CASE STUDY: USAGE OF INTERNET IN ADVERTISING AND SALES PROMOTION

VAISHALI NITIN SANGARE

DPGD/JA10/0929

SPECIALIZATION: GENERAL MANAGEMNT

WELINGKAR INSTITUTE OF MANAGEMENT DEVELOPMENT & RESEARCH

YEAR OF ADMISSION : JANUARY 2010

APPENDIX-I

CERTIFICATE FROM GUIDE

This is to certify that work titled “ case study – Usage of internet in Advertisement and Sales Promotion is a bonafied work carried out by Mrs Vaishali N Sangare (Roll no DPGD/JA10/0929), a candidate for the Post Graduate Diploma Examination of Welingkar Institute of Management Development & Research Institute under my guidance and direction .

Signature of Guide :

Name : Vijay Balkrishna Konduskar.

Designation : Chief Technology Head

Address : Shop No5, Ground Floor, 41-57,

Rangari Badak Chawl, Kalachowki ,

Mumbai 400033

Date :

Place:

Place

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter - 1 Introduction to the industry …………….………………..……………………….6

Chapter - 2 Introduction to the Organization ……….…………….……………………12

Chapter – 3 Research Methodology.……………………………….……………………21

3.1 Title of the Study …….………………….………………………22

3.2 Planning of Human Resource….……………………...…………24

3.3 Growth and Development at Bhaskar.…….……………….….…30

3.4 Recruitment …….……………………….….……………………33

3.5 Objective of the Study …….……………….……………………37

3.6 Type of Research …….………………………..…………...……80

3.7 Sample size and method of selecting sample ………….…...……82

3.8 Scope of Study …….…………………………….………………86

3.9 Limitations of Study …….………………….………....…...……88

.

Chapter – 4 Facts & Findings …….………………………………………..……………90

Chapter – 5 Analysis and Interpretation …….…………………………………..………92

Chapter – 6 SWOT …….……………….…………………………….…………….……97

Chapter – 7 Conclusions …….…………………………………..………………………98

Chapter – 8 Recommendation and Suggestions …….………….………………………100

Chapter – 9 Appendices ….…….………… ……………………….………..…………103

Chapter – 10 Bibliography ……….….……...……………………….…………………106

USAGE OF INTERNET IN ADVERTISEMENT, SALES PROMOTION

………………………………Real Money making Machine

1 INTRODUCTION

The Internet began as an experiment by the U.S. Department of Defense in the 1960's. The objective was to help scientists and researchers from widely dispersed areas; work together by sharing scarce and expensive computers and their files, through the creation of a set of connected networks that would act as a coordinated whole.

Since then the Internet hit meteoric growth and is now universally accepted as the world's most sophisticated, interconnected database.

INTERNET ADVERTISING

Internet Advertising is also known as online advertising or web advertising may be one of the most effective advertising methods used, as it provides the ability to target specific markets while they are surfing the Internet.

SALES PROMOTION

Sales Promotion refers to many kind of incentive and technique directed towards consumer and traders with intention to produce primarily immediate or short-term sales effects. Def. by AMA,” In a specific snese, sales promotion includes those sales activities that supplement both personal selling and advertising and coordinate them & help them to make effective, such as displays, shows and expositions, demonstrations and other non-recurrent selling efforts not in the ordinary route.

A relatively short time ago, advertising was the dominant element in marketing communication.

Sales promotion was regarded as distinct from advertising and useful as a means of reaching

niche customers to attain short-term sales bursts. This situation has changed dramatically in the

last 25 years with sales promotion now accounting for 75 percent of total promotional

expenditures. Sales promotion includes several communications activities that attempt to provide

added value or incentives to consumers, wholesalers, retailers, or other organizational customers

to stimulate immediate sales. These efforts can attempt to stimulate product interest, trial, or

purchase. Examples of devices used in sales promotion include coupons, samples, premiums,

point-of-purchase (POP) displays, contests, rebates, and sweepstakes.

GOOGLE

Google began in January 1996 as a research project by Larry Page and Sergey Brin when they were both PhD students at Stanford University in California. Eventually, they changed the name to Google, originating from a misspelling of the word "googol", the number one followed by one hundred zeros, which was picked to signify that the search engine wants to provide large quantities of information for people Originally, Google ran under the Stanford University website, with the domain google.stanford.edu. The domain name for Google was registered on September 15, 1997, and the company was incorporated on September 4, 1998. It was based in a friend's Susan Wojcicki garage in Menlo Park, California. Craig Silverstein, a fellow PhD student at Stanford, was hired as the first employee. In May 2011, unique visitors of Google surpassed 1 billion mark for the first time, an 8.4 percent increase from a year ago with 931 million unique visitors.

Growth

In March 1999, the company moved its offices to Palo Alto, California, home to several other noted Silicon Valley technology startups. The next year, against Page and Brin's initial opposition toward an advertising-funded search engine, Google began selling advertisements associated with search keywords. In order to maintain an uncluttered page design and increase speed, advertisements were solely text-based. Keywords were sold based on a combination of price bids and click-throughs, with bidding starting at five cents per click.This model of selling keyword advertising was first pioneered by Goto.com, an Idealab spin-off created by Bill Gross. When the company changed names to Overture Services, it sued Google over alleged infringements of the company's pay-per-click and bidding patents. Overture Services would later be bought by Yahoo! and renamed Yahoo! Search Marketing. The case was then settled out of court, with Google agreeing to issue shares of common stock to Yahoo! in exchange for a perpetual license.

During this time, Google was granted a patent describing its PageRank mechanism.The patent was officially assigned to Stanford University and lists Lawrence Page as the inventor. In 2003, after outgrowing two other locations, the company leased its current office complex from Silicon Graphics at 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway in Mountain View, California.The complex has since come to be known as the Googleplex, a play on the word googolplex, the number one followed by a googol zeroes. The Googleplex interiors were designed by Clive Wilkinson Architects. Three years later, Google would buy the property from SGI for $319 million.By that time, the name "Google" had found its way into everyday language, causing the verb "google" to be added to the Merriam Webster Collegiate Dictionary and the Oxford English Dictionary, denoted as "to use the Google search engine to obtain information on the Internet

Google Data Centers

Google Inc. currently owns and operates 6 data centers across the U.S., plus one in Finland and another in Belgium. On September 28, 2011 the company has announced to build 3 data centers worth more than $200 million in Asia (Singapore, Hong Kong and Taiwan) which the land has been owned by Google Inc. It will be operated between one to two years ahead

Management team

Jump to:

Executive Officers

Board of Directors

Co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin brought Google to life in September 1998. Since then, the company has grown to more than 20,000 employees worldwide, with a management team that represents some of the most experienced technology professionals in the industry.

Board of Directors

Larry Page, Google Inc. Eric E. Schmidt, Google Inc. Sergey Brin, Google Inc. L. John Doerr, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers John L. Hennessy, Stanford University Ann Mather Paul S. Otellini, Intel Corporation K. Ram Shriram, Sherpalo Ventures Shirley M. Tilghman, Princeton University

Executive Officers

Larry Page, CEO Eric E. Schmidt, Executive Chairman Sergey Brin, Co-Founder Nikesh Arora, Senior Vice President and Chief Business Officer David C. Drummond, Senior Vice President, Corporate Development and Chief Legal Officer Patrick Pichette, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Board of Directors

L. John Doerr has served as a member of our board of directors since May 1999. John has been a General Partner of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, a venture capital firm, since August 1980. John has also been a member of the board of directors of Amyris, Inc., a synthetic biology company, since May 2006, and serves on its Nominating and Governance Committee. John was previously a director of Amazon.com, Inc., an Internet retail company; Intuit, Inc., a provider of business and financial management software; Move, Inc., a provider of real estate media and technology solutions; and Sun Microsystems, Inc., a supplier of networking computing solutions. John holds a Master of Business Administration degree from Harvard Business School, and a Master of Science degree in electrical engineering and computer science, and a Bachelor of Science degree in electrical engineering from Rice University.

John L. Hennessy has served as a member of our board of directors since April 2004, and as

Lead Independent Director since April 2007. John has served as the President of Stanford University since September 2000. From 1994 to August 2000, John held various positions at Stanford, including Dean of the Stanford University School of Engineering and, Chair of the Stanford University Department of Computer Science. John has also been a member of the board of directors of Cisco Systems, Inc., a networking equipment company, since January 2002, and serves on its Nominating and Governance Committee and Acquisition Committee. John was previously the chairman of the board of directors of Atheros Communications, Inc., a wireless semiconductor company. John holds a Doctoral degree and a Master of Science degree in computer science from the State University of New York, Stony Brook, and a Bachelor of Science degree in electrical engineering from Villanova University.More about John L. Hennessy »

Ann Mather has served as a member of our board of directors since November 2005. Ann has also been a member of the board of directors of: Glu Mobile Inc., a publisher of mobile games, since September 2005, and serves as chair of its Audit Committee; MGM Holdings Inc., a motion picture and television production and distribution company, since December 2010, and serves on its Compensation Committee; MoneyGram International, a global payment services company, since May 2010; and Netflix, Inc., an Internet subscription service for movies and television shows, since July 2010, and serves on its Audit Committee. Ann was previously a director of Central European Media Enterprises Group, a developer and operator of national commercial television channels and stations in Central and Eastern Europe; Zappos.com, Inc., a privately held, online retailer, until it was acquired by Amazon.com, Inc., an Internet retail company, in 2009; and Shopping .com, Inc., a price comparison web site, until it was acquired by eBay Inc., an e-commerce company, in 2005. From 1999 to 2004, Ann was Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Pixar, a computer animation studio. Prior to her service at Pixar, Ann was Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer at Village Roadshow Pictures, the film production division of Village Roadshow Limited. Ann holds a Master of Arts degree from Cambridge University and is a chartered accountant.

Paul S. Otellini has served as a member of our board of directors since April 2004. Paul has served as the Chief Executive Officer and President of Intel Corporation, a semiconductor manufacturing company, since May 2005. Paul has been a member of the board of directors of Intel since 2002. He also served as Intel’s Chief Operating Officer from 2002 to May 2005. From 1974 to 2002, Paul held various positions at Intel, including Executive Vice President and General Manager, Intel Architecture Group, and Executive Vice President and General Manager, Sales and Marketing Group. Paul holds a Master’s degree from the University of California at Berkeley, and a Bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of San Francisco.More about Paul S. Otellini »

K. Ram Shriram has served as a member of our board of directors since September 1998. Ram has been a managing partner of Sherpalo Ventures, LLC, an angel venture investment company, since January 2000. From August 1998 to September 1999, Ram served as Vice President of

Business Development at Amazon.com, Inc., an Internet retail company. Prior to that, Ram served as President at Junglee Corporation, a provider of database technology, which was acquired by Amazon.com in 1998. Ram was an early member of the executive team at Netscape Communications Corporation. Ram is also on the board of trustees of Stanford University. Ram holds a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Madras, India.More about K. Ram Shriram »

Shirley M. Tilghman has served as a member of our board of directors since October 2005. Shirley has served as the President of Princeton University since June 2001. From August 1986 to June 2001, she served as a Professor at Princeton University, and from August 1988 to June 2001, as an Investigator at Howard Hughes Medical Institute. In 1998, she took the role as founding director of Princeton’s multi-disciplinary Lewis-Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics. Shirley holds a Doctoral degree in biochemistry from Temple University, and a Bachelor of Science degree with honors in chemistry from Queen’s University

Businesses need advertising agencies to help them generate awareness, and more importantly, interest in their offerings. This is one of the best resources out there for finding those who can best utilize the advertising media, advertising agencies

“How to Generate or make money with the help of revenue sharing / referral /images/video /click/streaming video online advertisement.”

“with the help of Online/Offline advertisement buyer as well as seller both can earn money or share revenue ” discussions are as follow:

Internet Advertising is the presentation and promotion of ideas, goods, or services. Therefore the goal of "Internet Marketing Advertising" is to basically make products or services known and create an exchange between individuals and organizations.

The paid, public, non-personal announcement of a persuasive message by an identified sponsor; the non-personal presentation or promotion by a firm of its products to its existing and potential customers

There are several types of internet marketing advertising that can use to promote online business such as:

Google AdWords : Google's AdWords allows advertisers to display their advertisements in the

Google content network, through either a cost-per-click or cost-per-view scheme Adsense Google Adsense, allows website owners to display these advertisements on their website, and earn money every time ads are clicked

AdWords ads are displayed along with search results when someone searches Google using one of your keywords. Ads appear under 'Sponsored links' in the side column of a search page, and may also appear in additional positions above the free search results. That way, you'll be advertising to an audience that's already interested in your business. You can also choose to display your ads on Display Network sites in the growing Google Network. And, you can choose the exact Display Network placements where you'd like your ad to appear, or you can let contextual targeting match your keywords to content.

You can choose from a variety of ad formats, including text, image, and video ads, and easily track your ad performance using the reports available in your account.

Cost: There's no minimum monthly charge with AdWords. Learn more about the cost of advertising with Google AdWords.

Banner ads

A web banner or banner ad is a form of advertising on the World Wide Web delivered by an ad server. This form of online advertising entails embedding an advertisement into a web page. It is intended to attract traffic to a website by linking to the website of the advertiser. The advertisement is constructed from an image (GIF, Flash, often employing animation, sound, or

video to maximize presence. Images are usually in a high-aspect ratio shape (i.e. either wide and short, or tall and narrow) hence the reference to banners. These images are usually placed on web pages that have interesting content, such as a newspaper article or an opinion piece. Affiliates earn money usually on a CPC (cost per click) basis. For every unique user click on the ad, the affiliate earns money.

Typical web banner

The web banner is displayed when a web page that references the banner is loaded into a web browser. This event is known as an "impression". When the viewer clicks on the banner, the viewer is directed to the website advertised in the banner. This event is known as a "click through". In many cases, banners are delivered by a central ad server.

When the advertiser scans their logfiles and detects that a web user has visited the advertiser's site from the content site by clicking on the banner ad, the advertiser sends the content provider some small amount of money (usually around five to ten US cents). This payback system is often how the content provider is able to pay for the Internet access to supply the content in the first place. Usually though, advertisers use ad networks to serve their advertisements, resulting in a revshare system and higher quality ad placement.

Web banners function the same way as traditional advertisements are intended to function: notifying consumers of the product or service and presenting reasons why the consumer should choose the product in question, although web banners differ in that the results for advertisement campaigns may be monitored real-time and may be targeted to the viewer's interests. Behavior is often tracked through the use of a click tag.

Many web surfers regard these advertisements as highly annoying because they distract from a web page's actual content or waste bandwidth. Without attracting attention it would provide no revenue for the advertiser or for the content provider.) Newer web browsers often include options to disable pop-ups or block images from selected websites. Another way of avoiding banners is to use a proxy server that blocks them, such as Privoxy. Web browsers may also have extensions available which block banners, for example Adblock Plus for Mozilla Firefox, or AdThwart for Google Chrome and ie7pro for Internet Explorer.

Pop ups

Pop-up ads or pop-ups are a form of online advertising on the World Wide Web intended to attract web traffic or capture email addresses. Pop-ups are generally new web browser windows to display advertisements. The pop-up window containing an advertisement is usually generated by JavaScript, but can be generated by other means as well.

A variation on the pop-up window is the pop-under advertisement, which opens a new browser window hidden under the active window. Pop-unders do not interrupt the user immediately and are not seen until the covering window is closed, making it more difficult to determine which web site opened them.

Affiliate marketing

Affiliate marketing is a marketing practice in which a business rewards one or more Affiliates for each visitor or customer brought about by the affiliate's own marketing efforts. Examples include rewards sites, where users are rewarded with cash or gifts, for the completion of an offer, and the referral of others to the site. The industry has four core players: the merchant (also known as 'retailer' or 'brand'), the network, the publisher (also known as 'the affiliate'), and the customer. The market has grown in complexity to warrant a secondary tier of players, including affiliate management agencies, super-affiliates and specialized third party vendors.

Affiliate marketing overlaps with other Internet marketing methods to some degree, because affiliates often use regular advertising methods. Those methods include organic search engine optimization, paid search engine marketing, e-mail marketing, and in some sense display advertising. On the other hand, affiliates sometimes use less orthodox techniques, such as publishing reviews of products or services offered by a partner.

Affiliate marketing—using one website to drive traffic to another—is a form of online marketing, which is frequently overlooked by advertisers.[1] While search engines, e-mail, and website syndication capture much of the attention of online retailers, affiliate marketing carries a much lower profile. Still, affiliates continue to play a significant role in e-retailers' marketing strategies

Online classified advertisements

Classified advertising is a form of advertising which is particularly common in newspapers, online and other periodicals which may be sold or distributed free of charge. Advertisements in a newspaper are typically short, as they are charged for by the line, and one newspaper column wide.

Publications printing news or other information often have sections of classified advertisements;

there are also publications which contain only advertisements. The advertisements are grouped into categories or classes such as "for sale - telephones", "wanted - kitchen appliances", and "services - plumbing", hence the term "classified".

Classified advertisements are much cheaper than larger display advertisements used by businesses, and are mostly placed by private individuals with single items they wish to sell or buy.

Email marketing

Email marketing is a form of direct marketing which uses electronic mail as a means of communicating commercial or fund-raising messages to an audience. In its broadest sense, every email sent to a potential or current customer could be considered email marketing. However, the term is usually used to refer to:

Sending email messages with the purpose of enhancing the relationship of a merchant with its current or previous customers, to encourage customer loyalty and repeat business,

Sending email messages with the purpose of acquiring new customers or convincing current customers to purchase something immediately,

Adding advertisements to email messages sent by other companies to their customers, and Sending email messages over the Internet, as email did and does exist outside the Internet

(e.g., network email and FIDO

Search engine optimization

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the visibility of a website or a web page in search engines via the "natural" or un-paid ("organic" or "algorithmic") search results. In general, the earlier (or higher ranked on the search results page), and more frequently a site appears in the search results list, the more visitors it will receive from the search engine's users. SEO may target different kinds of search, including image search, local search, video search, academic search,[1] news search and industry-specific vertical search engines.

As an Internet marketing strategy, SEO considers how search engines work, what people search for, the actual search terms typed into search engines and which search engines are preferred by their targeted audience. Optimizing a website may involve editing its content and HTML and associated coding to both increase its relevance to specific keywords and to remove barriers to the indexing activities of search engines. Promoting a site to increase the number of backlinks, or inbound links, is another SEO tactic.

The acronym "SEOs" can refer to "search engine optimizers," a term adopted by an industry of consultants who carry out optimization projects on behalf of clients, and by employees who perform SEO services in-house. Search engine optimizers may offer SEO as a stand-alone service or as a part of a broader marketing campaign. Because effective SEO may require changes to the HTML source code of a site and site content, SEO tactics may be incorporated into website development and design. The term "search engine friendly" may be used to describe website designs, menus, content management systems, images, videos, shopping carts, and other elements that have been optimized for the purpose of search engine exposure

Pay per click advertising

Pay per click (PPC) (also called Cost per click) is an Internet advertising model used to direct traffic to websites, where advertisers pay the publisher (typically a website owner) when the ad is clicked. With search engines, advertisers typically bid on keyword phrases relevant to their target market. Content sites commonly charge a fixed price per click rather than use a bidding system. PPC "display" advertisements are shown on web sites with related content that have agreed to show ads. This approach differs from the "pay per impression" methods used in television and newspaper advertising.

In contrast to the generalized portal, which seeks to drive a high volume of traffic to one site, PPC implements the so-called affiliate model, that provides purchase opportunities wherever people may be surfing. It does this by offering financial incentives (in the form of a percentage of revenue) to affiliated partner sites. The affiliates provide purchase-point click-through to the merchant. It is a pay-for-performance model: If an affiliate does not generate sales, it represents no cost to the merchant. Variations include banner exchange, pay-per-click, and revenue sharing programs.

Websites that utilize PPC ads will display an advertisement when a keyword query matches an advertiser's keyword list, or when a content site displays relevant content. Such advertisements are called sponsored links or sponsored ads, and appear adjacent to or above organic results on search engine results pages, or anywhere a web developer chooses on a content site.[1]

Among PPC providers, Google AdWords, Yahoo! Search Marketing, and Microsoft adCenter are the three largest network operators, and all three operate under a bid-based model.

The PPC advertising model is open to abuse through click fraud, although Google and others have implemented automated system to guard against abusive clicks by competitors or corrupt web developers

Google Product: Advertising

Ninety-nine percent of Google's revenue is derived from its advertising programs. For the 2006 fiscal year, the company reported $10.492 billion in total advertising revenues and only $112 million in licensing and other revenues. Google has implemented various innovations in the online advertising market that helped make it one of the biggest brokers in the market. Using technology from the company DoubleClick, Google can determine user interests and target advertisements so they are relevant to their context and the user that is viewing them. Google Analytics allows website owners to track where and how people use their website, for example by examining click rates for all the links on a page. Google advertisements can be placed on third-party websites in a two-part program. Google's AdWords allows advertisers to display their advertisements in the Google content network, through either a cost-per-click or cost-per-view scheme. The sister service, Google AdSense, allows website owners to display these advertisements on their website, and earn money every time ads are clicked.

Google : Click Fraud

One of the disadvantages and criticisms of this program is Google's inability to combat click fraud, when a person or automated script "clicks" on advertisements without being interested in the product, which causes that advertiser to pay money to Google unduly. Industry reports in 2006 claim that approximately 14 to 20 percent of clicks were in fact fraudulent or invalid. Furthermore, there has been controversy over Google's "search within a search", where a secondary search box enables the user to find what they are looking for within a particular website. It was soon reported that when performing a search within a search for a specific company, advertisements from competing and rival companies often showed up along with those results, drawing users away from the site they were originally searching. Another complaint against Google's advertising is its censorship of advertisers, though many cases concern compliance with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. For example, in February 2003, Google

stopped showing the advertisements of Oceana, a non-profit organization protesting a major cruise ship's sewage treatment practices. Google cited its editorial policy at the time, stating "Google does not accept advertising if the ad or site advocates against other individuals, groups, or organizations." The policy was later changed. In June 2008, Google reached an advertising agreement with Yahoo!, which would have allowed Yahoo! to feature Google advertisements on its web pages. The alliance between the two companies was never completely realized due to antitrust concerns by the U.S. Department of Justice. As a result, Google pulled out of the deal in November 2008.

In an attempt to advertise its own products, Google launched a website called Demo Slam, developed to demonstrate technology demos of Google Products. Each week, two teams compete at putting Google's technology into new contexts. Search Engine Journal said Demo Slam is "A place where creative and tech-savvy people can create videos to help the rest of the world understand all the newest and greatest technology out there."

Face book Advertisement:

First Social networking NGO allows people to Display Buy/Sell product online with the help of Social Networking Connect more than 800 million potential customers, Choose audience by Location , Age, Interest Test Simple image and text-based ads and use what works.

.

Currently Facebook boasts somewhere in excess of 400 million users and growing. You’ve probably heard this line by now, but If it were a country it would be the third largest in the world behind China and India only. There’s a pretty good bet that some members of your ideal target customer reside in and visit Facebook land, but the trick is to find them.

Facebook’s advertising platform is a vehicle worth exploring. The tool allows you to place small display type ads in the right sidebar of Facebook pages and profiles. At this point it’s not as effective in pure response as well targeted Google AdWords campaigns, but it’s not really the same kind of vehicle and you won’t find AdWords in Facebook, at least for now.

Like many things Facebook, setting up and running successful campaigns isn’t as straightforward as it could be. Below is a description of five steps to consider as you explore Facebook advertising. (Bookmark the Facebook Ad Help Center and return to get answers to the Facebook Ads process)

Target

One of the best things about Facebook advertising is the ability select who sees your ad using a number of variables, including keywords. You can target by geography, age, gender, education, relationship status, workplace and keywords. (I know someone who wanted to send a birthday message to his wife and targeted so narrowly that she was the only who would see the ad.) Demographics are pretty straightforward; the real trick is expanding your keywords to the point where you have a large enough audience to get the job done. Facebook used to have a tool that let you search for the hottest topics being discussed but they shelved it as they build a more robust analytics package. Check out all of your targeting options here:-

Attract and Engage

The first thing you must do is decide whether you want people to be directed to your own web page or something on Facebook like a Page, Application, Group or Event. If you are already the administrator of your Facebook Page, Group, Event, or Application, you can select it from the drop down option. The thing that’s nice about using ads to promote your pages and events is that Facebook puts a “Become a fan” or “RSVP to this event” button right in the ad. People don’t even have to visit your page to take action. There are some pros to sending them to a link on your web site (better tracking options) but by sending them to assets on Facebook you have the ability to multiply their actions through the natural social wall activity that occurs when someone RSVPs to an event. (All their followers automatically see that action.)

Some users find Facebook ads a good tool to promote events or get new fans to the pages. From an engagement standpoint think in terms of using the ads to promote content and value and not so much to sell something. The most successful use of ads on social networks is to create deeper engagement so you have the ability to sell once trust is built. Think about putting white papers on your Fan Pages and promoting that content or creating a free event, like a webinar, and advertising that event. In both of these cases you’ll have the opportunity to sell a bit once you’ve proven you know your stuff. (One quirk of note – when you promote an event created with the Facebook event app the title of the ad will automatically default to the title of the event, so name your event wisely )

You don’t get much space in these ads so use it wisely. Your headline (25 characters) should grab attention immediately with a benefit. You’ll get another 135 characters to describe and entice in the body of the ad. You also have the option to upload an image.

Budget

Facebook advertising works a bit like AdWords in that you bid for keywords and compete to get your ads shown. How effective you are at this depends upon the competitiveness of your keywords. You can choose between a cost per click (CPC) model where you pay only for clicks or a cost per thousand (CPM) model where you pay per 1000 ad views. Most research suggests that the CPC model is slightly more effective in terms of ROI. (Here’s a nice Glossary of Facebook Ads terminology in case this is starting sound buzz wordy.)

To start your campaign you must determine a bid per click and daily budget. You can set both of these numbers very low, but don’t expect much. Initially you are just testing so you’ll want to set your click bid somewhere around the Facebook suggested amount and a daily budget you can

live with, something like $50 or more to start. You can always adjust these.

No matter where or what you should always test your advertising. Online applications like this make it pretty darn simple. You can and should create multiple ad versions. Once you create an ad you will have the ability to create similar ads and run those as well. You’ll be able to easily view which ad is performing the best based on clicks. Facebook does need to approve your ads so make sure you are familiar with their guidelines. Here are some suggestions from Facebook on improving your ads.

Analyze

Once you create and launch your campaigns you need to start tracking and tweaking. Facebook has a tool that gives you some information on actions taken inside the Facebook platform. So, if you are running an ad for an event or Facebook page you can use the Facebook Insights tool to monitor interaction.

Facebook Insights is a nice reporting tool as it can give you information about the actual, not targeted demographics and interests of the people clicking on your ads and keywords that drew that interest. This will help you narrow or broaden your targeting. Page admins can access Insights by logging in and viewing the box titled Insights in the left sidebar. This is only visible to Page admins. If you click on See All you will get full reporting. More information on Insights here and from the very useful blog Inside Facebook.

Facebook does allow you to run ads that point people links outside of Facebook and in order to track these ads you simply and monitor them using your own analytics tool such as Google Analytics. If you are using Google Analytics simply use the URL builder tool in Analytics to create a link to your page that contains tracking parameters and place that in your Facebook Ad as the destination link.

Microsoft Bing :AdCenter

Working Same As Google Advertisement

The Microsoft Bing ad is the first in what's believed to be a $100 million campaign about to pound the world via television, radio, print, and the Web. While the commercials aren't ever expected to mention Google by name, they clearly target the search giant and try to convince users it isn't everything it's cut out to be.

JustDial : Earn through reseller program

Allow Online Business listing as well as Recruiting Direct Sales Agent(DSA)

Types of Advertising :

Virtually any medium can be used for advertising. Commercial advertising media can include wall paintings, billboards, street furniture components, printed flyers and rack cards, radio, cinema and television adverts, web banners, mobile telephone screens, shopping carts, web popups, skywriting, bus stop benches, human billboards, magazines, newspapers, town criers, sides of buses, banners attached to or sides of airplanes ("logojets"), in-flight advertisements on seatback tray tables or overhead storage bins, taxicab doors, roof mounts and passenger screens, musical stage shows, subway platforms and trains, elastic bands on disposable diapers,doors of bathroom stalls, stickers on apples in supermarkets, shopping cart handles (grabertising), the opening section of streaming audio and video, posters, and the backs of event tickets and supermarket receipts. Any place an "identified" sponsor pays to deliver their message through a medium is advertising.

Television advertising / Music in advertising

The TV commercial is generally considered the most effective mass-market advertising format, as is reflected by the high prices TV networks charge for commercial airtime during popular TV events. The annual Super Bowl football game in the United States is known as the most prominent advertising event on television. The average cost of a single thirty-second TV spot during this game has reached US$3 million (as of 2009). The majority of television commercials feature a song or jingle that listeners soon relate to the product. Virtual advertisements may be inserted into regular television programming through computer graphics. It is typically inserted into otherwise blank backdrop or used to replace local billboards that are not relevant to the remote broadcast audience. More controversially, virtual billboards may be inserted into the background where none exist in real-life. This technique is especially used in televised sporting events Virtual product placement is also possible.

Infomercials

An infomercial is a long-format television commercial, typically five minutes or longer. The word "infomercial" combining the words "information" & "commercial". The main objective in an infomercial is to create an impulse purchase, so that the consumer sees the presentation and then immediately buys the product through the advertised toll-free telephone number or website. Infomercials describe, display, and often demonstrate products and their features, and commonly have testimonials from consumers and

industry professionals.

Radio advertising

Radio advertising is a form of advertising via the medium of radio. Radio advertisements are broadcast as radio waves to the air from a transmitter to an antenna and a thus to a receiving device. Airtime is purchased from a station or network in exchange for airing the commercials. While radio has the limitation of being restricted to sound, proponents of radio advertising often cite this as an advantage. Radio is an expanding medium that can be found not only on air, but also online. According to Arbitron, radio has approximately 241.6 million weekly listeners, or more than 93 percent of the U.S. population.

Online advertising

Online advertising is a form of promotion that uses the Internet and World Wide Web for the expressed purpose of delivering marketing messages to attract customers. Online ads are delivered by an ad server. Examples of online advertising include contextual ads that appear on search engine results pages, banner ads, in text ads, Rich Media Ads, Social network advertising, online classified advertising, advertising networks and e-mail marketing, including e-mail spam.

Product placements

Covert advertising, also known as guerrilla advertising, is when a product or brand is embedded in entertainment and media. For example, in a film, the main character can use an item or other of a definite brand, as in the movie Minority Report, where Tom Cruise's character John Anderton owns a phone with the Nokia logo clearly written in the top corner, or his watch engraved with the Bulgari logo. Another example of advertising in film is in I, Robot, where main character played by Will Smith mentions his Converse shoes several times, calling them "classics," because the film is set far in the future. I, Robot and Spaceballs also showcase futuristic cars with the Audi and Mercedes-Benz logos clearly displayed on the front of the vehicles. Cadillac chose to advertise in the movie The Matrix Reloaded, which as a result contained many scenes in which Cadillac cars were used. Similarly, product placement for Omega Watches, Ford, VAIO, BMW and Aston Martin cars are featured in recent James Bond films, most notably Casino Royale. In "Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer", the main transport vehicle shows a large Dodge logo on the front. Blade Runner includes some of the most obvious product placement; the whole film stops to show a Coca-Cola billboard.

Press advertising

Press advertising describes advertising in a printed medium such as a newspaper, magazine, or trade journal. This encompasses everything from media with a very broad readership base, such as a major national newspaper or magazine, to more narrowly targeted media such as local newspapers and trade journals on very specialized topics. A form of press advertising is classified advertising, which allows private individuals or companies to purchase a small, narrowly targeted ad for a low fee advertising a product or service. Another form of press advertising is the Display Ad, which is a larger ad (can include art) that typically run in an article section of a newspaper.

Billboard advertising

Billboards are large structures located in public places which display advertisements to

passing pedestrians and motorists. Most often, they are located on main roads with a large amount of passing motor and pedestrian traffic; however, they can be placed in any location with large amounts of viewers, such as on mass transit vehicles and in stations, in shopping malls or office buildings, and in stadiums.

Mobile billboard advertising

Mobile billboards are generally vehicle mounted billboards or digital screens. These can be on dedicated vehicles built solely for carrying advertisements along routes preselected by clients, they can also be specially equipped cargo trucks or, in some cases, large banners strewn from planes. The billboards are often lighted; some being backlit, and others employing spotlights. Some billboard displays are static, while others change; for example, continuously or periodically rotating among a set of advertisements. Mobile displays are used for various situations in metropolitan areas throughout the world, including: Target advertising, One-day, and long-term campaigns, Conventions, Sporting events, Store openings and similar promotional events, and Big advertisements from smaller companies.

In-store advertising

In-store advertising is any advertisement placed in a retail store. It includes placement of a product in visible locations in a store, such as at eye level, at the ends of aisles and near checkout counters (aka POP—Point Of Purchase display), eye-catching displays promoting a specific product, and advertisements in such places as shopping carts and in-store video displays.

Coffee cup advertising

Coffee cup advertising is any advertisement placed upon a coffee cup that is distributed out of an office, café, or drive-through coffee shop. This form of advertising was first popularized in Australia, and has begun growing in popularity in the United States, India, and parts of the Middle East.

Street advertising

This type of advertising first came to prominence in the UK by Street Advertising Services to create outdoor advertising on street furniture and pavements. Working with products such as Reverse Graffiti, air dancer's and 3D pavement advertising, the media became an affordable and effective tool for getting brand messages out into public spaces.

Celebrity branding

This type of advertising focuses upon using celebrity power, fame, money, popularity to gain recognition for their products and promote specific stores or products. Advertisers often advertise their products, for example, when celebrities share their favorite products or wear clothes by specific brands or designers. Celebrities are often involved in advertising campaigns such as television or print adverts to advertise specific or general products. The use of celebrities to endorse a brand can have its downsides, however. One mistake by a celebrity can be detrimental to the public relations of a brand. For example, following his performance of eight gold medals at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, China, swimmer Michael Phelps' contract with Kellogg's was terminated, as Kellogg's did not want to associate with him after he was photographed smoking marijuana.

Online advertising

Online advertising is a form of promotion that uses the Internet and World Wide Web for the expressed purpose of delivering marketing messages to attract customers. Examples of online advertising include contextual ads that appear on search engine results pages, banner ads, in text ads, Rich Media Ads, Social network advertising, online classified advertising, advertising networks and e-mail marketing, including e-mail spam.

Advertising Media Planning:

1. Introduction

The two basic tasks of marketing communications are message creation and message dissemination. Media planning supports message dissemination. Media planning helps you determine which media to use--be it television programs, newspapers, bus-stop posters, in-store displays, banner ads on the Web, or a flyer on Facebook. It also tells you when and where to use media in order to reach your desired audience. Simply put, media planning refers to the process of selecting media time and space to disseminate advertising messages in order to accomplish marketing objectives. When advertisers run commercials during the Super Bowl game at more than $2.5 million per thirty-second spot, for example, media planners are involved in the negotiation and placement.

Media planners often see their role from a brand contact perspective. Instead of focusing solely on what medium is used for message dissemination, media planners also pay attention to how to create and manage brand contact. Brand contact is any planned and unplanned form of exposure to and interaction with a product or service. For example, when you see an ad for Volkswagen on TV, hear a Mazda's "zoom zoom" slogan on the radio, are told by a friend that her iPod is the greatest invention, or sample a a new flavor of Piranha energy drink at the grocery store, you are having a brand contact. Television commercials, radio ads, and product sampling are planned forms of brand contact. Word of mouth is an unplanned brand contact -- advertisers normally do not plan for word of mouth. From the consumer's perspective, however, unplanned forms of brand contact may be more influential because they are less suspicious compared to advertising.

The brand contact perspective shows how the role of media planners has expanded. First, media planners have moved from focusing only on traditional media to integrating traditional media and new media. New media -- cable and satellite television, satellite radio, business-to-business e-media, consumer Internet, movie screen advertising and videogame advertising -- is playing an increasingly significant role. Spending on new advertising media is forecast to grow at a compound annual rate of 16.9 percent from 2005-2009, reaching $68.62 billion by 2009, while traditional media advertising is expected to rise only 4.2 percent on a compound annual basis during the same period to $192.28 billion.

Second, media planners are making more use of product placements now, in lieu of advertising insertions. Advertising insertions, like print ads or television commercials, are made separately from the content and are inserted into it. The ads are distinct from the articles or TV programs, not a part of them. As a result, the ads seem intrusive. In contrast, product placement (also called brand placement or branded entertainment) blends product information with the content itself.

Whether content is a television program, movie, video game or other form of entertainment, product placement puts the brand message into the entertainment content. For example, in the movie E.T., the extraterrestrial eats Reese's Pieces candy. The candy was authentically integrated into the movie ?and sales of Reese's Pieces soared 80% after the movie, catapulting the new product to mainstream status.On the other hand, inappropriate or excessive product placements may do more harm than good to the brand.

Finally, the role of media planners has expanded as media planners have moved beyond planned messages to take advantage of unplanned messages as well. Whereas planned messages are what advertisers initiate -- like an ad, press release or sales promotion -- unplanned messages are often initiated by people and organizations other than advertisers themselves. Word of mouth, both online and offline, is one form of unplanned message. Although advertisers have little direct control over the flow of unplanned messages, they can facilitate such a flow.

For example, advertising agency Crispin Porter + Bogusky (CP+B) created a viral marketing mascot, the Subservient Chicken, for Burger King to illustrate its slogan "Have It Your Way." Visitors to the www.subservientchicken.com site can ask the chicken to make a move, such as jump, dance or lay an egg. In the first two weeks after the site's launch, the Subservient Chicken story appeared on 63 broadcast segments, including five separate segments in television shows unplanned success. Within months, the site had generated 426 million hits from 15 million unique visitors averaging six minutes per session. Many visitors learned about the site through word of mouth, both online and offline. More recently, specialized agencies have started to hire word of mouth agents to work for advertisers on a fee basis. Initial research suggests that many consumers react positively to this kind of word of mouth communication For example, Rock Bottom brew pub chain, reported a 76% jump in 2003 revenues after hired gun Bzz-Agent launched a 13-week word of mouth campaign employing 1,073 of its "agents" to get the word out

These new approaches have altered how media planning works in the advertising process. "Seven years ago media was the last five minutes of the presentation. Now it's reversed," said Rishad Tobaccowala of Publics Group Media, whose fast-growing Starcom division helps clients buy and measure interactive, mobile, and gaming ads. Media planners are playing an

increasingly important role in today's advertising industry because of the continuing proliferation of new media options and the increased complexity of media and audience research.

2. Media Objectives

How is a media plan developed? Media planning is a four-step process which consists of

1) Setting media objectives in light of marketing and advertising objectives,

2) Developing a media strategy for implementing media objectives,

3) Designing media tactics for realizing media strategy, and

4) Proposing procedures for evaluating the effectiveness of the media plan.           

Now, let's take a deeper look into the media planning process. Media planning, such as planning the marketing communications for the launch of the Fusion new shaving system, starts with setting media objectives. Media objectives usually consist of two key components: target audience and communication goals. The target audience component of the media objectives defines who the intended target of the campaign. For example, P&G's target audience objective for its Fusion shaving system was men 18-40 years old. The communications goals component of the media objectives defines how many of the audience the campaign intends to reach and how many times it will reach them. In short, media objectives are a series of statements that specify what exactly the media plan intends to accomplish. The objectives represent the most important goals of brand message dissemination, and they are the concrete steps to accomplish marketing objectives.

The next two sections (2.1. and 2.2.) provide details on target audience and communication goals. You'll learn about sources of data to use to identify your target audience. You'll also learn how to quantify communication plans.

2.1. Target Audience

The first objective of a media plan is to select the target audience: the people whom the media plan attempts to influence through various forms of brand contact. Because media objectives are subordinate to marketing and advertising objectives, it is essential to understand how the target audience is defined in the marketing and advertising objectives. The definition may or may not be exactly the same, depending on the marketing and advertising objectives and strategies.

A common marketing objective is to increase sales by a specific amount. But this marketing objective does not specify a target audience, which is why the media objective is needed.  Consider Kellogg's Corn Flakes and all the different strategies the advertiser could use to increase sales among different target audiences. For example, one target audience might be current customers -- encouraging people who eat one bowl a day to also "munch" the cereal as a snack. Or, the advertiser might target competitors' customers, encouraging them to switch brands. Or, the advertiser might target young adults who are shifting from high sugar "kids cereals" to more adult breakfast fare. Finally, the advertiser could target a broader lower-income demographic. The point is that each campaign could increase sales via a different target audience.

Marketers analyze the market situation to identify the potential avenues for boosting sales increase and consider how advertising might achieve those aims. If the advertiser chooses to

attract competitors' customers -- like what Sprint does to attract users of other wireless services -- the media plan will need to define the target audience to be brand switchers and will then identify reasons to give those potential switchers to switch, such as greater convenience, lower cost, or additional plan features. For example, in 2006 Sprint Nextel ran an ad campaign urging consumers to switch to Sprint because "no one has a more powerful network”

2.1.1 Demographics and Psychographics

The target audience is often defined in terms of demographics and psychographics. Syndicated research services such as Simmons Market Research Bureau (SMRB or Simmons) and Mediamark Research Inc. (MRI) provide national data on a number of demographics of U.S. consumers, including gender, age, education, household income, marital status, employment status, type of residence, and number of children in the household. Using demographic variables, for example, the target audience of a media plan could be "individuals who are 26-to-45 years

old with yearly household income of $50,000 or more" or "all households with children age 3 years or younger."

Some advertisers believe that demographic definitions of a target audience are too ambiguous, because individual consumers that fit such definitions can be quite different in terms of their brand preference and purchase behavior. For example, think about the students in a media planning class. Even though some of them are the same age and gender, they may like different brands of toothpaste, shampoo, cereal, clothing, and other products. Therefore, media planners use psychographics to refine the definition of the target audience.

Psychographics is a generic term for consumers' personality traits (serious, funny, conservative), beliefs and attitudes about social issues (opinions about abortion, environment, globalization), personal interests (music, sports, movie going), and shopping orientations (recreational shoppers, price-sensitive shoppers, convenience shoppers). Mazda, for example, doesn't define its target audience by age, income or gender, but by psychographic principles. Mazda targets people who have a need for self-expression, are young at heart, and love to drive.

One psychographic system which media planners often use is called VALS (short for Values And Lifestyles), which was developed by SRI in the 1980s. VALS places U.S. adult consumers into one of eight segments based on their responses to the VALS questionnaire. The eight segments are: Innovators, Thinkers, Achievers, Experiencers, Believers, Strivers, Makers and Survivors. Each segment has a unique set of psychological characteristics. For example, Innovators are "successful, sophisticated, take-charge people with high self-esteem. Because they have such abundant resources, they exhibit all three primary motivations in varying degrees. They are change leaders and are the most receptive to new ideas and technologies. Innovators are very active consumers, and their purchases reflect cultivated tastes for upscale, niche products and services." Defining a target audience by psychographic variables helps not only creative directors with the development of advertising appeals but also media planners with the selection of effective media channels. If a psychographic group of consumers likes playing

golf, for example, they are likely to read golf-related magazines and visit golf-related Web sites.

2.1.2. Generational Cohorts

In addition to demographics and psychographics, generational cohort is another useful concept for selecting the target audience. Because the members of a particular generational cohort are likely to have had similar experiences during their formative years, they maintain analogous social views, attitudes, and values. Generational cohorts in the U.S. are the Baby Boomers (about 70 million people born 1945-1964), Generation X (about 17 million people born in 1965-1978), and Generation Y (about 60 million people born between 1979 and 1994). Each of the cohorts possesses distinct characteristics in their lifestyles and often serves as a reference group from which finer segments of the target audiences can be selected for specific advertising campaigns.

An interesting example of a generational cohort is "kogals" in Japan. Originating from the world for "high school," kogals are a unique segment of young women in urban Japan who conspicuously display their disposable incomes through unique tastes in fashion, music, and social activity. They have the leisure time to invent new ways of using electronic gadgets. For example, they started changing mobile phones' ring tones from boring beeps to various popular songs and changing screen savers from dull defaults to cute pictures. Manufacturers observe kogals and listen to what they say is unsatisfactory about the products. In some cases, manufacturers simply imitate the new usages that kogals spontaneously invented and incorporate these usages part of their own new commercial services, thereby increasing sales

2.1.3. Product and Brand Usage

Target audiences can also be more precisely defined by their consumption behavior. Product usage includes both brand usage (the use of a specific brand such as Special K cereal or Dove soap) and category usage (the use of a product category such as facial tissue or chewing gum). Product use commonly has four levels: heavy users, medium users, light users and non-users. The levels of use depend on the type of product. For example, Simmons defines heavy domestic beer users as those who consume five or more cans in the past 30 days, medium beer users as those who consumer two to four cans, and light users as those who consume one can in 30 days.

For travel, Simmons' definitions are: three foreign trips per year indicate heavy travel users, 2 foreign trips per year are medium travel users, and 1 trip per year are light travel users. There is a popular saying in the industry: "the twenty percent who are heavy users account for eighty percent of the sales of a product." This highlights the importance of heavy users for a brand's performance. Examples of defining a target audience by product usage can be "individuals who dine out at least four times in a month" or "individuals who made domestic trips twice or more last year."

Similarly, brand usage has several categories. Brand loyals are those who use the same brand all the time. Primary users use a brand most of the time but occasionally also use other brands in the same category; they are secondary users for these competing brands. Brand switchers are those who have no brand preference for a given product category but choose a brand on the basis of situational factors. An analysis of the brand usage pattern is helpful for the identification of the appropriate target audience. Simmons and MRI offer brand usage data for many national brands.

2.1.4. Primary and Secondary Target Audience

The target audience in a media plan can be either primary or secondary. A primary target audience is one that plays a major role in purchase decisions, while a secondary target audience plays a less decisive role. In the case of video game players, for example, children's requests often initiate a purchase process; parents often respect their children's brand selection. Thus, it is reasonable to consider children as the primary target audience and their parents as the secondary target audience. If the parents are aware of the advertised brand, it will be easier for children to convince them of the purchase. Media planners need to examine and identify the role of consumers in shopping, buying and consuming a product or service to target the right groups of consumers effectively.

2.1.5. The Size of Target Audiences

In the process of defining a target audience, media planners often examine and specify the actual size of a target audience -- how many people or households fit the definition. Knowing the actual size helps advertisers to estimate the potential buying power of the target audience. For example, if the target audience of a campaign is defined as working women 26-to-44 years old who are interested in receiving daily news updates on their mobile phones, media planners should estimate the number of these women in the U.S. to quantify the sales potential.

As another example, if the target audience consists of 2,000,000 households in the U.S. and each household purchases the brand two times a month, the monthly sales would be 4,000,000 units. The U.S. Census Bureau provides the most authoritative data about demographics of the U.S.

population by state. Whereas the U.S. Census provides demographic data, market research services such as Simmons and MRI provide demographic data that is linked to product data. This means that media planners can get information about consumers of hundreds of product types.

2.2. Communication Goals

After media planners define the target audience for a media plan, they set communication goals: to what degree the target audience must be exposed to (and interact with) brand messages in order to achieve advertising and marketing objectives. For example, one communication goal can be that 75 percent of the target audience will see the brand in television commercials at least once during a period of three months. Another communication goal is that 25 percent of the target audience will form a preference for a new brand in the first month of the brand launch. The different communication goals can be better understood in a hierarchy of advertising objectives, such as Bill Harvey's expansion of an earlier model of Advertising Research Foundation (ARF).

The expanded ARF model has ten levels, as shown in Figure 1. The first three levels of goals from the bottom -- vehicle distribution, vehicle exposure, and advertising exposure -- are particularly relevant for media planning. Vehicle distribution refers to the coverage of a media vehicle, such as the number of copies that a magazine or newspaper issue has, or the number of households that can tune in to a given television channel. Vehicle exposure refers to the number of individuals exposed to the media vehicle, such as the number of people who read a magazine or watched a television program. Advertising exposure refers to the number of individuals exposed an ad or a commercial itself.

It is important to note the difference between vehicle exposure and advertising exposure for many media with editorial content. For example, not all audience members of a television program will watch all the commercials interspersed in the program. A study shows that only 68 percent of television audiences watch the commercials in television programs. Vehicle exposure represents only an opportunity to see an ad, not necessarily that the ad has actually been seen. In reality, advertising exposure is rarely measured, and media planners use vehicle exposure as a proxy measure of advertising exposure.

Another group of communication goals is advertising recall, advertising persuasion, leads and sales. Advertising recall represents the cognitive effect of the ad, advertising persuasion represents the emotional effect of the ad, and leads and sales are the behavioral effects of the ad. Each can be specified in a media plan as a communication goal. For example, a communication goal can specify that 50% of the target audience will recall the radio ad during the month of the

campaign, or that a campaign will generate 3000 leads.

2.2.1. Reach, Frequency and Gross Rating Points

Media planners often define the communication goals of a media plan using the three interrelated concepts of reach, gross rating points, and frequency. Media planners use reach to set their objective for the total number of people exposed to the media plan. Reach is one of the most important terms in media planning and has three characteristics. First, reach is a percentage, although the percentage sign is rarely used. When reach is stated, media planners are aware of the size of the target audience. For example, if a media plan targets the roughly 5 million of women who are 18-25 years old, then a reach of 50 means that 50% or 2.5 million of the target audience will exposed to some of the media vehicles in the media plan. Second, reach measures the accumulation of audience over time. Because reach is always defined for a certain period of time, the number of audience members exposed to the media vehicles in a media plan increases over time. For example, reach may grow from 20 (20%) in the first week to 60 (60%) in the fourth week. The pattern of audience accumulation varies depending on the media vehicles in the media plan. Third, reach doesn't double-count people exposed multiple times if the media plan involves repeated ads in one media category or ads in multiple media categories. Media planners use reach because it represents that total number of people exposed to the marketing communication.

Besides reach, media planners use Gross Rating Points as a shorthand measure of the total amount of exposure they want to buy from media outlets such as TV networks. For example, the 2006 Super Bowl game received a rating of 42, which means 42 percent of U.S. television households tuned in to the program. If an advertiser planned to run a commercial once during the Super Bowl, that ad would appear in 42% of households. If the commercial was run only once, the reach is equal to the rating of the program, a GRP of 42. If the advertiser's media plan called for running the ad twice during the Super Bowl, the GRP would be 2*42 = 84.

Media planners often think in terms of gross rating points because ad prices often scale with this measure. As a rule of thumb, it costs about twice as much to obtain a GRP of 84 as to obtain a GRP of 42. A media plan that calls for a GRP of 84 doesn't necessarily mean that the advertiser must advertise twice on the Super Bowl. The advertiser could also buy 6 spots on popular primetime shows that each have a rating of 14 (6*14 = 84) or buy a large number of spots (say 42 spots) on a range of niche-market cable TV programs, radio stations or magazines that have a rating of 2. Some media vehicles are best-suited to specific target audiences. For example, the Nickelodeon TV channel controls 53% of kids GRPs.

Notice the difference between GRP and reach: GRP counts total exposures while reach counts unique people exposed. Thus, GRP does double-count people who see ads multiple times. Frequency connects the concept of reach with that of GRP. To see this relationship between GRP and reach, let's consider what happens when an advertiser puts two spots on the Super Bowl -- one during the first half of the game and another in the second half. As mentioned earlier, this example plan has a GRP of 84. But what is the reach? That depends on how many people watch both halves of the game. Rating services such as A.C. Nielsen monitor who watches the game, when they watch, and whether they watch the first half or the second half or both halves of the game.

These rating services know that, for example, 1/3 of the game-watching households stop watching after the first half and 1/3 of game-watching households start watching during the second half. This means that, although 42% of households are tuned in to the game during each half, it's not the same 42% for both halves. Thus, the reach of the first ad is 42, but then one-third of these households (42%*1/3 = 14% of all households) tune out before the second ad during the second half. This means that only 28% of all households watch both first and second halves of the game and see the ad twice. This 28% of households who are still watching when the second spot shows won't add to the reach when they see the second spot. During the second half, a different 14% of U.S. households tune in. These new watchers do count toward the reach during the second half because they didn't see the ad during the first half. Thus, the total reach for the game for the two-ad plan is 42+14 = 56.

Frequency is the ratio of GRP over reach. Frequency is a measure of repetition. The formula of calculating frequency is:

            Frequency = Gross rating points / Reach

Using the Super Bowl example again, if the GRPs were 84 and the reach was 56, then the frequency would then be 1.5 (84/56=1.5). A frequency of 1.5 would mean that, on average, audience members of the Super Bowl game had one-and-a-half opportunities to watch the ad.

The media objectives of a media plan often call for some combination of reach and frequency. Media planners want the highest reach possible because that means more people will be exposed to the campaign, which should lead to more brand awareness, customer loyalty, sales, and so on. Media planners also seek high frequency if they feel that consumers will only take action (that is, buy the product) after multiple exposures to the campaign. For example, launching a new brand or teaching consumers about the features of a product (like the features of a five-bladed shaving system) may take several impressions.

Thus, reach indicates the media dispersion while frequency shows the media repetition. Notice

that the formula for frequency can be flipped to make a formula for GRPs; GRPs are the product of reach multiplied by frequency. If a media plan calls for a broad reach and a high frequency, then it calls for very high GRPs (lots of ad exposures to lots of people). Achieving a very high GRP is very expensive, however, and budget issues may preclude such a high GRP. Thus, media planners may start with budget, then estimate the GRPs that they can afford and then either sacrifice reach to maintain frequency or let frequency drop to one in order to maximize reach.

2.2.2. Frequency Distribution, Effective Frequency and Effective Reach

Media planners also consider frequency distribution in order to fully understand exactly how many exposures different people experience; that is, how many people will see the ad once, twice, three times, etc. This lets the planner estimate the effective reach of the plan at the effective frequency needed by the campaign ?the number of people who see the ads a sufficient number of times for the media plan to be effective.

Effective frequency refers to the minimum number of media exposures for a communication goal to be achieved, while effective reach is the reach (% of households) at the effective frequency level. Media planners choose an effective frequency based on the communication goals. Communication goals vary across the continuum from awareness, preference, attitude change to trial, purchase, and repurchase. To change brand attitude requires more exposures (higher effective frequency) than does creating brand awareness. If the effective frequency is set for a given communication goal, the reach at that effective frequency level will be the effective reach.

Let's go back to the Super Bowl example. A total of 28% of households see the ad twice by watching the entirety of the game. During the first half, 14% of households see the ad once but then don't watch the second half. Another 14% join the game in progress and see the ad once during the second half. Thus, 14+14 = 28% see the ad just once. This leaves 44% of households (100% - 28% - 28%) who never see the ad. In summary, the frequency distribution is: reach of 28 at the frequency of 2; reach of 28 at the frequency of 1; and reach of 44 at the frequency of 0 (also called non-reach).

Let's extend this example by continuing this hypothetical campaign. On the Thursday after the Super Bowl, the advertiser does one more media blitz ?showing an encore of their Super Bowl ad on all major networks during the prime time slot of 8:00 to 8:30 PM. This practice of advertising on multiple channels at the same time ensures that most people will see the ad regardless of which channel they watch. Table 2 shows the viewer data, collected from households across the country, with the percentage of households who were watching during various combinations of the three time slots.

Table 2

Ratings of the Three Time Slots

  Viewers of the Ad's Time Slot Data

Segment Super Bowl First Half

Super Bowl Second Half

Prime Time Blitz

Frequency % of Households

1       0 30

2 X     1 3

3   X   1 2

4     X 1 14

5 X X   2 5

6 X   X 2 11

7   X X 2 12

8 X X X 3 23

Rating 42 42 60    

Media planners can process this data to compute the frequency distribution (see Table 3) by tallying the total percentage of households that saw the ad 0, 1, 2, etc. times.

Table 3Frequency Distribution of the Plan

Frequency Reach

0 30

1 19

2 28

3 23

If the advertiser believes that its ads are only effective if they are seen at least twice, then the advertiser will want to know what percentage of households saw the ad two or more times. In this example, the effective reach is 51 because that is the sum of the reaches for frequencies 2 and 3 combined.

GRPs of this media plan were 144 and reach was 70, because 30% of households did not watch during any of the three times the ad was shown, resulting in an average frequency of 2.1. The frequency distribution of the plan is in Table 9B. That is, 23 percent of the households watched the time slot three times, 28 percent twice, 19 percent once, and 30 percent did not watch at all.

2.2.3. Setting Communication Goals

Media planners can set communication goals based on the level of reach. That is, how many of the target audience should be reached with the media plan, say 50%, 75% or 95%? Theoretically, a reach of 100 is possible, but it is rarely a communication goal because some audience members may not use any of the media, making them unreachable. What, then, would be the optimal level of reach for a given product category or a market situation? There is no quick answer to this question; it all depends on the media planner's analysis of major factors facing the brand.

Media experts suggest high reach is appropriate when something new is associated with the brand, such as new features, new sales incentives, new packaging or new service opportunitie. The newness requires a high level of awareness among the target audience. A high reach is also often necessary in three other situations: a) advertising in support of sales promotion activities, b) for reminder advertising for a mass market product, and c) when the brand faces severe competition.

When setting levels of frequency, media planners have more rules of thumb to choose from when setting levels of reach. For example, media planners have often been setting a frequency of 3 during a purchase cycle, following Michael Naples' seminal study of effective frequency published in 1979.Naples' study suggests that there is a threshold level of repetition; advertising below the threshold level will be ineffective. Therefore, three exposures during a purchase cycle are necessary. Many media planners still use this rule in setting the effective frequency of a media plan.

More recently, Philip Jones found that one exposure generates the highest proportion of sales and that additional exposures add very little to the effect of the first Erwin Ephron further

developed the concept of "recency planning" and suggested that one exposure within a purchase cycle should be set as close to the actual purchase moment as possible Recency planning starts with the idea that when is more important than how many; That is, advertising will be most effective if it is timed to when a consumer is in the market to buy the product or service. In the short-term, therefore, additional exposures are likely to be wasteful because audience members are not in the buying mode. In some cases, advertisers know when consumers are in the market, such as Wyoming's ads during the spring when many people are planning summer vacations.

Joseph W. Ostrow created a decision model to help media planners determine the optimal frequency level through assessing marketing factors, copy factors and media factors. Starting with a base effective frequency of 3, the media planner makes frequency adjustments based on a series of 20 factors in three categories. As illustrated in Table 4, each category includes several statements, upon which the media planner makes judgments by circling an appropriate rating in that row of the chart. For example, the first factor asks the planner to rate whether the product is an "Established brand" or "New brand." A totally new brand will require higher frequency than an established brand, and so the planner would circle the "+.2" frequency adjustment. After assessing the factors, the media planner sums the adjustments to calculate the recommended effective frequency. Media planners may modify the model by adding or removing statements to make the estimate more appropriate.

Table 4The Ostrow Model of Effective Frequency

Low Required Frequency Frequency Adjustment High Required Frequency

Market Factors

Established brand -.2 -.1 +.1 +.2 New brand

High brand share -.2 -.1 +.1 +.2 Low brand share

High brand loyalty -.2 -.1 +.1 +.2 Low brand loyalty

Long purchase cycle -.2 -.1 +.1 +.2 Short purchase cycle

Less frequent usage -.2 -.1 +.1 +.2 Frequency usage

Low share of voice -.2 -.1 +.1 +.2 High share of voice

Target other group -.2 -.1 +.1 +.2 Target old people or children

Message Factors

Low message complexity -.2 -.1 +.1 +.2 High message complexity

High message uniqueness -.2 -.1 +.1 +.2 Low message uniqueness

Continuing campaign -.2 -.1 +.1 +.2 New campaign

Product-focused message -.2 -.1 +.1 +.2 Image-focused message

Low message variety -.2 -.1 +.1 +.2 High message variety

High wearout -.2 -.1 +.1 +.2 Low wearout

Large advertising units -.2 -.1 +.1 +.2 Small advertising units

Media Factors

Low clutter -.2 -.1 +.1 +.2 High clutter

Favorable editorial setting -.2 -.1 +.1 +.2 Neutral editorial setting

High audience attentiveness -.2 -.1 +.1 +.2 Low audience attentiveness

Continuous scheduling -.2 -.1 +.1 +.2 Pulse or flight scheduling

Few media vehicles -.2 -.1 +.1 +.2 More media vehicles

High repeat exposure media -.2 -.1 +.1 +.2 Low repeat exposure media

When setting frequency level goals, media planners know that higher-level communication goals such as persuasion and lead generation (as shown in the expanded ARF model in Figure 9A) require higher frequency levels. For example, brand awareness usually requires a lower level of frequency than advertising persuasion and lead generation. In other words, a media plan that intends to change the brand preference among consumers of competing brands would need a higher frequency of advertising exposures than a media plan that intends to introduce a new brand.

In addition to the reach and frequency goals, media planners may set goals for other forms of communication. For example, promotional activities may be used in a media plan, such as sweepstakes, contests and coupons. Media planners estimate and specify response rates for these activities. By establishing communication goals, media planners set the stage for assessing the effectiveness of a media plan at the end.

3. Media Strategies

Media planners make three crucial decisions: where to advertise (geography), when to advertise (timing), and what media categories to use (media mix).  Moreover, they make these decisions in the face of budget constraints. The actual amount of money that an advertiser spends on marketing communications can vary widely, from billions of dollars for multinational giants such as Procter & Gamble, to a few thousand dollars for local "mom-n-pop" stores. In general, companies spend as little as 1% to more than 20% of revenues on advertising, depending on the nature of their business. Regardless of the budget, some media options are more cost effective than others. It is the job of media planners to formulate the best media strategies -- allocating budget across media categories, geographies, and time. Let's look at each of these three decisions in turn, and then consider cost effectiveness.

3.1. Media Mix Decisions

Which media should the advertiser use? Media planners craft a media mix by considering a budget-conscious intersection between their media objectives and the properties of the various potential media vehicles. That is, they consider how each media vehicle provides a cost-effective contribution to attaining the objectives, and then they select the combination of vehicles that best attain all of the objectives.

When making media mix decisions, planners look to a whole spectrum of media, not just to traditional media vehicles such as TV, radio, and print. That is, media planners consider all the opportunities that consumers have for contact with the brand. These opportunities can be non-traditional brand contact opportunities such as online advertising, sweepstakes, sponsorships, product placements, direct mail, mobile phones, blogs, and podcasts. The scale and situations of media use are especially important when evaluating suitable brand contact opportunities. For example, product placement in a video game makes sense if the target audience plays video games. Sweepstakes make sense if many of the target audience find sweepstakes attractive.

3.1.1 Mix Strategy: Media Concentration vs. Media Dispersion

A media planner's first media mix decision is to choose between a media concentration approach or a media dispersion approach. The media concentration approach uses fewer media categories

and greater spending per category. This lets the media planner create higher frequency and repetition within that one media category. Media planners will choose a concentration approach if they are worried that their brand's ads will share space with competing brands, leading to confusion among consumers and failure of the media objectives. For example, when Nestle launched its 99% fat-free cereal Fitnesse, the similarity of ads actually increased the sales of the competing Kellogg's Special K Cerea

Media planners can calculate or measure share of voice to estimate the dominance of their message in each category of media they use. Share of voice is the percentage of spending by one brand in a given media category relative to the total spending by all brands that are advertising in that media category.

A company can create a high share of voice with a concentrated media strategy. That is, the company can be the dominant advertiser in a product category in the chosen channel. Moreover, because only one set of creative materials will need to be prepared, a concentrated media strategy lets advertisers spend a higher percentage of their budget on frequency and reach. But a concentrated strategy is also an "all-eggs-in-one-basket" strategy. If the particular ad is not well received or the particular media category only reaches a fraction of the intended target audience, then it will perform poorly.

In contrast, media planners choose a media dispersion approach when they use multiple media categories, such as a combination of television, radio, newspapers and the Internet. Media planners will use dispersion if they know that no single media outlet will reach a sufficient percentage of the target audience. For example, a concentrated approach using only ads on the Internet might reach only 30% of the target consumers because some consumers don't use the Internet. Similarly, a concentrated approach using national news magazines might reach only 30% of the target audience, because not every target customer reads these magazines. But a dispersed approach that advertises in print magazines as well as on Web sites might reach 50% of the target audience. Media planners also like the dispersion approach for the reinforcement that it brings -- consumers who see multiple ads in multiple media for a given brand may be more likely to buy.

Table 5 illustrates the media concentration and media dispersion approaches to the media category allocations for three hypothetical brands of fatigue relief medication. Advertisers of Zipium took a media dispersion approach by allocating the budget relatively evenly across all four media categories, while advertisers of Pepzac and Enerzid took a media concentration approach by spending the budget in one or two media categories.

Table 5Hypothetical Media Mix and Share of Voice

Competing Brand Television Magazine Direct Mail Internet Total Spend by Brand

Zipium OTC $400,000 $250,000 $200,000 $300,000 $1,150,000

Pepzac $600,000 $250,000 $0 $0 $850,000

Enerzid $0 $0 $0 $600,000 $600,000

Total Spend by Category

$750,000 $500,000 $200,000 $900,000 $2,600,000

  Brands' Voice in Each Category

Zipium OTC 40% 50% 100% 33% 44%

Pepzac 60% 50% 0% 0% 33%

Enerzid 0% 0% 0% 67% 23%

Total % 100% 100% 100% 100% 100%

Notice the share of voice figures for the three brands in television. Zipium gets a 40% share of voice in television because it spent $400,000 out of the total of $1 million spent on television advertising by fatigue remedy medications. Pepzac gets 60% because it spent $600,000 out of the $1 million spent on TV. Enerzid receives a 0% share of voice in TV because it spent no money in that media category. Pepzac enjoys a dominant share of voice in television because it has the highest percentage of spending in that category.

Looking across the other media categories, we see the effects of a concentrated versus dispersed media approach. Although Zipium spends the greatest amount of money, it only achieves dominant share of voice in one of the four media categories due to dispersal. Each of the other brands also dominates one category. For example, Enerzid concentrates all of its spending on the Internet. Thus, although Enerzid has a small budget, it manages to dominate that one category through its concentrated media approach.

The media concentration approach is often preferable for brands that have a small or moderate media budget but intend to make a great impact. For example, GoDaddy.com, an Internet hosting service, bought two spots in the Super Bowl in 2005. Because of the controversial nature of the ad, Fox Networks canceled the second run of the ad. The controversy over the pulled ad resulted in more than $11 million of free publicity. The single paid ad plus heavy media coverage of the incident greatly increased the awareness of GoDaddy. The spot also earned GoDaddy a 51% share of voice, a percentage which some say is the largest share of voice attributed to any Super Bowl advertiser ever.

3.1.2. Media Category Selection

Whether media planners select media concentration or media dispersion, they still must pick the media category(ies) for the media plan. Different media categories suit different media objectives. Most media options can be classified into three broad categories: mass media, direct response media, and point-of-purchase media. A media planner's choice will depend on the media objectives. If the media planner wants to create broad awareness or to remind the largest possible number of consumers about a brand, then he or she will pick mass media such as television, radio, newspaper and magazine. If the media planner wants to build a relationship with a customer or encourage an immediate sales response, then direct response media such as direct mail, the Internet and mobile phone are good choices.

For example, online ads for car insurance such as link directly to the application process to capture the customers right at the time they are interested in the service. Finally, if media planners want to convert shoppers into buyers, then they might use point-of-purchase media such as sampling, coupons and price-off promotions. In short, each of these three categories of media serve a different role in moving the customer from brand awareness to brand interest to purchase intent to actual purchase and then to re-purchase. An integrated campaign, such as the one described for P&G's Fusion shaving system, might use multiple categories -- combining national TV ads to introduce the product, Internet media to provide one-to-one information, and in-store displays to drive sales.

The creative requirements of a media category also affect media planners' decisions. Each media category has unique characteristics. For example, television offers visual impact that interweaves sight and sound, often within a narrative storyline. Magazines offer high reproduction quality but must grab the consumer with a single static image. Direct mail can carry free samples but can require compelling ad copy in the letter and back-end infrastructure for some form of consumer response by return mail, telephone or Internet. Rich media ads on the Internet can combine the best of TV-style ads with interactive response via a clickthrough to the brand's own Web site. Media planners need to consider which media categories provide the most impact for their

particular brand. The costs of developing creative materials specific to each media category can also limit media planners' use of the media dispersion approach.        

3.2. Geographic Allocation Decisions

In addition to allocating advertising by media category, media planners must allocate advertising by geography. In general, a company that sells nationally can take one of three approaches to geographic spending allocation: a national approach (advertise in all markets), a spot approach (advertise only in selected markets), or a combined national plus spot approach (advertise in all markets with additional spending in selected markets).

Media planners will choose a national approach if sales are relatively uniform across the country, such as for Tide laundry detergent or Toyota automobiles. A national approach will reach a national customer base with a national advertising program. For many other products, however, a company's customers are concentrated in a limited subset of geographic areas, which makes a spot approach more efficient. For example, the sales of leisure boats are much higher in markets such as Florida, California and Michigan due to the large water areas in these markets. A spot approach will target these states. For example, a leisure boat manufacturer such as Sea Ray might use a spot approach to target Florida, California and Michigan while not advertising in other states like Iowa or Nebraska.

Media planners perform geographic analyses by assessing the geographic concentration of sales in two ways. The first method is called the Brand Development Index (BDI) of a geographic region. BDI measures the concentration of sales of a company's brand in that region.

The second method is called the Category Development Index (CDI) and measures the concentration of sales of the product category (across all brands) in that region.

Media planners use BDI to measure a brand's performance in a given market in comparison with its average performance in all markets where the brand is sold. Mathematically, BDI is a ratio of a brand's sales in a given geographic market divided by the average of its sales in all markets. BDI is calculated for each geographic area (Market X) using the following formula:

Market X's Share of Total Brand Sales

BDI = ----------------------------------------------- X 100

Market X's Share of U.S. Population

Consider the BDI for visitors to the state of Louisiana -- the geographic concentration of people who travel to Louisiana for business or pleasure. The BDI for Houston is 658 because Houston

is 1.8% of the U.S. population, but Houstonians make up 11.8% of visitors to Louisiana (100 * (11.8%/1.8%) = 658). Because Houston's BDI is higher than 100, it means that many more Houstonians come to Louisiana than the average from other cities. In contrast, the New York City area has a very low BDI of only 10 because even though New York City has 7.2% of the U.S. population, this city contributes only 0.7% of visitors to Louisiana.

This disparity in BDI influences Louisiana's advertising strategy. Media planners will tend to allocate more resources to high BDI markets (greater than 100) than to low BDI markets. The point is that even though New York City has a much larger population, it has a much lower concentration of travelers to Louisiana. Given that the cost of advertising is often proportional to the population it reaches, advertising in New York City will be far more expensive than advertising in Houston. Because such a low percentage of New Yorkers travel to Louisiana, advertising to New Yorkers will be less effective than advertising to Houstonians.

BDI doesn't tell the whole story, however, because BDI only measures the concentration of current sales. BDI doesn't reflect the concentration of potential sales as measured by sales of the entire product category. So, media planners use another number, CDI, in addition to BDI when allocating resources for spot advertising. CDI is a measure of a product category's performance in a given geographic market in comparison to its average performance in all markets in the country. The sales of a product category include the sales of all the brands (the company's and competitors' brands) or at least all major brands that fall in the category.

The CDI formula is:

Market X's Share of Total Category Sales

CDI = ---------------------------------------------------- X 100

Market X's Share of U.S. Population

Notice the similarities and differences of the CDI formula compared to the BDI formula. The denominator of the CDI formula is the same as that of the BDI formula, but the numerator for CDI is the share of the product category in a given market. For example, if the sales of the product category in Market X account for 2 percent of its total sales in the U.S. and the population in that market is 3 percent of the U.S. population, then the CDI for that market will be 67, which is 33 percent below the average of 100. That means a poorer-than-average consumption of the product category, which means that Market X may be less promising for

spot market advertising. On the other hand, markets with a high CDI (higher than 100) may be a better market for that product category.

Because BDI and CDI can vary independently, media planners use both numbers to guide allocation decisions. In general, BDI reflects the concentration of existing sales while CDI reflects the concentration of potential sales in a geographic region. Returning to the example of leisure boats, we find that states such as California, Florida, and Michigan have high CDIs. Yet the maker of a line of small boats that aren't suitable for the ocean may have very high BDI in Michigan but a very low BDI in California and Florida. Because a BDI or a CDI for a given market can each be either above or below the average, there will be four possible combinations, as shown in Table 6. The four combinations represent two extreme cases and two mixed cases. At the one extreme, in a market with both a high CDI and a high BDI (both above 100), media planners will seek to maintain high market share (implied by high BDI) and might even consider more advertising to gain market share because of the good category potential (implied by high CDI) of the market. At the other extreme, in a market with both a low CDI and a low BDI, media planners may eschew spending their advertising dollars there due to the low concentration of potential consumption -- the small boat maker may ignore New Mexico.

Table 6Four Scenarios of BDI and CDI

CDI

BDI High Low

HighHigh CDIHigh BDI

Low CDIHigh BDI

LowHigh CDILow BDI

Low CDILow BDI

The mixed cases represent situations in which the percentage of brand sales in a region differs significantly from the percentage of category sales. A market with a high CDI and a low BDI deserves serious consideration because it suggests a large opportunity for increased sales. Before devoting advertising dollars, the company will want to understand why it has such poor sales of its brand (low BDI) in an area with high category sales. For example, the maker of small boats may learn that Californians don't buy the brand's boats because the boats are unsuitable for the ocean. If the causes of the poor brand performance can be identified and solved (such as by changing the product or finding better distribution), then more advertising should be worthwhile.

A low CDI and high BDI represents the enviable position of selling well in a market that does not otherwise buy products in that category. A market with low CDI and a high BDI requires continued advertising support to maintain the superior brand performance.

One approach to resource allocation uses a weighted sum of BDI and CDI -- spending money in each geography in proportion to a combined BDI plus CDI score. With this approach, media planners need to first assign a weight to the BDI and to the CDI. These two weights represent the relative importance of the BDI and CDI, and the sum of two weights should equal 1. On the one hand, media planners might choose a high weight on CDI if they feel their brand is representative of the broader category and they expect their brand to attain a geographic pattern of sales that matches that of the category.

On the other hand, they might place a high weight on BDI if their brand is unique, the category is very diverse, or the company wants to grow sales among current customers.

Consider a hypothetical example in which a media planner thinks the BDI is three times more important than the CDI in allocating spending. He or she would use a weight of .75 with the BDI values and .25 with the CDI values of each geography to calculate a weighted sum and a percentage for each of the markets. Then, she can use the percentage as a base for spending allocation in each market, as show in Table 7. That is, Market A will receive 16 percent of the media spending, Market B will receive 22 percent, and so on. All the percentages added together

will equal 100 percent.

Table 7

Hypothetical Spending Allocation in Markets with 75% BDI and 25% CDI

Geographic Market

BDI CDI 75% Weighted BDI

25% Weighted CDI

WeightedSum

SpendingPercentage

North 74 89 56 22 78 16%

East 111 99 83 25 108 22%

Central 93 129 69 32 102 20%

South 139 109 104 27 131 26%

West 83 74 63 19 81 16%

Media planners can use another index -- growth potential index (GPI) -- to assess growth opportunities in geographic markets. GPI is simply the ratio of the CDI over the BDI and is one way of quantifying the discrepancy between category sales (the potential sales for the market) and brand sales (current sales) to measure of the growth potential of a brand in a market. The formula of the GPI is as follows:

Market X's CDI

GPI = ---------------------- X 100

Market X's BDI

For example, if Market X has a CDI of 120 and a BDI of 80, then the GPI will be 150. This high value of GPI suggests a growth potential of 50% in this market -- that if the brand sold as well in that market as it does nationwide, sales would grow 50%. Of course, media planners should examine the specific conditions of a high GPI market before allocating resources to assess the true possibilities for growth. When a brand sells in many markets, the GPI can facilitate the selection of markets for additional spot advertising spending.

3.3. Media Schedule Decisions

Having decided how to advertise (the media mix) and where to advertise (allocation across geography), media planners need to consider when to advertise. Given a fixed annual budget, should all months receive equal amounts of money or should some months receive more of the budget while other months receive less or nothing? Media planners can choose among three methods of scheduling: continuity, flight, and pulse. Continuity scheduling spreads media spending evenly across months. For example, with an annual budget of $1,200,000 a year, continuity scheduling would allocate exactly $100,000 per month. This method ensures steady brand exposure over each purchase cycle for individual consumers. It also takes advantage of volume discounts in media buying. However, because continuity scheduling usually requires a large budget, it may not be practical for small advertisers.

The flight scheduling approach alternates advertising across months, with heavy advertising in certain months and no advertising at all in other months. For example, a board game maker like Parker Brothers might concentrate its advertising in the fall when it knows that many people buy board games as gifts for the holidays. Or, with the same budget of $1,200,000, for example, a different brand could spend $200,000 per month during each of six months -- January, March, May, July, September and December -- and spend nothing during the other months, in hopes that the impact of advertising in the previous month can last into the following month.

Pulse scheduling combines the first two scheduling methods, so that the brand maintains a low level of advertising across all months but spends more in selected months. For example, an airline like United Airlines might use a low level of continuous advertising to maintain brand awareness among business travelers. United Airlines might also have seasonal pulses to entice winter-weary consumers to fly to sunny climes. In budget allocation terms, a consumer goods brand may spend $5,000 in each of the twelve months to maintain the brand awareness and spend an additional $10,000 in January, March, May, July, September and December to attract brand switchers from competing brands. The pulse scheduling method takes advantage of both the continuity and flight scheduling methods and mitigates their weaknesses. However, this does not mean it is good for all products and services. Which method is the most appropriate for a given campaign depends on several important factors.

How do media planners select among continuity, flight, and pulse scheduling approaches? The timing of advertising depends on three factors: seasonality, consumers' product purchase cycle, and consumers' interval between decision-making and consumption.

The first, and most important, factor is sales seasonality. Companies don't advertise fur coats in summer and suntan lotions in winter. Likewise, some products sell faster around specific

holidays, such as flowers on Mother's Day, candy on Halloween, and ornaments around Christmas. Companies with seasonal products are more likely to choose flight scheduling to concentrate their advertising for the peak sales season. Other goods, however, such as everyday products like milk and toothpaste, may lack a seasonal pattern. Everyday goods may be better served by a continuity approach. Media planners can use a breakdown of sales by month to identify if their brand has seasonal fluctuations, which can serve as a guide for the allocation. They can allocate more money to high-sales months and less to low-sales months.

The second factor that affects when advertising is scheduled is the product purchase cycle: the interval between two purchases. Fast-moving consumer goods such as bread, soft drinks and toilet paper probably require continuous weekly advertising in a competitive market to constantly reinforce brand awareness and influence frequently-made purchase decisions. In contrast, less-frequently purchased products such as carpet cleaner or floor polisher may only need advertising a few times a year.

A third factor that affects media scheduling is the time interval between when the purchase decision is made and when a product or service is actually bought and consumed. For example, many families who take summer vacations may plan their trips months before the actual trips. That is, they make purchase decision in advance. Thus, travel industry advertisers will schedule their ads months before the summer, as we saw in the Wyoming example. Destination advertising has to be in sync with the time of decision making, instead of the actual consumption time.

New product launches usually require initial heavy advertising to create brand awareness and interest. The launch period may last from a few months to a year. As mentioned earlier, P&G launched its Gillette six-bladed Fusion shaving system with advertising on Super Bowl XL, the most expensive form of advertising in the world. If consumers like the product, then personal influence in the form of word-of-mouth or market force (brand visibility in life and media coverage) will play a role in accelerating the adoption of a new brand. Personal influence and market force are "unplanned" messages, which often play an important role in new product launches. Media planners should take advance of these "unplanned" messages in a new product launch campaign.

4. Designing Media Tactics

Establishing media objectives and developing media strategies are the primary tasks of media planners. Designing media tactics is largely carried out by media buyers. Media buyers select media vehicles to implement established media strategies. Among the major factors that affect media vehicle selection are reach and frequency considerations.

4.1. Reach Considerations

As a major component of media objectives, the planned level of reach affects not only media mix decisions but also what media vehicles are used in each media category. High levels of reach will require a different set of media vehicles than low levels of reach. That is, high levels of reach can be better served with a mix that includes multiple media vehicles with different audiences so that cross-media duplication of audience is minimal. For example, if there are three magazines that each reach a portion of the target audience but that have few readers who read more than one magazine, advertising in these three magazines would reach the widest target audience possible because of the low overlap of the readers of the these magazines.

What are some ways to maximize the levels of reach? One way is to analyze the audience composition of media vehicles by using syndicated media research. For example, cross-tabulations of Simmons data can be conducted to identify several magazines that reach the target audience of women aged 35 to 55, with little cross-title duplication -- few readers of one magazine also read other the magazines. These magazines can be used to implement high levels of reach in the media plan. When audience data are not available for cross-vehicle comparisons, you can select competing media vehicles in the same media category, because there is usually less duplication among the competing media vehicles. For example, most people who are interested in news may read one of the three major news weeklies: Newsweek, Time, and U.S. News and World Report; few people read all three of them. Therefore, running a print ad in all the three news magazines can reach a wide audience.

In television, media buyers sometimes use roadblocking, which means the placement of commercials in all major television networks in the same period of time. No matter which television channel an audience member tunes in at that time, they have the opportunity to watch the commercial. The roadblocking approach has become more expensive and less effective recently because of increasing fragmentation of television audience. The term has been extended to the online world, however, where it has been very effective. To roadblock in the online world, a media planner can buy all the advertising on a Web site for a 24-hour period, such as Coke did for its launch of C2 and Ford did for its launch the F-150. Each company bought all the ad space on the front page of Yahoo for a 24-hour period. The Yahoo front page draws 25 million visitors a day. Alternatively, media planners can roadblock Yahoo, MSN, and AOL all on the same day, as Coke and Pepsi have both done. The results can produce "an astonishing, astronomical amount of reach," said Mohan Renganathan of MediaVest Worldwide, one of the biggest services for buying ad space.

4.2. Frequency Considerations

In contrast to high levels of reach, high levels of frequency can be effectively achieved through advertising in a smaller number of media vehicles to elevate audience duplications within these media vehicles. A commercial that runs three times during a 30-minute television program will result in higher message repetition than the same commercial that runs once in three different programs.

Broadcast media are often used when high levels of frequency are desired in a relatively short period of time. Broadcast media usually enjoy a "vertical" audience, who tune in to a channel for more than one program over hours. Another phenomenon in broadcast media is audience turnover, which refers to the percentage of audience members who tune out during a program. Programs with low audience turnover are more effective for high levels of frequency.

4.3. Media Vehicle Characteristics

With reach and frequency considerations in mind, media buyers will compare media vehicles in terms of both quantitative and qualitative characteristics. Quantitative characteristics are those that can be measured and estimated numerically, such as vehicle ratings, audience duplication with other vehicles, geographic coverage, and costs. Media buyers will choose vehicles with high ratings and less cross-vehicle audience duplication when they need high levels of reach. Media buyers also evaluate the geographic coverage of media vehicles when implementing spot advertising such as heavy advertising in certain geographic regions. Finally, media buyers pay attention to the costs of each media vehicle. When two media vehicles are similar in major aspects, media buyers choose the less expensive media vehicle.

There are two basic calculations of media vehicle cost. The first one, cost per rating point (CPP), is used primarily for broadcast media vehicles. To derive the CPP, divide the cost of a 30-second commercial by the ratings of the vehicle in which the advertisement is placed.[SIDEBAR DEFINITION: CPP: The cost of a broadcast ad per rating point (1% of the population) provided by the media vehicle that shows the ad.] The formula for calculating CPP is as follows:

Cost Per Rating Point = Cost of the Ad / Rating of the Vehicle

For example, if the cost for a 30-second commercial ABC's "Grey's Anatomy" television program is $440,000 and the rating of the program is 9.7, then CPP for this buy will be $25,360.

Another media cost term is cost per thousand impressions (CPM), which is the cost to have 1000 members of the target audience exposed to an ad.[[SIDEBAR DEFINITION for CPM: Cost Per Thousand (M is the Latin abbreviation for 1000): the cost per 1000 impressions for an ad]] As you recall, the impressions are simply opportunities to see the ad. one difference between CPP and CPM is that CPM also contains the size of a vehicle audience. CPM is calculated in two

steps. First, the gross impressions that an ad may get is calculated using the rating of the program and the size of the market population. Second, CPM is calculated using the cost and gross impressions. The two formulas are as follows:

Gross Impressions = Audience size * Rating / 100

CPM = Cost / Gross Impressions * 1000

Using the previous example, the rating of a television program is 10 and the cost for a 30-second commercial is $25,000. If there are 5,000,000 adults in the market, then CPM for the buy will be as follows:

            Gross Impressions = 5,000,000 * 10 / 100 = 500,000

            CPM = $25,000 / 500,000 * 1000 = $50

Thus, CPM for this media buy is $50.

CPM can be calculated for different media, including online media. For example, an informal consensus of online media buyers agreed that a $10 CPM asking price seemed about average to pay for advertising on social-networking like Friendster, Yahoo 360 and Britain's FaceParty

In contrast to these quantitative characteristics, qualitative characteristics of media vehicles are those that are primarily judgmental, such as vehicle reputation, editorial environment, reproduction quality, and added values. For example, media vehicles vary in reputation; newspapers such as The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal generally enjoy high reputation. Furthermore, the editorial environment can be more or less favorable for advertisers. The impact of food ads, for instance, can be enhanced when they appear around articles about health or nutrition. Likewise, some magazines are better in reproduction quality than others, which enhance the impact of the ads. Finally, some media vehicles offer added values. Added values take various forms, and they benefit advertisers without additional cost. For example, a newspaper may publish a special page whose editorial context fits an advertiser's products, or a television channel may host a local event in association with a car dealership. Media buyers can work with the media to invent creative forms of added values for advertisers.

4.4. Selection of Media Vehicles

Media buyers can use tools, like the one shown below, to make the process of selecting a media vehicle easier. To use the selection tool shown in Figure 9I, develop a list of the potential vehicle candidates you are considering. Then, select several quantitative and qualitative characteristics that are relevant to reach and frequency considerations, such as quantitative characteristics like

CPM or GRP, and qualitative characteristics like reputation and added value. Next, make a table that lists the vehicle candidates in rows and the characteristics in columns. Now you can rate each of the characteristics of each vehicle on a scale of 1 to 3. Then add all the numbers in each row, dividing by the total number of characteristics (columns) to arrive at the rating for each vehicle. The best media vehicles to choose are those with the highest index numbers. In Figure 8, Vehicle 2 and Vehicle 3 are the best ways to reach the target audience.

Figure 8: Selection of Media Vehicle Based on Quantitative and Qualitative Characteristics

  Qn1 Qn2 Qn3 Ql1 Ql2 Ql3 Index

V1 3 2 1 3 1 1 1.8

V2 1 2 2 2 2 3 2.0

V3 1 3 3 1 1 3 2.0

V4 1 1 2 1 2 1 1.3

5. Evaluating Media Plan Effectiveness

Accountability is increasingly important in media planning, as more advertisers expect to see returns on their investments in advertising. Because media spending usually accounts for 80 percent or more of the budget for typical advertising campaigns, the effectiveness of media plans is of particular importance. As a result, media planners often make measures of the effectiveness of a media plan an integral part of the media plan. Although sales results are the ultimate measure of the effectiveness of an advertising campaign, the sales result is affected by many factors, such as price, distribution and competition, which are often out of the scope of the advertising campaign It is important, therefore, to identify what measures are most relevant to the effectiveness of media planning and buying. We will examine the topic of measurement in more detail in chapters 21 and 22, but here is an introduction to measurement that is specific to media plans.

5.1. What to Measure

Because of the hierarchical nature of the media effects, the effectiveness of media planning should be measured with multiple indictors. The first measure is the actual execution of scheduled media placements. Did the ads appear in the media vehicles in agreed-upon terms? Media buyers look at "tear-sheets" -- copies of the ads as they have appeared in print media --

for verification purposes. For electronic media, media buyers examine the ratings of the programs in which commercials were inserted to make sure the programs delivered the promised ratings. If the actual program ratings are significantly lower than what the advertiser paid for, the media usually "make good" for the difference in ratings by running additional commercials without charge.

The most direct measure of the effectiveness of media planning is the media vehicle exposure. Media planners ask: How many of the target audience were exposed to the media vehicles and to ads in those vehicles during a given period of time? This question is related to the communication goals in the media objectives. If the measured level of exposure is near to or exceeds the planned reach and frequency, then the media plan is considered to be effective.

Several additional measures can be made of the target audience, such as:

Brand awareness -- how many of the target audience are aware of the advertised brand?Comprehension -- does the target audience understand the advertised brand? Is there any miscomprehension?Conviction -- is the target audience convinced by ads? How do they like the advertised brands?Action -- how many of the target audience have purchased the advertised brand as a result of the media campaign?

The measured results of brand awareness, comprehension, conviction and action are often a function of both advertising creative and media planning. Even effective media planning may not generate anticipated cognitive, affective and conative responses if the ads are poorly created and not appealing to the target audience. On the other hand, ineffective media planning may be disguised when the ads are highly creative and brilliant. Thus, these measures should be reviewed by both creative directors and media planners to make accurate assessments of the effectiveness of the media plan.

5.2. How to Measure

The measurement of the effectiveness of a media plan can be conducted by the advertising agency or by independent research services, using methods such as surveys, feedback, tracking, and observation. Each method has its strengths and weaknesses. For example, surveys can be conducted among a sampling of the target audience in the different periods of a media campaign, such as in the beginning, the middle and the end of the campaign. Surveys can ask questions about the target audience's media behavior, advertising recall, brand attitudes and actual purchase. Radiowatch, for instance, conducts monthly surveys on advertising recall of radio commercials in England. Radiowatch surveys 1000 adults age 16-64 and asks them which radio commercials they remember hearing. In the April 2006 survey, the most-recalled ad was for T-

Mobile, with 46% of respondents recalling the ad. An ad for McDonald's had 36% recall, while the ad for Peugeot received 18%.

Besides surveys, feedback can be collected to measure the media and ad exposure of the target audience. Feedback devices such as reply cards, toll-free numbers, coupons and Web addresses can be provided in ads so that tallies of the responses or redemptions can be made to estimate the impact of advertising media. Advertisers often use a different code in direct response ads to identify different media vehicles. For example, in the April 3 2006 issue of BusinessWeek, the reply card for subscribing to the magazine had a code of JS6D1, whereas the reply card bound into the May 29, 2006 issue of the magazine had a code of JS6E2. Similarly, when the Garden of Eatin' gives coupons for its tortilla chips, the UPC code on the coupon indicates which media vehicle the coupon was in, such as whether the coupon came from the 2006 Bolder Boulder promotional calendar or from the Organic and Natural Experience (ONE) 2006 Tour book of coupons. In short, by reviewing the different codes recorded, media buyers can assess the response rate of each media vehicle.

As you can see from the Radio watch and Garden of Eatin' examples, one advantage of surveys over feedback devices is that surveys reach people who have taken no action on the product, whereas feedback devices require the consumer to mail back, click or call a toll-free number. In this way, surveys can help media buyers evaluate the effectiveness of an ad in relation to other ads, whereas feedback devices help them evaluate the effectiveness of one media vehicle over another.

Tracking is measurement method that media buyers use to track the effectiveness of online ads. When a user visits a Web site or clicks on a banner ad, Web servers automatically log that action in real time. The logs of these visits and actions are very useful for media buyers, because the buyers can use them to estimate the actual interaction of audience members with the interactive media. For example, a banner ad may have a code for each Web site where the ad is placed. Media buyers can compare the click-through rates of the banner ad across all Web sites daily, to estimate the effectiveness of each Web site. Media buyers are making more use of the tracking method given the increasing use of interactive media.

Finally, in the physical world, media buyers can use observation to collect audience reaction information at the points of purchase or during marketing events. For example, researchers can be stationed in grocery stores to observe how consumers react to in-store advertising or how they select an advertised brand in comparison of other brands. The advantage of observation is that it provides rich, detailed data on how consumers behave in real situations in response to the marketing communication. The downside is that direct observation is more costly to conduct and tabulate.

This article described the media planning process, starting from establishing media objectives through to developing media strategies and tactics and finally evaluating the effectiveness of the media plan. You've learned how to identify your target audience; evaluate different media vehicles on the basis of reach, frequency and GRPs; make prudent media mix decisions using tools like BDI and CDI and scheduling concepts like continuity, flight and pulse scheduling; make sound budget decisions using tools like CPP and CPM; and, finally, evaluate the effectiveness of your media plan through surveys, feedback devices, tracking and observation. In the next four chapters, we'll delve more deeply into the different types of media ?print media, broadcast media, out-of-home media and interactive media ?to help you understand the ad formats, strengths/weakness and cost structures of each of these advertising media.

Real Money Making Machine

6. Proven Examples :

Ads: Campaign Cost and Budgeting

Ads and Business Solutions » Learn About Ads » Facebook Ads

Do I have to pay for Facebook Ads? How much do they cost? Yes, Facebook Ads are a paid service. However, advertisers have complete control over their spend through the ability to set a daily or lifetime budget per campaign. You can estimate the cost per click (CPC) or per one thousand impressions (CPM) as you create your ads. Simply enter your targeting criteria and go through the ad creation process to the last step titled "Pricing" (you won't have to enter any payment information until the next step, so you can do this without purchasing an ad). Here you will find your "Suggested Bid", which will show you the range of bids that are currently winning the auction among ads similar to yours. When you run your ad you will only be charged for the number of clicks you receive (CPC) or the number of impressions of your ad that are displayed (CPM). The amount that you are charged will never exceed your daily or lifetime budget. There are no additional fees for running Facebook Ads.

How much will my campaign cost? You can control your spend for each campaign by setting a daily or lifetime budget. Beyond that, there is no set cost for Facebook Ads but you can get an estimate as you create an ad. Just enter your targeting criteria and go through to Step 3 of ad creation (you won't have to enter any payment information until the next step, so you can do this without purchasing an ad). The "Suggested Bid" represents the range of bids that are currently winning the auction among ads similar to yours. Based on this, you can determine how much you wish to spend per click or per thousand impressions. You can multiply that number by the number of clicks/thousand impressions you wish to receive each day to determine your approximate daily budget.Please note campaign charges accrue on a per calendar day basis and not on a 24 hour period. For example if your campaign is set to run from Jan. 1, 2010 9:00 am to Jan. 2, 2010 9:00 am with a daily budget of $5 you may be charged up to $10 for this campaign.When you run your ad you will only be charged for the number of clicks you receive (CPC) or the number of impressions of your ad that are displayed (CPM). The amount that you are charged will never exceed your daily budget.

What is the difference between CPC and CPM and which should I choose? Cost Per Click (CPC) advertising allows you to specify a certain amount that you are willing to

pay each time a user clicks on your ad. Many CPC (cost per click) advertisers are more interested in having people click through to their website in order to drive conversions. Cost Per Thousand Impressions (CPM) advertising allows you to specify how much you are willing to pay for 1000 impressions (views) of your ad. Most CPM (cost per thousand impressions) advertisers feel that it's more important where their ad shows up and what it ad looks like. These advertisers are also more focused on spreading brand awareness than accruing conversions.

Is there a minimum CPC or CPM bid? The current minimum CPC (cost per click) is $0.01. The current minimum CPM (cost per thousand impressions) is $0.02 USD for the Ad Space. However, keep in mind that it's unlikely that your ad(s) will show on the site if you are bidding beneath the suggested bid range(s).

Does selecting CPC or CPM influence the placement of my ad or the amount of exposure it will receive? For any available ad inventory, Facebook selects the best ad to run based on the cost per click or per one thousand impressions and ad performance. All Facebook Ads compete with each other to show for each impression, regardless of their bid model.If you choose a CPC model, you will bid on how much you are willing to pay for each click on your ad. If you choose a CPM model, you will bid on how much you are willing to pay for every thousand impressions (views) of your ad. In both cases, Facebook will display your ad in the right-hand Ad Space. You are not able to choose on which pages your ad shows nor can you choose which position the ad is shown in on the page. The amount you are charged will never exceed your daily budget.

How do I update my bids? Bid prices fluctuate over time. Remember to check the bid prices for each of your campaigns to make sure that they are at or above the suggested range. Ads with bids below the suggested range are very unlikely to receive delivery. Please follow the steps below to view and update your bid prices.

1. Visit your Ads Manager 2. From there, select the campaign that contains the ad you wish to change the bid for3. Scroll over your current bid next to the desired ad and click on the pencil icon that

appears4. Enter your desired bid5. Click “Save”

Is there an upper limit to my CPC or CPM bid? Your maximum cost per click or CPM must be less than your daily budget. Your daily budget must be at least 2x the CPC or CPM you have specified. You will never accrue charges for clicks or impressions in a Facebook billable day that exceed your daily or lifetime budget.

Why is my average cost per click or CPM less than my maximum cost per click or CPM? How does Facebook determine my cost per click or my CPM? For any given ad unit, we select the best ad to run based on the cost per click or cost per thousand impressions and ad performance. We have a process in place that will automatically calculate the minimum price that the advertiser could pay and still have the highest CPC or CPM ad, and the advertiser will only be billed that price. This price may be below the advertiser’s maximum cost per click or CPM. Because we lower the cost per click or CPM on your behalf, we recommend that you enter your true maximum cost per click or CPM when creating an ad. This will increase the likelihood that you do not miss out on clicks or impressions that you otherwise could have received.

Is there a way to estimate my max cost per click (CPC) or per one thousand impressions (CPM) should be? You can estimate the cost for your ads in the ad creation interface. You can estimate the cost per click (CPC) or per one thousand impressions (CPM) as you create an ad. Simply enter your targeting criteria and go through the ad creation process to the last step titled "Pricing" (you won't have to enter any payment information until the next step, so you can do this without purchasing an ad). Here you will find your "Suggested Bid", which will show you the range of bids that are currently winning the auction among ads similar to yours. When you run your ad you will only be charged for the number of clicks you receive (CPC) or the number of impressions of your ad that are displayed (CPM). The amount that you are charged will never exceed your daily or lifetime budget. There are no additional fees for running

Facebook Ads. We do recommend that you enter your true maximum cost per click or CPM when creating an ad – this will increase the likelihood that you do not miss out on clicks or impressions that you otherwise could have received as the required bid range fluctuates. The cost per click or CPM associated with an ad, along with the ad quality, influences how often it is shown.

What is the "Suggested Bid" range? The suggested bid range you see when creating your ads is based on the bids that are currently winning the ad auction for the users you've chosen to target. This range will likely change over time, for a variety of reasons. It depends on competing ads and the ad's past performance. If you notice your ad's suggested bid range increasing, it may be that the ad has not performed well on the site. Make sure your ad is targeted to the most relevant audience, uses informative ad text, includes a call to action (i.e. "Click here"), and has an eye-catching image.

Will I ever be billed more than my maximum cost per click or maximum CPM? No, you will never be billed more than your maximum cost per click (CPC) or the maximum cost per one thousand impressions (CPM) that you have specified. You will also never be billed more than your daily or lifetime budget.

What does my "Daily Budget" control? The daily budget you are able to set per ad campaign you're running is the maximum amount you're willing to spend per day for that campaign. Our system will automatically stop showing your ad once your budget has been met for the day, and you will never accrue charges in excess of your budget each day. Keep in mind that you can also set a lifetime budget, which lets you choose a set amount to spend over the entire scheduled span of a campaign.

How do I change my daily budget after my ad is already running? You can change your daily budget at any time. Please allow up to 15 minutes for the system to implement your budget change.You can edit your daily budget for a campaign by clicking on the pencil icon next to the budget amount of your desired campaign. Enter in your new budget amount and click 'Save.'

The amount you've already spent that day will be include in your new budget. We'll never charge you more than your daily budget; if you've already spent more than your new budget at the time you change it, your ads will stop running until the following day.

What is the minimum daily budget? The minimum daily budget for CPC and CPM is $1.00 USD. In addition, your budget must be at least 2x the CPC or CPM you have specified. For example, if you specify a $10 CPC, then your daily budget must be at least $20. Based on your campaign's daily budget, our system will regulate the amount you spend each hour to prevent the ad from using up your budget too early in the day. Keep in mind that small daily budgets limit the number of clicks or impressions in a day. This makes it hard for our system to pace your ad, which can hurt delivery. If you have a limited advertising budget, we encourage you to try advertising for a shorter period of time with a higher daily budget. For example, if your monthly budget is $30, try scheduling your ad campaign for 1-2 weeks at a higher daily budget rather than for 30 days with a $1/day budget in order to maximize ad performance.

Can I set a lifetime or total budget for my ads? Yes, you can now set a lifetime budget for your ads at the campaign level. To find out more, please visit the Lifetime Budgeting for Facebook Ads section of the Help Center.

What's a "Daily Spend Limit"? The daily spend limit is different than your daily budget. You will see this amount within the 'Billing' tab of your Ads Manager.

Your daily spend limit is the maximum amount that we will allow you to spend in one day. It will increase automatically as you successfully make payments at each previous limit. In some cases, we may be able to manually increase your daily spend limit. For more information on your daily spend limit,

We will never charge you more than the daily budget you've set. The daily budget that you are able to set for your campaigns cannot exceed the daily spend limit that is in place for your account

Internet Marketing Methodology

The typical goal of Internet marketing is to attract prospects on the Web to your website and then get those targeted prospects to enter into a relationship with you. We are experts in helping our customers accomplish these goals by providing website promotion and visitor conversion.

But there is a lot more the Internet can do for your business. In addition to web-based lead generation, your Internet strategy may include reducing operational costs, as well as, increasing customer loyalty, partner or channel development, and market analysis. Because we are experienced, versatile marketing pros, we can share our many years of experience in these areas with you, to help you make wise choices and avoid pitfalls.

Our methodology can be summarized as follows:

Define business goals, target audiences and messaging per audience

Measure existing Internet presence and programs

Define / refine Internet marketing strategy

Implement

Measure results

Internet Marketing Goals, Target Markets and Strategy

We begin our relationship with you by asking a lot of questions about your business. What are you selling? Who are the buyers? What “pain” are they experiencing that your product or service addresses? How do they typically find out about products or services like yours? If buying decisions involve more than one person, what are their roles? Who is your competition and what

are their strengths and weaknesses? Who are your potential partners or affiliates you want to most attract?

Define / Refine Internet Marketing Strategy

Once we understand the fundamentals of our business, we explore how we could leverage the Internet to enhance our sales and marketing efforts. Who are the audiences that should visit your website, what is our message to each audience, and what do you want each audience to do before leaving your site? Are you tracking visitors to your site and measuring the results of your online campaigns?

Implementation

Part of our value to you is our experience with Internet marketing technologies, vendors, government regulations and best practices. We draw on this experience to develop a plan and provide implementation support from assistance to full development if you need it. Some of our clients want to handle a portion of the implementation themselves, and that’s fine with us. We work as your partner and call on our team of copy writers, graphic designers, marketers, web developers and engineers as needed. We remain intensely focused on limiting your costs and maximizing your profits through our work.

Measurement

One of the advantages of Internet marketing is the quick availability of results of initiatives and campaigns. The results of even a minor tweak to your website, for example to increase conversion rate, can often be seen in a matter of hours or days, making it easier to fine tune and incrementally improve your site and your campaigns. Given this fact, it’s surprising how few companies actually have an effective process in place to measure the results of what they’re doing and feed that information back into the cycle. Market Vantage can take care of the measurement, figure out “what it means” and provide you with the resulting decisions and recommendations, to help you continuously improve your company’s Internet marketing performance.

Available mix of advertising methods

Advertising is a complex business and an ever-changing science. New ideas and media uses are being devised all the time, and as the advertising industry switches emphasis from media to media, and as new technologies and lifestyle trends develop, so new advertising and promotional methods need assessing and comparing with traditional available methods as to which is more or less cost-effective for your given purposes. For example through the 1980s and 1990s there was a huge trend towards direct mail (junk mail), which seems to show no signs of abating - many very large consumer brands switched significant advertising spending into direct mail, often switching away from TV. TV on the other hand is increasingly attractive to small local businesses. Loyalty schemes demonstrated significant success rates through the 1990s through to present times. Internet advertising is arguably now more popular than radio advertising - the importance of websites and internet listings are very significant now for small local businesses just as much as larger corporations. 'Viral marketing' (exploiting electronic communications and the 'word of mouth' instinct) is an example of a new method of advertising that simply never existed until about the mid-1990s. Advertising methods change with lifestyle and technology developments - learn what's available to you - learn what your competitors are doing. Read about advertising methods and developments and trends. Historically (1980s-90s) advertising agencies were commonly 'multi-services' agencies, and split their operations to handle the creative, production and media-buying processes. Nowadays however, multi-services agencies are far less common - the range of advertising methods is so vast that advertising agencies are

now most commonly specialised in one or a small number of advertising services (types of advertising), because there's so much to consider and to use. Whether you work with an advertising agency or not, learn about the methods that are available to you - keep up with developments so you can make informed decisions about where to put your advertising emphasis, and what 'mix' of methods to use.

choose methods according to cost, targeting and response

Any campaign can be broken down in terms of cost per thousand, and if you are seeking a direct response, it should be monitored according to cost per response and also cost per conversion. Advertising cost per thousand includes cost of origination (design), production (printing if relevant) and media (such as local radio, display advert, list procurement and postal fulfillment). Generally you will pay a higher cost per thousand for better targeted methods, but in return you should expect a higher response rate, so the cost per response can be lower than cheaper methods. Choose advertising and publicity methods that suit your targeting. Organisations selling advertising are able to provide a lot of information about their readership/audience, and you can look at other advertisers that repeatedly using various media to gauge how effectively it's working for them, which will provide some clues as to how well it might work for you. Are they targeting the same audience as you? If so you it's an idea to call them and ask if the particular advertising method is one they's recommend or not.

Getting and building evidence of advertising effectiveness is a vital part of decision-making, and managing your advertising and marketing mix. Why guess if you can base decisions on experience and previous statistics and data? Sophisticated advertisers only commit to major programmes after accumulating response data from pilots and previous campaigns. They avoid guesswork, and so should you. Any large scale activity must first be tested and the response measured for quantity and profile.

design, production and the role of external agencies

Your advertising material helps to form your image, so make sure you are happy with the design, however modest the style and usage. Use typefaces and logos in a consistent way, and if you can get the help of a good designer early this will set the tone and rules for usage later, which will save time and money in the long term. You may already have a perfectly satisfactory 'corporate identity'. If so, don't feel pressurised to change for the sake of it. Brand loyalty and the names and identities associated with it takes years - generations in fact - to build. Don't throw away perfectly good branding just because some idiot from an agency persuades you that a change is necessary. When making any change consider your real purpose and implications.

Consider and be warned by examples in recent times of large-scale corporate identity cock-ups, such as BT (trumpeting figure), the Post Office (calling itself Consignia), and British Airways (multi-national aircraft tail-fin designs) - all of these cost tens of millions of pounds, yet they all (according to most commentators) failed disastrously and resulted in expensive rebranding or

reversion to the original identities.

The role of design and advertising agencies is however most commonly concerned with planning and implementing advertising or promotional 'campaigns' on a client's behalf.

This advertising process starts with a 'brief' comprising: the purpose of the advertising, how much you will pay, and what you expect to get, including how you will measure whether it is successful or not. A written brief is critically important if you are using an outside agency. Advertising is notoriously subjective; creative agencies are often difficult to manage; so misunderstandings can easily creep in if your control is not tight enough. See also the tips for working with product designers because many of the principles are transferable to working with advertising agencies.

Here are some general rules for working with advertising and design agencies:

Try to appoint people who come recommended and who have experience in your sector.

Agree written briefs for all work, and certainly in the early phase of a relationship.

Maintain a balance between what you want to say and how they want to say it.

Don't allow the message to get over-complicated.

Agencies charge like wounded bulls for correcting copy (text) once they've started the final artwork, so try to get all the details correct and as you want them before going to the reprographic stage (that's when the designer or typesetter produces the artwork).

If you are a small business try to use an agency with the services you need under one roof (apart from printing which is traditionally separate), as they can tend to mark-up bought-in services quite heavily, eg., graphic design, photography. You'll also find it easier to establish accountability if your agency is responsible for the whole job, rather than just a part of it.

Until you are satisfied with the agency's print prices it's a good idea to ask for an alternative print quotation, and check what mark-up the agency adds on.

In the case of list procurement (for mailings and telemarketing campaigns, etc), display advertising, or leaflet distribution through inserts or 'Door-to-door' delivery, check whether the agency is adding a mark-up (it's likely), and if so that you are happy with this mark-up.

Ask the same question in the case of any other procured services or products, eg., promotional merchandise, exhibition space, etc.

Advertise to build awareness and to generate response

Within the advertising purpose you should define whether you seek to create awareness or to generate a direct response. Effective marketing generally demands that each is employed, but on a limited budget you may be restricted to concentrating on one or the other, so think carefully about what will help most. Different media and methods are better suited to one or the other. Direct Mail is very good at generating a direct response, as are magazine and newspaper adverts, and inserts. Posters, TV, radio and press editorial are all much better at creating awareness and building credibility.

Use language that your customers understand

In all of your advertising material take care to see things and hear things form your customers' viewpoint. As a knowledgeable supplier there is always a tendency to write copy and present information from a technical and 'product/service' standpoint. Remember that your customers are people without good technical or detailed understanding of your products and services. You need to help them understand things in terms that really mean something to the reader - as it relates to their needs and priorities and challenges. Focus on what your propositions do for them, not what your propositions are in technical detail. You should spell things out, using clear simple language. Do not fall into the trap of thinking that complicated language will help build an image of professionalism and intelligence - people will just turn off. The mark of truly effective advertising and marketing is the ability to convey complex issues to the audience in a manner that is interesting, relevant, meaningful, and easy to digest very quickly.

Thomas Jefferson suggested that "The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do" and this is a good maxim for writing good advertising material.

If you or the 'copy-writer' at your advertising agency cannot achieve this in your advertising and marketing communications then find someone who can, or you will be wasting a lot of your advertising effort and investment.

Translate your product/service offer into meaningful customer benefits

Having decided through the processes described above to focus your message on a few key strengths of your business (your 'service offer' or 'proposition') you must now express these in terms of benefits to your customers. What does it all mean to them? Give them something to relate to, so that you explain more than simply what you do or provide - explain what your proposition means to your customers. How will it make their business more profitable, more streamlined, more ethical and sustainable, more socially responsible; how your proposition will improve the quality of their service to their own customers; how it will make their employees lives' easier, better, less stressful - whatever you believe to be the strongest most relevant and meaningful customer outcomes.

Advertising must be costed and linked to measurable response

Because advertising is such a complex science the only real way to be sure that something will work before you try it is to refer to previous indicators, and if you've no previous statistics or reliable data then run 'pilot' or trial first. Start measuring the effectiveness of your advertising from the very beginning. Keep detailed records of what you did, when, to whom, for how much, and what resulted. Admittedly the results of certain advertising can be quite difficult to measure, particularly where no direct response is sought, (where follow-up sample surveys might be the only way to gauge effects), but measure everything in whatever way you can. Starting a business and a completely new advertising campaign inevitably involves a bit of calculated guesswork, however, if you start measuring and recording results from the beginning then you'll make your task much easier next time around.

Key indicators to be gauged are cost per thousand, cost per response, and percentage response.

A very basic method of measuring and recording advertising effectiveness and results is to ensure that every enquiry is greeted at some stage with the question, "How did you hear about us?" or "How did you find us?" Even very large 'professional' organisations commonly fail to instill this basic principle within their customer service processes, and yet it is so utterly important.

These days there is every opportunity to properly record and measure enquiries and advertising responses: Computer-based CRM (Customer Relationship Management) systems nowadays offer relatively easy and cost-effective ways of managing customer and enquiries information. Make sure you use one. Then you won't need to guess as to what forms of advertising work best for you.

Remember also that advertising forms a part of your business plan, which is aimed at being profitable. If your advertising does not produce a gross profit in excess of its cost you need to know why. As a minimum, you certainly need to know whether it does or it doesn't.

Back to marketing index.

 

 

Types of advertising media and marketing methods

Prior to considering methods of advertising and marketing it is important to ensure that you understand and adhere to local country laws relating to data protection and customer rights concerning privacy and opt-out of various marketing methods. This especially relates to maintaining and using lists and people's personal details, to the use of telemarketing, direct mail, fax-marketing, and email. Generally private consumers enjoy more protection than business-to-

business customers. See the notes about laws relating to direct marketing and advertising.

Small local businesses who target their local community often overlook some very simple easy and cost effective ways of advertising. These low-cost methods are not generally so suitable for big corporations with big budgets, but these ideas can be very effective (and very inexpensive) for small businesses and self-employed people targeting the local area with small advertising budgets.

Here is a quick list of these local advertising ideas, which with a little imagination and selective effort can be developed into a very effective local advertising campaign, providing a continuous pipeline of new business:

Posters in windows and on notice boards, and in staff rooms of local businesses.

A promotional stall at a local car-boot market or county show.

A stall or leafleting presence at a local relevant gathering or event.

Using leaflets or business cards in dispensers where local people sit and wait or queue or gather, for example: doctors, dentists, vets, church rooms, tourist information office, outpatients departments, library, nurseries, mini-cab offices, forces and services sites (e.g., police, ambulance, etc), launderettes, post offices, newsagents, hairdressers, takeaways, cafes and bars, hotels, pubs and restaurants, golf clubs clinics, leisure centres, etc.

Reciprocal referral arrangements with other good local suppliers, especially those who serve your target audience with different products and services (which enables you to be more helpful to your own customers when they ask you to recommend other services).

Regularly giving news and interesting pictures about your work to your local newspaper (see PR below), or perhaps even writing a regular column relating to your specialism in the local free newspaper or parish magazine.

Offering existing customers an incentive (gift of some sort, or money off your next supply) for introducing a friend as a new customer for you.

Door-to-door leaflet distribution through the postal service or other suitable service.

Speaking at local networking/business events.

Speaking or facilitating at the local school or college - for example with business education and preparing youngsters for the world of work (which gives you publicity and builds your reputation).

Local trade directories - typically monthly publications distributed to the local community.

Targeting special offers at local big employers, through their PR and/or HR/social activities.

While most of these methods are for small companies and local campaigns, a few can certainly be adapted and used effectively by big organizations with surprisingly good and cost-effective results.

Here are more advertising methods, generally for larger corporations, campaigns and target markets, in more detail:

 

WEBSITES, INTERNET,E-MAIL, CD-ROM'S, DVD'S

Online and electronic media are fast becoming the most flexible and dynamic advertising methods of all. As people's use of the internet increases, so does the internet's potency as a vehicle for advertising and marketing too.

Electronic and online advertising media can be expensive and challenging to originate and implement initially, but unit costs tend to be low thereafter, and can be extremely cost-effective if sensibly researched and implemented.

As the internet extends progressively to mobile phones and hand-held devices (PDA's - Personal Digital Assistants), the opportunity and necessity to make use of online and web-related marketing methods becomes increasingly irresistible.

The internet and email provide unprecedented opportunity for radically new methods of promotion and advertising, such as viral marketing, and RSS (Really Simple Syndication) of educational or informative articles, newsgroups, forums, affiliation and partnering arrangements, email newsletters and campaigns, and many other new ideas which appear more quickly than most of us can absorb.

Modern and emerging digital and web-related advertising marketing methods offer audience 'reach', precision of targeting, level of fine-tuning and control, measurement and analysis, and cost-effectiveness that conventional advertising media simply cannot match.

Aside from the more complex functionality of modern digital marketing methods, at a basic level, websites, CD ROM's and DVD's share much of the same origination and set-up, so it's now very feasible and sensible to produce all sales literature and brochures, plus lots more besides, in user-friendly, inter-active digital format.

Conventional printed sales and marketing materials of all types (from newspapers and magazines, to brochures and business cards) are becoming obsolete as customers look to the internet (via phones, pc's, laptops, PDA's and in the future TV too) for quick, up-to-the-minute information about products, services and suppliers of all sorts.

And as more agencies, technology companies and digital media organisations develop their offerings and technology, so the costs and time of set-up, origination, production and implementation will reduce to levels that will move customers - in time almost completely - away from traditional (printed and other non-digital) media to modern electronic media, digital information, and online 'engagement' with suppliers of all sorts.

Internet listings, internet directories advertising, and 'pay-per-click' advertising offered by the major search engines, are now viable and relevant for very small 'local' businesses, and are all examples of this fundamental shift in marketing.

Take time to learn about and understand which of the new digital methods will work for you and how.

Most, if not all of the information you need is freely available on the internet - take time to look for it and learn - and ensure that your business explores and implements the many very cost-effective advertising methods available to you via internet media and the modern digital revolution.

Press and Public Relations (PR)

The press release is the most under-rated form of advertising. Why? Because it's free, and moreover press editorial is perceived by the audience to be true, whereas advertising of all almost all other types is seen as 'oh no another advert' and therefore implies uncertainty or scepticism. Getting your editorial printed for free is easier than you may think, and guidelines for using PR follow in more detail below. TV and radio news publicity works in much the same way, although more difficult to secure and control. Surveys and questionnaires provide perhaps the best opportunity for achieving valuable and effective publicity. See the guidelines about surveys and questionnaires below.

Seminars

Creating an informative seminar and inviting your target audience is an excellent way to educate the market and promote your company and proposition. This method works especially well in the business-to-business market, and where educating customers is appropriate, for instance if marketing a new technology or service to architects and specifiers. It is possible to have certain types of seminars accredited for CPD (Continuous Professional Development) by professional institutes, which provides an extra incentive for prospective customers to attend.

Telemarketing

Using telemarketing staff or a telemarketing agency is a proven method of marketing. If well-managed, telemarketing can be an extremely good and cost-effective method for generating sales enquiries, selling products and services and making appointments for sales staff. It is important to identify a good telemarketing agency, and to that ensure your aims, outline script, and communications process for enquiry generation follow-up, are all clearly established and understood, by the agency and your own staff. A good CRM computer system to manage lists, data, follow-up and outcomes, is normally essential for telemarketing is to be successful on any reasonable scale, and good telemarketing agencies will already be using such systems which hopefully will interface with your own systems.

Considerable care needs to be taken when defining and agreeing the telemarketing 'brief' with the telemarketing staff, department or agency. Good experienced telemarketing staff and managers understand what works and what doesn't forgiven markets, types of propositions and products and services. Listen to their advice.

Generally telemarketing 'scripts' are not a good idea for high quality propositions, nor for professional business-to-business campaigns. A good telemarketing agency will work best by developing their own approach to meet the broad requirements of a project 'brief' and an outline of what you want to achieve, and how you want to achieve it.

Rigid scripts have the effect of limiting the natural style and capabilities of telemarketing staff, moreover customers generally find scripts, which quickly become robotic and characterless, very impersonal and insulting.

Refer to the legal implications (Data Protection Act and Preference Services) in the direct mail section.

Direct Mail

Consumers and businesses are protected by certain rights relating to direct marketing techniques such as telemarketing, and you must ensure that your activities adhere to these rules.

Some of the principles and rules referenced here also apply to other types of direct marketing, including 'door-to-door' distribution and telemarketing methods.

Direct mail is the process of sending your material (by itself or in a shared mailing with other items) direct to the address of the potential customer by post. The elements which make up the direct mail process are basically:

A mailing list of names and addresses (from your own data-base or names sourced elsewhere)

The item(s) to be mailed, and envelopes or packaging, if applicable Resource or facility to 'stuff' and address or label the envelopes/packaging (assuming you

are putting the item in an envelope or packaging, which of course is not always the case)and postal charges, which depend (in the UK) now on the size and shape as well as the weight of the item being mailed.

The last two stages are often called 'fulfillment'.

Direct Mail is generally used to generate a direct response from the recipient and will commonly

incorporate a reply or response section within the mailed item.

Aside from the strength of your proposition, response rates vary according primarily to the quality of the list, notably:

the reliability of the list data (new clean lists obviously perform better than old out-of-date lists)

And how well 'targeted' the list is in terms of your offer (how relevant it is to the recipient).

Direct mail is not a precise science. See the direct mail story for example. There are many things that can go wrong, and even more things that are unknown and unimagined by the campaign manager. Like the rest of advertising, whether a direct mail campaign works well or poorly it's often very difficult to discover what elements need to be changed and how: the proposition, the mailing list, the reliability of the fulfilment, the day and time of delivery, the response mechanism, something else? For large ongoing campaigns it is appropriate and cost-effective to conduct follow-up surveys of respondents and non-responders, but for smaller initiatives it's rarely cost-effective to attempt detailed analysis other than to look for obvious indications of success or failure.

A direct mail campaign which produces more than a 2% response is normally considered very successful. Lower than 1% response is more usual. You then need to take into account the conversion rate (the conversion of responses into sales), assuming the campaign is designed to produce responses or enquiries and not sales directly. Aside from the quality of the responses, which is determined by the campaign, conversion rates also vary according to factors outside of and after the direct mail activities themselves, such as response handling, IT systems, sales follow-up, etc. It is therefore important to judge a direct mail campaign first on percentage and quality of response, and then separately to assess the overall results of the campaign including conversion statistics and sales values.

Inexperienced marketeers (and many experienced ones too) tend to over-estimate forecasted response rates for direct mail, so a planning tip is to be pessimistic (prudent, as accountants say), especially when calculating advertising viability and return on investment. When you first state your estimated response rate as part of the financial justification for the direct mail campaign, next reduce it by a factor of 10 (i.e., re-assess the campaign viability using on one-tenth of your initial response forecast). If the figures still show a positive return on investment then your campaign might well be successful. If not, then it's sensible to re-think the whole thing.

Your own database of existing and past customers will typically produce a significantly higher response than that of a list sourced elsewhere. List prices vary enormously, from a few pounds up to several hundreds of pounds per 1,000 names and addresses, depending on volume, how specific the list is, and how selective your profiling criteria are. You can also choose whether to have the list on labels, or on a disk in a common spreadsheet or database format, the latter being

most common now, and easy to import, if appropriate, into a CRM (customer relationship management) system.

Mailing list prices also vary according to the terms of use, notably the number of times the list can be used (list rental), or whether unlimited use is permitted, or whether the list is being actually bought outright.

These days for small businesses it's very easy and cost-effective to do your own or outsource a mailmerge direct mail, campaign, using a word-processing program in conjunction with the list of names and addresses on a spreadsheet program. Large scale direct mail campaigns are normally best managed via a CRM (customer relationship management) system. Contact the Direct Marketing Association or country equivalent for more information about providers of lists and mailing services, etc.

Display advertising

The taking of advertising space in the editorial sections of magazines or newspapers, as opposed to the classified sections, which are a less expensive, and generally lower performing method. All significant publications will be pleased to provide you with their 'Media Pack', which gives full details of all the types of display advertising available, for how much, together with lots of information about their readership profile and circulation. If you are trying to generate a direct response from display advertising you may need to feature a coupon of some kind. Otherwise display advertising is concerned with image-building and creating awareness. As with other advertising methods, the use of Free-phone telephone numbers and Free-post addresses all increase response rates.

Directories - local directories, Yellow Pages, Thomsons, etc

These sorts of directories remain very useful for local domestic, consumer and household products and services suppliers. A business telephone line normally gives free Yellow Pages and Thomson's entries under a single classification in your local books. Display adverts or more entries are charged at rates that vary according to each book (there are around 100 Yellow Pages directories books covering the UK). Books are published annually, at different dates throughout the country. These directories can often be very effective for generating enquiries for consumer businesses, but are not appropriate for all types of business-to-business sectors. Ask yourself - where would my potential customers look for suppliers of my products and services?

Consider and seek out local smaller directories and trades booklets also. The increasing ease of publishing means that production of good quality small-scale local directories is now very easy for publishers and most towns now have at least one local directory or booklet listing local suppliers which is distributed to all households in the area.

Directories - internet

Internet directories and specialist search engines are an increasingly effective way to advertise and market your services, because so many customers now use these listings to find suppliers. Many listings are free. Some work well, others don't. Many listings are not free. Again some work well and others don't. Ask other similar suppliers what works for them. Test the listings yourself to see how well they work and how commonly they feature in the main search engine listings such as Google.

To discover what website listings and directories you should appear on, search for your own products and services using Google. Include the town or area or other geographical descriptions in your search phrases - in as mny different ways as you think your customers would.

You need to be featured on the internet directories and listings websites which appear at the top of the Google results for the search terms that your customers will be using.

Brochures, Leaflets and Printed Material

Brochures and leaflets can be used for a variety of purposes, and can be distributed in different ways. A good printer can provide examples and costings, and the easiest way to learn what works and what doesn't is to look at other people's material. The aim of a brochure is foremost to generate new business through providing information in a way that appeals to the reader. The acronym AIDA (attention interest desire action) should be the basis of its design. Some brochures and leaflets are pleasing pieces of art, but they don't achieve anything for the business, so avoid falling into this trap. If you work with a designer be sure to control any fanciful tendencies and keep the message and style to the point. Too much spent on a brochure can give the impression that your business is extravagant.

When producing leaflets and brochures think about the way that they are to be distributed. If it needs an envelope try to avoid using a non-standard envelope size, which will add cost unnecessarily. If the material is required as an insert is it acceptable to the publication? Is it to be available from a rack? Do you want people to retain the material? If so perhaps a business card or plastic credit-card-type attachment would help?

There are thousands of different types of paper. Letterheads are usually printed on to 90-100gsm (grams per square metre) cartridge, laid or bond. A 100gsm paper is adequate for single sided mono or colour printing. 130gsm is better for double- sided. 200gsm is minimum weight for a post card format. 250-300gsm is used for business cards. Heavier boards are usually measured in microns rather than gsm because density affects weight more at these gauges. Coated matt and gloss 'art' papers are used for higher quality effects, but add to cost. Various lamination processes add more quality and more cost.

The print process is actually a number of separate stages:

Design Reprographics (now a computerized process which produces camera-ready-artwork and

the film from which the printing plates are made) Plate-making or electronic equivalent (for low quantities, digital print processes now

enable high quality printing direct from a computer) Printing Finishing (stapling, folding, etc if relevant)

Generally it is not possible to undo a stage and return to the previous one without re-originating at least the previous stage, so take care when signing off each stage. If your instructions to an agency or printer are not correct you will end up paying for the time they spend re-originating and amending, so think things through before you start the process.

Re-prints are generally cheaper than the first run because the reprographic work and plates do not need to be produced again. When you ask for a print quote ask at the same time for a price per thousand 'run-on' - you'll be surprised how low this cost is in proportion to the main quote. This is due to the origination and set-up charges being already absorbed by the main run.

'Full colour' printing uses the colours black, red, yellow and blue, and requires a plate to be made for each colour. Mono printing is black on white and requires just one black plate. Each colour can be tinted (ie applied less than 100% solid) to varying degrees across the print area, so with good design even black and white printing can give a high quality effect. Conversely, a poor design can make full colour printing look cheap and nasty. If you want something classier than black and white, two colour printing can produce amazing results, without the cost of going to full colour.

As a rule, printing costs reduce dramatically with volume. Digital printing methods are appropriate for low volumes, and fast becoming viable for higher volumes. There are various printing processes, which are appropriate for different purposes and particularly volumes. Ensure that the process is appropriate for your application. As a rule colour is more expensive than mono (black and white), although digital printing is not so sensitive to colour/price differences.

Remember 'AIDA' - Attention Interest Desire Action (see the sales section).

The Attention part is the banner or headline that makes an impressive benefit promise. Interest builds information in an interesting way, usually meaning that this must relate closely to the way that the reader thinks about the issues concerned. If you seek a response you must move then to create Desire, which relates benefits to the reader so that they will want them. Finally you must prompt an Action, which may be to call a telephone number or to complete and send of a reply coupon. Advertising that does not prompt action is a wasted opportunity.

Your main message must be the most prominent.

Do not be tempted to devote 50% of the space to a striking picture or a quote from Shakespeare. The biggest part of the advert must be your main benefit statement. This is the part that entices the reader to read on.

Offer a single impressive benefit, quickly and simply.

Research proves that where responses are required, the best adverts are those which offer an impressive, relevant benefit to the reader. This 'promise' should ideally contain the business brand name, take no longer to read than is normal for the media (direct mail is about 4 - 8 seconds, or about fifteen words) and be clearly the most striking part of the advert. This point cannot be stressed enough; you must keep it quick, simple and to the point. And the trend is for ever quicker points: David Lewis, an eminent consumer psychologist, says, "Copy is getting shorter, and a major factor behind this is that people these days suffer from acute shortages of both time and attention. Younger generations are extremely visually literate. They have been brought up on computer games, so they couldn't deal with a lot of polished copy, even if they wanted to." Think about the vocabulary and language you use; know your target audience: a simple test is to avoid any words or grammar that would not be found in the newspaper that the target group would read.

Your message must be quick and easy to absorb.

Use a clear layout, clear fonts and clear language. Do not distract the reader from the text by overlaying images or using fancy fonts. Use simple language, avoid complicated words, and keep enough space around the text to attract attention to it. Use simple traditional typestyles: serif fonts are quicker to read than sans serif. Use ten, eleven or twelve point-size for the main text; smaller or larger are actually more difficult to read and therefore less likely to be read. Look at newspapers and library books, which are almost always serif fonts of ten to twelve point size.

Avoid cluttering the advert with fancy images, colours and backgrounds. Make it easy to read.

For the same reason avoid italics, shadows, light colours reversed out of dark, weird and wonderful colours. None of these improve readability, they all reduce it. Use simple black (or dark coloured) text on a white (or light coloured) background. for maximum readability.

Involve the reader in your writing style - use the 2nd person: you, your, and yours.

Refer to the reader as 'you' and use the second person ('you', 'your' and 'yours' etc) in the description of what your business does for the customer to get them visualising their own personal involvement. Describe the service as it affects them in a way that they will easily relate to it.

Incorporate something new.

People respond better and are more easily attracted initially to a concept that is new or original. If they've heard or seen it all before it will be no surprise that they take no notice at all. People must believe there's something in it for them right from the start.

Develop a proposition that is special or unique and emphasise this.

Why should people be interested if your proposition is no different to your competition? You must try to emphasise what makes your service special. Unless your code of practice prevents you from claiming superiority over your competitors, you should put as much emphasis as you can behind your USP (unique selling point), and either imply or state directly that you are the only company to offer these things. Again refer to the selling article about developing unique selling propositions.

Your proposition or offer must be credible and believable.

The Advertising Standards Authority or equivalent would prevent you from making overly extravagant claims anyway, but you should still attempt to make your offer seem perfectly credible. This is usually best accomplished by explaining 'why' and 'how' you are able to do the things you are offering, in support of your claims; you can also increase credibility by showing references or testimonial quotes from satisfied customers.

For example, if you claim particularly good customer service, this can be reinforced with an outline of your policy on seeking customer feed-back and carrying out satisfaction surveys.

People open envelopes from the back.

Stuff envelopes so the material inside faces the back. Remember this if you send anything in an envelope, or instruct a mailing house, as reading the back first throws out the AIDA order, and wastes time before the reader sees the main benefit statement.

Use lower case type - word-shapes are lost when capitals are used.

People read by recognising word-shapes not individual letters, do don't use upper case (capital letters) for text, and ideally not for headlines either, as it takes longer to read and reduces impact.

Headline should be three-quarters up the page or advert space.

Position your headline statement where it can be seen quickest. Do not put headlines at the very top of the space. The eye is naturally drawn to between two-thirds and three-quarters up the page or space, which is where the main benefit statement needs to be.

Advertising is often referred to as a 'Black Art' because it is mysterious, and is rarely a precise science. Things sometimes work which you imagine wouldn't, and plenty of things you think should work, don't. The Direct Mail Campaign Story is a amusing example of the unpredictable nature of advertising ideas and methods.

Conclusion

Biblography:

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