June 23, 2010
by Bill Cherry
Creating an advertising campaign starts with defining three things:
1. Establish an objective
2. Develop a strategy
3. Create the tactics to accomplish the strategy
1. Establish an objective- what do we want to accomplish? Increase sales dollars, sales percentages, or sell a certain number of units. There can also be non monetary objectives such as developing the image or awareness of a product, service, or person.
2. Develop a strategy- the strategy is the thinking and planning how to accomplish the objective. Will we use advertising, direct sales, on site promotions, telemarketing or other means?
3. Create the tactics-the tactics are the execution or doing part of the planning. If the strategy includes using radio advertising, the tactics decide which radio stations will be used. Will the direct sales focus on certain zip codes, or will the telemarketing use cold calling or buy a list of contacts to call?
Date-Next is establishing a date to hold the campaign that does not conflict and compete with other major events.
Budget- Determine the amount of money to spend on the campaign. Each month of the year should have a portion of the annual advertising budget. Determining how to spend a certain month’s budget is an important decision. How much should be spent on this campaign. Don’t blow all your money on this campaign.
Example: campaign for a car dealership
Date- Thursday through Sunday March 13-16th.
Budget- To sell 20 cars we will spend $25,000 for the campaign.
Objective- To sell 20 cars, increase sales 15% over the same month last year, and have gross sales of$400,000.
Strategy- Target young males age 20 to 35 years of age. Use advertising, out bound telemarketing by the dealership sales force, newspaper, and Internet.
Tactics- To accomplish the objective using the strategy the tactics will be to choose the radio and television stations, which newspapers to use, the script for the telemarketers, and how to use the Internet.
Advertising- To reach young males age 20 to 35 years old we must identify their media habits. From research we determine the best way to reach them is with radio and television advertising. We will advertise on sports television, and prime time TV programs. On radio we will advertise on five radio stations that our target customers listen to.
The newspaper advertising will be in the Saturday classified advertising sections. On the Internet, we will use Craig’s List. It is free and has a very high traffic profile of buyers.
Budget allocation:
Television $10,000
Radio $10,000
Classified newspaper $ 5,000
Internet $ 0
Total $25,000
When the time comes, begin the campaign but monitor all the advertising to insure it runs when it should. The television and radio stations will provide a schedule when the spots will run. When the campaign is over, evaluate the campaign’s success or failure.
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