How to Develop an Advertising Strategy For Small Business Owners!

By Steve McMains

Big companies often outsource their advertising campaigns to different advertising agencies. Some companies, especially those who spend a lot of money on direct advertisement, often setup their own in-house advertising agency. What about a small business owner? Do you really find that the big advertising agencies are really interested to sign them as accounts or clients especially for financial reasons! To add to this, normally small business owners are not regular advertisers to attract good advertising agencies.

As small business owners do not have enough advertising budget, they hardly can afford some good advertising agencies. They often write down their own advertising copies (often follow some common format) and go for print advertising for the ease of publishing.

Do these advertisement campaigns really serve any purpose? Or do these advertising campaigns really offer enough return on investment?

When budget is a constraint, you cannot hire great professionals. And as far as creativity is concerned, I believe, communicating the message the right way is more important than decorating the message. After all, in both the situations, the main purpose is communicating properly with the target audience. And if you can do it without a graphic designer or a copywriter and publish it properly via the right channel, the money is worth saving.

Here are some tips that you can follow to create a great advertisement without paying anything to the agencies.

1. What and why? You must find out what you want to advertise and why. For example, new products launch. Now find out why you want to advertise that product. There may be different reasons to promote a product apart from sales. For example, you may advertise the product only to remind the target audience that you are present in the market. In this situation the product is nothing but an opportunity and the actual focus is on your brand and the target market. The success of the campaign mainly depends on how well you can identify the need and how well you can exploit it.

2. What do your existing customers think? Undoubtedly your existing customers are the best critics of your business. Talk to them and find out what the customers like and do not like about your business (and you know where to focus in your advertisement). If you have a direct sales team or someone who directly interacts with the customers or target market, talk to them. They know more about the market demand than the managers. Do not use them as a sales arm alone. If you can use them properly, they can contribute a lot to your development.

3. If you cannot hire a graphic designer or art director, just rely on your copy or message you want to communicate. Write your copy and utter it loudly - take the copy that sounds best in your ears and properly conveys the message.

4. Find out the best and most cost effective way to communicate with your target market. Do some surveys on your existing customers to find out which newspaper or magazines they read; which radio channel they listen; which social network they use etc. You can talk to those channels and get the best advertising rates. Select the medium depending on maximum penetration for the minimum cost.

Before you publish the advertisement - think twice - is it right time to publish the advertisement? And think twice about your final advertising strategy.

Steve is a media professional and writes for different online publications on media and advertising industry. For more information on advertising strategy or trends in advertising he recommends you to visit http://www.adweek.com/.