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ARTICLE
By Justin Banwell.
Whether you're just starting out in business or have been at it for a while, advertising always comes up as a big question mark for most people. Frankly, I'm not surprised, because advertising is an ever-evolving field and it's difficult to keep up with all the latest trends.

For mobile DJing, and other professions where you and your brand are essentially the same thing, putting yourself out there can also be pretty daunting. The biggest hurdle, however, is usually cost! How can you justify spending money and time on advertising when you can’t be certain of the results? In this article we’ll look at what exactly advertising is, how you should cost/plan your campaign and how to build a successful advert from concept to production, as well as exploring how you can track and measure the effectiveness and success of your adverts.

Advertising, according to Barron's Dictionary of Marketing Terms, is the “paid form of a non-personal message communicated through various media. [It] is persuasive and informational and is designed to influence the purchasing behaviour and/or thought patterns of the audience.”


Now, before we start, you may well be wondering exactly what we mean by ‘advertising’ and what forms it can take, as well as how it can build your brand identity and improve your presence. Advertising is really a tactic or specific activity used as part of a strategic marketing plan, and adverts come in many forms, including direct mail, newspapers, magazines, television, radio, internet and printed material such as posters and flyers. For your advertising campaign to be successful, you will need to combine many of these types of advert – what we call a ‘media mix’ – and make sure that they hit your target audience frequently.

Preparation

Before you do anything else, you should get organised! Get a year planner and plot your busy times and opportunities such as wedding fayres and exhibitions. Research magazine deadlines, print dates, and issue dates. All of this will help you create an advertising plan for the year, and this plan is essential for ensuring frequency within your advertising campaign. If you’re running print ads in a monthly magazine, for instance, you’ll need to supplement them with other ads, such as flyers in your local venues. Your campaigns should also be supported by other marketing communications, such as emails and exhibition stands; you cannot depend on just one advertising vehicle because your customers are bombarded by thousands of ads each day. It is generally accepted in marketing circles that, to be effective, a marketing campaign must expose target customers to the advertising message multiple times, and in different ways.

Selecting the best advertising avenues for your business can seem challenging, but it’s important. Of course, you’ll need to take into consideration your budget, target audience and message. To achieve maximum awareness, narrow down your target audience and use media that will reach them; this media mix – e.g. a combination of online, print and direct mail – is almost always necessary. Will your audience be more susceptible to ads on social media than in magazines? Do they even read magazines?! You also need to determine the number one objective of your campaign. Is it to introduce a new product or service (maybe you are now offering your services as an MC as well as a DJ) or is it to illicit a direct response (perhaps you’d like potential customers to request a brochure) or reaffirm the position of your brand in the local market? Once you’ve decided, you should hit the same demographic over and over again to ensure that you and your business are always on their collective mind!

In terms of costing, to analyse whether advertising in a particular publication is worth it, you should include a cost per thousand (CPM) column in your plans. This will tell you how much it costs to reach 1000 people, and can be worked out by dividing the advertising fee by the readership of the magazine. It’s by no means the only way to judge which you should pick, but it will certainly weed out those ones which just don’t measure up!

My first tip would be not to spread your budget too thin: a sporadic approach is rarely as effective as a consistent and well-thought out campaign, and, in the long run, this technique will save you money. A second tip would be not to ‘try’ an expensive form of advertising if you can’t afford to put some weight behind it. In other words: if you’re going to do something, do it properly! A good example is radio advertising: it can be expensive but if you can’t afford to do more than two spots per week then give it a miss and use that extra budget to beef up areas where you already advertise: increase a half page ad to a full page, or add a web banner to support an online promotion. Both of these tips involve spending wisely on well-planned ventures in order to save in the long run, rather than frittering away small amounts on half-baked campaigns.
The full review can be found in Pro Mobile Issue 72, Pages 50-54.
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