The 8 Steps of an Advertising Campaign

Thursday Bram

Description

Here are eight steps you can follow to keep your advertising campaign on track and successful.

Sujets

• Advertising
• Marketing

Informations

• Publié par: Pub.Buzz
• Publié le: 18 janvier 2012
• Nombre de lectures: 197
• Langue: English

Extrait

The8StepsofanAdvertising Campaign

November 30, 2009 | Written By Thursday Bram

In the past, I worked with a business

that made its decisions on where to advertise based entirely on

which publications and stations actually called up and solicited an ad.

While plenty of publications are cold-calling potential advertisers in

hopes of getting a little ad revenue these days, I wouldn’t really

recommend taking a similar route. Instead, approaching advertising

like any other business project can guarantee that your advertising

budget actually has the affect you want in the long-term. An

advertising project isn’t so different from buying a new office or

designing a new product: with the right process, you can complete

your project efficiently and with great results.

Here are eight steps you can follow to keep your advertising

campaign on track and successful:

1.

Market research:

Before you even start thinking about where

you might want to place an ad or even what it could look like,

it’s important to do at least some basic research. Even if you

aren’t in a position to bring in an expensive research firm, you

can ask your current customers questions about why they come

back to you, as well as taking a close look at your target

demographic’s needs and interests.

2.

Budgeting:

Your business probably has a set advertising budget

for the year

—

but how do you divvy it up between your various

advertising projects? For each project you’re planning, you

need to be clear on just how much money you’re willing to

spend. You’ll almost certainly change exactly how you divide it

between costs like copy writing and design, but you can treat

the overall amount as set in stone. Write it down and put it in

your project folder.

3.

Setting goals:

The aims you have in mind for a particular

advertising project need to be written down ahead of time.

While it’s good to be ambitious, it’s also i

mportant to decide

what constitutes a successful advertising campaign for your

business. Sales can be the simplest metric: if you’re advertising

a particular product, how many units will you need to sell to pay

for that campaign?

4.

Advertising venue:

The website, tv station, newspaper, radio

station, magazine or other advertising venue you place your ad

with is a crucial decision. You’ll need to look at not only the cost

of your preferred venues but also whether they reach your

target demographic. Ad buys can make up a significant portion

of your budget. Deciding on where you will place your ads first

tells you how much money you’ll have left over for actually

creating your ad.

5.

Choosing creatives:

Unless you’re planning to write, shoot and

design every part

of your ad, you’ll probaably need to bring in

some help. Finding the right freelancers for each aspect

requires checking through portfolios and rates

—

if you can find

a business or freelancer who can handle all aspects of creating

your ad, even if that means subcontracting, it can save you a lot

of time. You’ll also want to make sure that you find any talent

you’ll need for your ad (voice actors for radio, models for

photography and so on).

6.

Design and wording:

While you may not have a lot of actual

writing and designing to do for your ad, during the creation

process you will need to review and sign off on different stages

of the project. When starting with a new designer or other

creative, make sure that you both know any expectations for

timelines and progress checks.

7.

Placing the ad:

Once you have a finished ad in hand, it’s time to

actually place it with your preferred advertising venue. You may

have a few contracts to sign and a check to hand over. You’ll

also want to make sure you actually see your ad

once it’s run —

from a newspaper, for instance, you’ll want to see the tear

sheets of pages containing your ad.

8.

Evaluation:

Depending on your ad, how you evaluate it can

vary. If it included a coupon, for instance, you can simply count

how many customers brought in the coupon. For other ads, you

may be simply comparing sales before, during and after your

advertising campaign. Spend as much time on analyzing how

your advertising campaign worked as you can. That information

can point you to more effective uses of advertising in the

future.

While following such a set process may seem like it would stifle the

creativity necessary to put together a new ad, following these steps

can actually make it easier. You can minimize confusion and make

sure that everyone is meeting the necessary deadlines

—

and you can

ensure that you’ll be able to measure your ad’s actual cost and

responses during each step. You’ll be better equipped to tweak your

ad or move it to another publication in the future.