5 Simple Steps to Prepare Your Business Before You Start Advertising

So you are ready to start advertising? Congratulations! Advertising is the perfect way to increase business growth and see a return on investment. Before you actually start your first advertising campaign, it is important to prepare your business properly and set yourself up for success. Modern advertising requires a blend of technical expertise with a big dose of creativity to make your message distinct from the other competing ads. 

By properly planning your campaign, you will execute memorable ads and have a successful advertising campaign. Continue reading for five important things to keep in mind as you take your first steps along your advertising adventure.

1. Calculate your investment level

Your advertising needs a budget. Even if you and your team have never done this exercise before, start with a baseline cost estimate which can be duplicated for future advertisements. These numbers can go up or down once you get more familiar with the process and you have a more accurate figure of costs vs. profits per ad.

Begin your estimating by thinking small: how much are you willing to spend to get one customer and keep them loyal? What do you want to get out of this effort? Then grow from there – what do you need for payroll and other basic expenses? 

Working with a reputable media company can help you create a realistic budget and calculate how much you’re willing to invest.

2. Define your audience

An easy mistake when planning your advertising is to focus on “everyone” rather than putting more attention into those most likely to want and need your product/service.

Start by answering these questions: 

• Who are your core consumers? What are their demographics like age, gender, location, income level, etc.?
• What are their psychographics? What interests them? What matters to them? How do they spend their time? 
• What is their journey to purchasing? What are the pain points that put them in the need for your product/service? 

You may already have developed an ideal customer profile in your business plan; just expand this to determine the best way to address them in your marketing efforts, including your copy, background music, fonts, and visuals.

3. What’s your goal?

It is crucial to figure out a specific goal related to advertising to help everyone be on the same page throughout the campaign. Are you going to promote a particular product or service? Are you going to tell people about how great your business is? Are you going to let people learn everything you have to offer?

In general, there are two types of ad campaigns: an awareness campaign and an action campaign.

An awareness campaign either introduces a brand or reinforces previous knowledge and emotion about an existing brand, but doesn’t necessarily invite viewers to do something specific about it.

An example of an awareness campaign is the Coca-Cola campaign, “Share a Coke.” In these commercials, the company aims to inspire viewers to share special moments with the people they love. They put specific names on their Coke packaging so that consumers can think of loved ones when they drink their Coke beverage, but Coca-Cola did not necessarily commanding the viewer to buy right away. 

In comparison, an action campaign encourages consumers to get moving by going to a store, placing an order, or calling/visiting for more info.

For instance, mattress companies and furniture stores love encouraging viewers to shop on President’s Day Weekend. Their ads are fast-paced and exciting, since their intent is to push you to buy before time runs out.

Certainly, ads can have elements of both: they remind consumers of their greatness and encourage them to take action. Coca-Cola, which has been a longtime market leader, constantly reminds fans to keep drinking. Its 1971 commercial still invites everyone to make the world a better place.

Your media partners should be able to give you useful guidance on what type of ad could work best based on your goals.

4. Prepare your business

Now it is time to prepare for the anticipated business growth because of your upcoming marketing campaign. It is important to think through questions such as: Can your location and network resources handle a spike in people wanting to know more? Are your customer service people up to the challenge of providing super service even when there’s a long queue of walk-ins or callers?

Look at your site and your social media channels as if you were seeing them for the first time as a curious potential customer. Will it match the look, feel and tone of your commercial? Do all the links work? Is everything spelled right? Is it easy to navigate? Is there info about the advertised promotion on the landing page?

This diligence also should include putting correct links to your site on your commercial and social media, and info on your site about your current promotion. 

Make sure it includes:

• Any URL/link assuring people they’re at the correct site.
• Contact information, including email, text, phone and physical mailing address.
• Design elements that either show up separately on mobile or responsive design so the same page displays well.
  
  

5. Choose the best marketing channels

Now that you have calculated your cost, defined your audience, determined a goal, and properly prepared your business for a spike in traffic it is now time to decide the best medium to use for your advertising campaign. It is important to share your story in the right place, to the right people in order to see results!

It’s time to evaluate the right medium for your goals and your ideal audience, keeping these previous factors in mind.

Possible options include:

• TV ads. According to a Nielsen report, United States adults are watching five hours and four minutes of television per day on average. This shows that there is an extremely high number of viewers watching television for an extended period of time every day, this means more chances to speak to the consumer with your TV commercial. The benefit of a television ad is that it not only reaches a large number of people, but it also provides video, sound, and words and can tell a complete story to the viewer. With interesting camera angles, catchy music, and thoughtfully chosen words, you are sure to grab the attention of your viewers and get them to listen to what you have to say.
• Social media. “Which channel is best” is an entirely separate conversation, but these online networks do have their fans – more than 3.2 billion worldwide. Ads can often be segmented and targeted to different demographics for very little money, and also shared by users if they particularly enjoy them.
• Print. Newspapers and magazines remain popular, especially among older users. Ads also can be read, returned to, and clipped for future reference. If your product/service has a universal/mass market interest, print may be an option.
• Online/PPC. Online ads are great for targeting your ideal customer through keywords and expressed interests. 

One advantage of the current media landscape is that there are multiple directions to try and learn and adjust as needed. 

Overall, people have been focusing on the right way to connect people and products since humans first set up shops. Some basic principles of service and quality hasn't changed, but the methods and available tools sure have. Modern times present us with better abilities to reach more people at once, but it can also create more challenges in identifying where to start advertising your business. By using these 5 simple steps and implementing them before starting your advertising campaign, you will be on the road to success!