Should you advertise?

Advertising is an interesting topic and it's still one of the main things that people think marketers do, probably because it's an easy area of marketing to understand. That's not all we do of course, but it's still an important element of the marketing mix. There are some other facts we think we know about advertising:

• It's expensive
• Big companies do it
• You mostly see advertising on posters, TV, radio, newspapers and magazines, and on the Internet.

All of the above are correct as far as they go, but it's surprising to learn that traditional advertising, like we see on the TV and in magazines has become more accessible as these media fight to compete with more cost effective advertising options on the internet. The other reason the costs have come down is that many of them are losing readership as consumers move online so have to compete harder for your advertising business.

As part of a marketing campaign or long term awareness raising, traditional advertising can still work. What doesn't usually work are one-off advertisements, especially in newspapers but this also applies online with banner advertising as once or twice is not enough time to establish your message with the reader or visitor.

Today, our customers are likely to consume information online as well as via traditional media so like most other marketing a mix is a good idea. Here are our favourite tips to prepare for advertising:

1. Ask yourself how can you measure it? Traditional advertising may mean you need a code on the advert to track its success, or a use a unique phone number so you know the advert generated that enquiry, not another medium. If you use online advertising you can also measure conversion rates using visitor statisticss and tracking an "action" like completing a sale or signing up for a newsletter.
   
2. Before you decide whether to advertise or not, find out where your customers are. If they're Daily Mail readers at least you know your advert will be seen by the right people if you advertise with the Daily Mail.
3. Off-line, negotiate. Most printed media, radio and TV are desperate to bring in more advertising revenue. Online, look at low cost bids and long-tailed search terms to get more clicks for your budget, although bear in mind that longer search terms tend to get less volume, which is why you pay more for the short, popular ones.
   
4. Whichever medium you choose, have more than one advertisement over a period of time and make sure your adverts are seen/shown regularly.
5. Never say yes to a one-off advert in anything, no matter how cheap it sounds! If you're tempted, spend that money on another form of marketing where you get longer exposure.
6. Have a clear call to action. What do you want the person who sees or hears your advert to do next? Telephone you, visit your website or do something else? This also helps you to tack the success of your advert.
7. Seriously consider trying online advertising methods such as pay per click on search engines like Google or in social networks like Facebook. If your customers are looking in these media. It's a way of getting straight to them when they login or search. The biggest advantage of nearly all online advertising is control. You can control budgets instantly and have constant access to performance stats and conversion rates.

The Internet has made it easier for small businesses to dip their toes in the water with advertising as it's not only affordable but highly measurable. As always, it still has to meet your criteria for spending marketing budget and guarantee you a return that you're happy with.

Karen McNulty
www.MarketingPlanWiz.co.uk and www.BusinessPlanwiz.com

How to write a social media plan

Yes, there's a plan for everything! If you create a marketing plan it's likely that you'll include a section on Internet marketing anyway, but social media as an area of internet marketing is big enough to warrant its own strategy.

We're defining "social media" here as online social networks such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, social bookmarking websites such as Delicious and Technorati, YouTube and other video sharing networks, picture sharing sites such as Flickr, also blogs and podcasts.

One of the reasons for writing a social media plan is that it's so easy to start using these media, because they're quick to set up and before you know it you've lost momentum or direction. Social media is like any other marketing, a set of marketing tools to help you achieve your objectives but there's a lot of choice so a strategy is advisable. This becomes critical when more than one of your team is using social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn to promote your brand.

A social media plan will also enable you to establish how you will measure the effectiveness of your social marketing activity. Measuring social networking is quite possible but using different sets of criteria to traditional marketing, such as "engagement".

Here are our tips on how to put together a social media plan (our version, so please feel free to add your thoughts and experiences by commenting):

1. Where you are now, a brief analysis of what you're already doing (if anything) with social media, and successes/failures using stats if you have them. This not only helps to set the scene for anyone using the plan but makes it clearer in your mind where to start from.
2. Social media objectives. This is valuable and helps to define why you're using social media as a marketing tool. Typical objectives can include: Engaging with your customers, reaching potential customers (raising awareness), positioning your business as expert in an area, enabling customers to talk to each other, a platform for enabling or encouraging reviews, building brand awareness and credibility.
3. The approach. How will you adopt social media, what will the tone of voice be, core messages and policies?
4. Positioning. Define how your online social marketing activity will sit compared to competitors. The key here is to differentiate yourself if you can. For example, the business arm of Dell chose to set up a social media forum on Facebook for small businesses to help each other rather than use it as a direct selling platform. And the Compare the Market "Meerkat" social media campaign engaged a phenomenal number of followers. Sometimes a bit of lateral thinking will provide a much richer method of engaging with your customers.
5. Specify the social media that you will use. By this point you'll have a fair idea of what's available that will fit with your objectives, approach and positioning. Here is where you can define the list of media such as a blog, Facebook page, YouTube channel and so on. Under each medium, outline how you will use it such as the theme, topics, direction.
6. Listening. I make a point of including this because engaging with social media properly means you have to listen as well as post. How will you monitor what others are saying about your brand in the social networks? Also listen to find out what's trending as this could provide good foundations for your next blog, and think about commenting on other blogs and social networks - engagement should always be a two-way process.
7. Dealing with comments and feedback. Outline a procedure for doing this, especially important if there are several people in the business involved with social media. Drafting a policy is useful if this is the case so that you can be consistent and avoid PR disasters. Above all, do plan to respond to comments and questions on your own social pages as they should never be left unanswered as that sends out the wrong customer service message.
   
8. Timing and regularity. Now that you know which media you will adopt, it's time to decide how often and who. Using Twitter for example should be at least daily, preferably several times a day whereas blogging might be once a week.
   
9. Measurement and evaluation. Include the methods you will use to track the success of your social media activity. There are a variety of ways to do this such as engagement - how many followers/fans/comments; traffic statistics using Google Analytics on the blog so you can see where traffic is coming from (referrals); tracking mentions using feedback from Google Alerts can also provide a picture of the reach of your activity.
   
10. To Do List. I find this useful at the end of any marketing plan. After you have decided on the strategy, what are the priorities, who is doing them and when by? You can add costs here too if appropriate.

You can find more tips on putting together internet marketing plans on one of our previous blogs, "10 reasons to put together an Internet marketing plan".

Happy planning!

Karen McNulty
MarketingPlanWiz and BusinessPlanWiz