an actual company (although the names were changed) can be found in the appendix section of the sample marketing plan.
Using An Agency (Full Service or Specialized)
When instigating an ad campaign, you can either do it yourself or hire an agency. The agency can be full-service (media strategy, selection, buying, design and evaluation), or specialized. You may also elect to use
select specialized services from a full-service agency. The typical areas of specialty include media strategy and selection (they help you come up with the campaign and media types), media buying (to negotiate and
purchase media) and design (either in-house design from an agency, a separate design firm, or a select independent designer. The designer usually also helps with the design concepts).
In my case, I have used a full service agency, concepters, buyers, and designers. Like all out sourced work, I have had mixed results--even with the same agency. For example, while at the 5th largest software company
I used a full-service agency that helped with the market strategy and plan, media buying, design and even the evaluation. However, I used this same company when I moved to a smaller company just for the initial
concepting stage--although it could have been more. Unfortunately, they thought the current work was a small time opportunity, game me sub-standard service (I paid $10k (in advance) just for the campaign concept,
but their ideas weren’t useable--and they they wouldn’t help further to bring it to conclusion). It was a bad move for them, since the product happened to have been Netscape Navigator and would have been one of
their largest campaigns ever (322 promotions by day 200). Of course they called back later when they realized what they had missed out on, but they had already ruined their account.
At this point, I decided to do more work in-house. However, I have always used separate designers, and even design work from within full-service agencies (like JH&A (banner above)--which I have had great success
with). Alot of the mix between in-house and outside services will depend on the depth of your own marketing department and the ability to find good service companies.
This discussion continues within the media buying section.
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