Six Steps to Ensuring
Your Ads Are Effective

By Edward Segal

Advertising can help position, promote, and sell. But what steps should businesses take to ensure their advertising – whether through radio, TV, newspapers or other media – is effective?

If you lack marketing experience, this isn't the time to gain on-the-job experience, or cut corners by becoming your own advertising guru, say professionals. "Don't think that putting together an ad [by yourself] will save you money. It will actually cost you money because [the ad] won't work," says Rob Gelphman, principal of Gelphman Associates, a marketing-communications firm in San Jose, CA. "Spending $5,000 on an ad that doesn't work is a cost. Spending $10,000 on an ad that does work is an investment."

Resist the temptation to write your own ad copy to save money. "It's amazing how many CEOs and presidents think they can write ads," says Mr. Gelphman. "But don't assume that just because you're the president or founder you know how to write ad copy. It isn't your job, and you have no training."

Another reason to leave advertising to the pros is that that you may lack the objectivity to make good marketing decisions. "Entrepreneurs often believe that their business is such a good idea that almost everyone is a potential customer and should be informed. Thus, owners commonly select ineffective promotional media that reaches a large audience, but not the business's target market," says Howard Van Auken, a professor of management at Iowa State University who teaches courses on entrepreneurship.

Here are six steps to ensure your early advertising efforts will be successful:

1. Define your niche. Determining your market niche can help you to differentiate your new business from competitors'. It will also help you to identify your target audience and choose the most effective and affordable ways to reach them. "There are riches in niches, but he who is all things to all people turns out being nobody to no one," says David Garfinkel, president of Overnight Marketing in San Francisco. By tightly focusing your marketing efforts, you'll also be able to customize your message to the needs and concerns of your audience, says Mr. Garfinkel. Collect names and addresses for your database, and use and update those contacts constantly. It's your goose that will lay the golden egg.
2. Develop a message and strategy. Next, create a marketing message and strategy for delivering it to your target audience. Kerry Weiss-Pena, a client-services account manager for Trinity Communications, a Boston-based marketing firm, says the message must be truthful, relevant and comprehensible to target customers, effectively convey the company's value proposition, and be delivered consistently. Most consumers are inundated with messages, but if yours is consistent, potential buyers will begin to recognize your company and its offering, she adds. The most practical advertising strategies have nothing to do with the medium you select and everything to do with whether it reaches the right audience. But far too many small-businessowners proceed in reverse, trying to fit their marketing message to the medium instead of selecting the best one for their message. This wastes a lot of ad dollars in untargeted or mis-targeted advertising.
3. Evaluate your options. Consider the pros and cons of each advertising medium (radio, TV, magazines, direct mail, etc.). Don't become enamored with a particular choice because it seems glamorous. For example, your marketing dollars may have greater impact if they're spent on ads in small-circulation publications read by potential customers instead of TV spots seen by mass groups. Targeted messaging in a targeted medium is the way to build a successful [marketing] program. Other questions to ask include:
   • Is the medium right for communicating your message?
   
   
   • Does it reach your target audience?
   
   
   • How many times will you need to advertise to have an impact on your audience?
   
   
   • Can you afford to use a medium often enough to ensure the success of your marketing efforts?
4. Experiment. Since there's no guarantee which activities will work, there's a degree of risk and experimentation involved in any marketing effort. Try using at least four or five advertising activities and track which ones pull in the most customers. Beef up what works and cut back on what seems to be ineffective. People respond differently to different tactics. Make sure to test before committing your entire marketing budget to a particular message or tactic. For example, if you're contemplating a postcard-based direct-mail campaign, print and mail small batches with different headlines, messages or offers to see which pulls in better responses. Adjust the message for future mailings according to the response on the ones just sent.
5. Budget right. Decide how much start-up capital you can afford to spend on marketing. To determine your budget, ask what you want to accomplish through advertising and what it will cost. Be sure to allocate enough funds and time for your marketing campaign to work. How you budget for advertising is just as important as how much you budget. Spending small amounts at a time might not make enough of an impact. Waiting too long to spend on advertising can be just as damaging. Determine your net sales goals for the first three years of your operation, then budget a percentage for advertising. Other experts say to spend 5 percent to 15 percent of net sales, depending on what you want to achieve, anticipated business revenues and what you can afford.
6. Stay the course. Give your strategy a chance to work and don't second-guess your premise. Trust your value proposition and message. Further, don't assume that competitors have a better strategy in place. "Stick to your guns and your original business plan, even though you might [encounter] competitors or other companies that are seemingly more aggressive in the marketplace," says Ron Dresner, CEO and president of Your PR Department LLC in Farmington, CT. "Realize that you're hearing only half of the story and don't know what's happening behind someone else's corporate doors."