Drooling... as you sip your Tall, Non-Fat Latte with Caramel Drizzle, dreaming about all the customers in the world available to your business?
Dreaming and relating to the
early exponential phases of successful businesses like Ebay or Amazon – minus the
title of revolutionary start-up company?
Well… I won’t guarantee that my advice will earn your business quite the
same level of success.
But I will claim that if you earn just 1% of that
success your life will improve in unimaginable ways.
And that is a goal we can certainly aim for :-)
The importance of knowing the answer to the question ‘When is the right
time for my business to start advertising’ in a lot of cases may either make or
break a new business venture.
The purpose of this article is to help you understand when your business
can safely begin advertising.
Actually, many small businesses don’t advertise.
They’re missing out on simple and significant growth opportunities.
They’re scared of entering an industry which seems so complicated and
hard to predict.
Don’t fall into that trap!
Be the one out in front.
Know when to begin advertising, and when you do, pursue it knowing that
it will take you not one, but five steps closer to your life goal.
The following steps will help you understand when your business should start advertising:
1. When you have
developed a formal marketing plan
Most people don’t!
While needing a marketing plan seems to most like common sense, you’d be
surprised how many businesses adopt blind advertising campaigns.
By ‘blind advertising campaigns’ I mean campaigns which don’t consider
the best target market type.
This is particularly common with online campaigns. Often these campaigns are rushed, and aren't optimized to attract the customers offering most potential.
If you’re interested in developing a marketing plan, read this great article Use These 5 Steps to Create a Marketing Plan
When we think about advertising, the first thought that comes to
mind is ‘how can I expose my company to as many people as possible?’
Traffic is expensive!
While exposure is positive for branding, most of us have learnt that connecting
to more people in most cases costs MORE MONEY!
For this reason, we want to only reach valuable targets.
These targets are more likely to buy your product or service.
These targets are determined by your businesses purpose.
So how do I ensure I receive maximum
value for my marketing efforts?
Fantastic! I’m glad you asked my friend ;-)
Take this example:
“Suppose
you are a high-priced attorney specializing in managing legal affairs for
billionaires. Would you rather advertise to 500,000 people from the general
public, or would you rather speak to a room of 20 billionaires? It’s not about
exposing your ads to as many people as possible.
Out
of 500,000 people from the general public, maybe one of them is a billionaire,
and you’ll be lucky to get 1 sale. If you speak to a room of 20 billionaires,
even though you only expose your services to 20 people, you might get 4 or 5
sales.”
http://www.visualscope.com/marketing102.html
Understanding value in advertising and marketing is dependent upon how
specific the campaign is.
The more specific the target market type reached, the more successful
the campaign.
Provided the target market is related to the campaigns purpose.
The advertising and marketing strategy must be designed to reach this
specific target market as often as possible.
This will ensure less money and time is wasted on reaching people not
interested in the campaign in the first place.
Essentially, a formal marketing plan identifies maturity in the company
– contributing to ensure intelligence is invested into the campaign, providing
relevance and accuracy.
Milestone!
2. When you reach a pivotal milestone, and that milestone
is important for customers
When building an advertising campaign it is important to market the right product or service that your business offers.
Timing can be essential. Would it be better to advertise old products which have been available for years, or new products which the customers don't know about?
For this reason, it is important to strategize when you launch campaigns, to ensure maximum efficiency and purpose.
There is no more relevant time to begin your businesses journey into the advertising and marketing industry then when you have a significant product or service to launch, or when a significant stage of development has been reached.
3. When you can afford to
spend 5-10% of revenue on your campaigns
It is widely recommended by business professionals to invest on average 5-10% of annual gross revenue on advertising and marketing campaigns.
For more specific recommendations check out this more detailed article
The advertising and marketing industry throughout history has been burdened by the shortcomings of prediction.
However. With advancements in campaign tracking technology, businesses can now accurately predict the success of online campaigns like never before.
As a result, businesses are able to more safety invest greater sums of money into the advertising and marketing industry.
Data is key to campaign accuracy!
The trick for large companies is to successfully utilize the range of big data analytical tools available.
The trick for smaller companies is to build and define their business philosophy on analysing customer behaviour with data.
While this article was not written for Big Data, check out another fantastic piece written by Neil Patel to find out how 'small data' can help your business
Can you think of any more key factors for when a business should start advertising? Let me know in the comments below.
