Advertising Strategies By Steve Moghadam

The most important part of branding is advertising strategy. This must be done right to have a better results. Everything we mentioned so far about content, online presence, event and other items is somehow related to advertising strategy and we are looking for becoming a brand (getting recognition) by using them

"Advertising tools are the able arm of forwarding the branding process.'

Other advertising tools include TV, radio, magazines, advertising boards in urban spaces, brochure, catalog, folder and promoting gift. Applying these tools requires a solid strategy. In the topic regarding harmony, we mentioned that you need to consider all of these items’ common features.??

Each one of these tools has its special character. Therefore, you need to formulate a plan for how to use these tools based on the size of your business and your budget limit, and determine which one of these tools you will apply

In your advertising strategy, make clear for yourself:?

• Whether you can use all of these advertising tools
• Whether your purpose of branding is to make sales quickly or to go through a long-term process to achieve high sale

Your brand might have already reached a certain level of recognition, so you would just look for more sales by using branding tools.?

If your budget is sufficient for all the mentioned tools, then apply all methods together.

Selection of Advertising Tools According to Budget

People who don’t have enough budget to use all advertising tools for branding should do research, study, and adjust to their budget. They should also determine which tools they can utilize. In the stage of researching your advertising strategy, determine:?

?Which media have the highest rate of audiences in your target market?

? In which stage of your business plan and marketing plan are you?

? Are you at a point in your marketing plan where you need to make sales immediately?

? Is branding the only thing you are supposed to do?

Advertising tools are finally selected based on the overlapping between the media audiences and the target market, and the budget limit.?

If you have ten thousand dollars, radio, TV, billboards, and large newspapers are out of your list. What remains is items such as brochure, promoting gift, online advertisement, and short-run magazines.?

Evaluate the degree of overlapping between the media audiences and your target market and examine with which tool you will have faster return on investment.?

To have a more accurate and thoughtful selection of advertising tools in the process of branding, you can use the following table-oriented method:

Create a table in Excel:

Write down the list of tools in the first column

? Write the cost for each tool in the second column

? Assign a score between 1 to 100 to each tool in the third column based on effectiveness

For example, estimate the cost for printing and distributing 5000 copies of catalogs and brochures, and calculate an approximate degree of effectiveness by doing research and assessment.?

In the fourth column, write down the amount of budget you allocate for each tool according to your business plan and marketing plan strategies. Assign each row to one tool or method.

In the next stage, compare the cost and budget columns. For instance:

1. Using weeklies as a tool for reaching 10 thousand audiences, you spend the entire budget for weeklies in addition to the budget for online advertisement.
2. To advertise online, you spend the same budget you have already allocated.
3. You need to spend 350 dollars on promoting gifts which is more than the allocated budget.
4. You need to spend 150 dollars on the catalog which is the same as the allocated budget; so, there’s no problem here.?

In this stage, check whether you intend to spend the entire budget for a circle of certain audiences using one single tool or you want to spend a part of the budget on brochure while spending another part of it on online advertisement.

For example, in a neighborhood with a population of 50 thousand people, you target 10 thousand people using one tool and you use another tool to target another 10 thousand people.?

If possible, don’t target a group of audiences with two advertising tools because your purpose is branding and what you want is for more people to recognize you and you don’t intend to persuade people to buy a product by putting too much emphasis on that product.

Try and use various advertising tools so more audiences?get to notice you. Furthermore, if you don’t receive the?feedback you expect from one of these tools for any kind?of reason, then at least, you will yield a minimum result?from other tools

You may wonder if it’s reasonable to cut the budget for a particular tool and raise the budget for other tools.?

In the aforementioned example, regarding the tools such as weeklies and promoting gifts for which costs are higher than the allocated budgets, you can examine this issue according to the degree of effectiveness for each too

Here, we gave a score of 30 to the degree of effectiveness for the promoting gift. Therefore, it’s not reasonable to allocate extra budget because this tool is not very effective. However, weeklies are very influential; so, the action must be taken and the required budget must be allocated to this tool.

The possibility of not yielding the desired result for all the tools is extremely slim due to the research you have done and the table you have arranged.

Using this table, qualitative goals have turned into quantitative goals, and you deal with numbers and figures and you can make the best decision based on the scenario suitable for your conditions

The amount of budget you consider for advertisement depends on the amount of your profit.

Let’s assume your product is ice cream. By considering the circumstances of the market and your competitors, you have priced it 5 dollars. 2.5 dollars is your profit out of 5 dollars. You consider a part of this profit for the distributors, and eventually, you end up with 10% profit. Out of 2.5 dollars of your expense, half a dollar might be your budget for advertising.

Try and reduce costs by optimizing production methods and spend more on advertisement.?

Notice that for branding, there’s also the consolidated strategy of branding and sale. Most of the times, these two help each other. You sometimes raise sales by offering high discount rates and relinquishing profit or even by expending money. By doing so, you will strengthen your brand and your sale will rise in the long run. Designing such strategies must be suitable for branding. Some businesses have to make a minimum sale and can not dedicate their entire plans to branding

Evaluation and Control?

At the beginning, you have defined certain goals in the process of branding. You can apply special software tools and estimate:

?How effective has the brand been in the made purchases?

? How effective were the discounts and other variables? Analyzing these results indicates how successful you have been in branding. You can also evaluate the feedback on the advertising content in radio and TV and its impact on branding.?

Patience and persistence are the secrets to successful branding.

People who think smartly are aware that no one can just strike it rich and no business is developed overnight. Therefore, they consider a small profit and grow gradually. You may pass through the phases quicker than usual only on account of some contingencies. Active patience and persistence in activities turn you into a brand.