How To Choose Advertising

In addition to your own research for places to advertise, if you've been in business for any length of time, you are likely to be bombarded with calls, emails and direct mail offering you advertising opportunities. When there are so many options, how do you choose between them?

Set objectives

The first step is to set your objectives - what are you trying to achieve? More customers obviously, but which customers? If you've analysed your business and broken down your existing customers you should have a good idea of who you are capable of aiming at and how you want to attract them. Now try to be more specific. Do you want more out of season visitors, or more families? Are you targeting walkers or business people or luxury tourists? (Not that there's anything to stop you going after all three, but for the purposes of choosing your advertising, settle on one at a time.) Focusing in on the type of customer that you can realistically hope to a) win and b) meet and exceed the expectations of, will help you choose advertising media that really work for you.

Set and keep control of your budget

The next step is to decide your budget. How much should you spend on marketing and advertising? Accepted wisdom is 5 - 10% of your total turnover (not your profit). So if you turnover £40,000 a year then your budget should be between £2,000 and £4,000 per annum. In reality, some businesses spend nothing like that, others spend more, and often there will be peaks and troughs of expenditure, such as when you have your logo overhauled, or your website revamped.

Whatever you decide to spend, stick to it unless you've got a bomb-proof reason for going over budget. It can be very tempting when an advertising provider rings up with a last minute reduction just before they go to print, and it could be that it is a genuine opportunity for you. But you should still check all of the criteria below, and especially make sure that the medium is right for your business and matches your target audience - otherwise it's a blunder, not a bargain.
Another idea is to set aside a small portion of your overall marketing budget as a 'gambling fund', say £150 - 250 each year, to spend on investigating new advertising opportunities. Often it's easy to play it safe and stick with the same old advertising partners year in and year out. Whilst you should certainly keep on using those that really work for you, you should also experiment with new options that appear to match your objectives. Having a small fund dedicated to riskier options can help you broaden your net, without blowing your budget.

Keep track of every enquiry and sale

The third step is to build on information you already have about what works for your business. Keep track of everything you do and hammer home to your staff that for every enquiry and every booking or sale they should ask, 'Where did you hear about us/How did you find us?' There is no reason why attractions, shops, restaurants and cafés shouldn't ask this question just as often as accommodation providers, yet they rarely do. Customers don't mind, it can even be an ice-breaker, and how can you possibly know how to spend your money if you don't know how your customers are being brought to your door?

Paid for advertising

Whatever your budget, you should aim to get the maximum out of every penny spent. There are 5 criteria to consider when weighing your advertising options. The only way to decide how to use your budget is to set your objectives, research the options, write down the results for each of the five criteria and then choose the most attractive options.

The five criteria are:

What's the cost? Obviously, cost is a very significant factor in deciding if an opportunity is right for you. There are ways to keep the cost down. In print, for example, it is usually cheaper to go for fewer colours, smaller display ads, and less prominent pages. At the web, standard entries are usually cheaper than enhanced ones which may offer the chance to display more photos or have an additional banner or spot opportunity. You have to balance keeping the cost down against being noticed - and take care not to let your ad look cheap. For most customers their first contact with you as a business will be with your advertisements - take care they set the right tone.
Does the readership or target audience match the type of people you are aiming to attract? Reputable advertising opportunities publish this information, you shouldn't have to ask for it. They know what audience they are going after and they gear their own promotional and marketing activities towards attracting them. If it isn't obviously published, ask. You should get a clear, coherent response and they should be able to tell you how and why they are attracting those segments (types of customer).
What is the circulation? Again, reputable sites and publications will have done their research and published this information. They should be able to tell you how many people walk by, buy their publication, visit their website etc and they should be able to tell you the proportions of each segment that make up their total circulation, eg how many families with children under 12 visit their site or how many young professional singles buy their magazine, and so on. Obviously, the higher the circulation, the more exposure your advertisement should get and this is a very significant factor when choosing advertising.
How do they promote the medium? Again, reputable opportunities publish this and if not, ask. They should be able to tell you exactly what they do to get the widest audience. You should look for active, targeted promotion towards the customer types that particularly interest you. Having an established circulation or visitor audience is only half the battle - especially for online opportunities. It's a competitive world and unless advertising providers work hard to keep their spot they can soon slip (though this is slightly less true of some of the long established newspapers and periodicals).
Take a reference. The provider may publish testimonials from advertisers and these are reassuring, but there is nothing to stop you from picking up a copy or visiting a site, finding an advertiser who is similar to you and ringing them up (or emailing if the phone is too direct for you, though you are less likely to get a response and certainly not an immediate one). Tell them you are considering this advertising opportunity for the first time and ask the how they rate it.

Free advertising

Finally a word about free advertising. If the advertising you are being offered is genuinely free then seriously consider it - every business needs all the help it can get. There are only four reasons for not choosing a free option:

Don't take it up if the site or publication appears illegal, unsavoury or otherwise suspect
Don't take it up if the intended audience of the medium appears illegal, unsavoury or otherwise suspect
Don't take it up if you think associating with that medium will create a negative impression of your business
Don't take it up if you think that any customers drawn from the intended target audience could be more trouble than they're worth. This doesn't necessarily mean they are unsavoury or undesirable themselves, it simply means that they aren't sufficiently well matched to your business offering and they may complain a lot, or behave in a way that doesn't match the tone of your business or take up space or services that you know you could more profitably fill with other customers