Media Selection

ADVERTISING MEDIA In the past, small "mom and pop" retailers could attract customers by offering a convenient location, quality products, and better services than its competitors. Although these factors are still important, they do not guarantee success in today's environment. To attract more customers, retailers are spending more time and energy marketing their products and services. In order to achieve its marketing objectives, a retailer must successfully communicate with existing and potential customers. Since advertising is the most common form of direct communication, it is a key component of ones marketing strategy.

Ultimately, the goal of advertising is to increase store traffic so that you can sell more products and services. In developing an advertising plan, the retailer must first understand their target market and buyer motives. Once those two areas are covered, the retailer should determine:

Mission: What are my advertising objectives?
Money: How much can we afford to spend?
Message: What do we what to communicate to our target customer?

After determining your target market, advertising objectives, advertising budget, and communication message, the advertiser’s next task is to choose an advertising media to carry the message. How do you know what is the best media for your store? Media selection involves finding the most cost-effective media to deliver the desired number of exposures to your target audience. In order to pick the right media for your product or service, you must evaluate an advertisement based on the following:

Reach—The number of different persons or households exposed to a particular advertisement at least once during a specified time period. For example, a direct mailer sent to 5,000 targeted customers is said to have a reach of 5,000.
Frequency—The number of times within a given time period that your targeted customer is exposed to the media. For example, "We estimate that our target customers will see the ad five times in the next four weeks." The frequency of this ad is five.
Impact—The qualitative value of an exposure through a given medium. For example, many would say that a car ad in Car and Driver would have a higher impact than in Floor Covering Weekly.

Now that you know what to look for in selecting a media type, what specific media is right for your business? The most common forms of advertising are newspaper, television, radio, magazine, outdoor, direct mail, and work-of-mouth. Consider the following in selecting the best channel to communicate your message:

Newspapers—Newspaper advertising is known for its timeliness, good market coverage, broad acceptance, and high believability. Consider running a newspaper ad if you’re promoting an upcoming sale or promotion. On the other hand, newspapers tend to have a short life, poor production quality, and have a small "pass-along" audience.

Television—The only media that combines sight, sound and motion. Television is appealing to the senses, has high reach, and attracts viewers’ attention. Cable advertising is a cost-effective alternative to network advertising. However, the absolute cost of television is relatively high and there is less audience selectivity. Many small businesses find that they don’t get "the bang for the buck" from television.

Radio—Radio advertising allows you to effectively reach a specific market segment for a relatively low cost. Radio is most appropriate for businesses that have a clear understanding of their target customer. All major radio stations have comprehensive profiles on their listeners (demographics, psychographics, socio-cultural, and socio-economic characteristics). The negatives with radio advertising are that it appeals to one sense (hearing), generates less attention than television, and has fleeting exposure.

Magazines—Magazines offer credibility and prestige, high quality reproduction, long life, good pass-along readership, and high geographic and demographic selectivity. On the other hand, magazines require long lead times (unlike newspaper), many don’t guarantee position within the magazine, and there is some waste circulation.

Outdoor—Most common form of outdoor advertising is billboard. Outdoor ads offer high repeat exposure and offer flexibility. Compared to other medium, the cost of outdoor advertising is low. However, billboards do not reach a specific target audience (everyone that drives by sees it) and there are limitations with creativity.

Direct Mail—Recently, direct mail has become a popular advertising medium. Nationally, there are many marketing research firms that specialize in "clustering" demographic characteristics by geographic regions. The advantages of direct mail is that it allows you to target a specific audience, is flexible, and can be personalized. Unfortunately, direct mail is relatively costly and there is the perception of it being "junk mail".

Word-of Mouth—The best advertising medium of all. Why? Because it’s free. Most businesses don’t realize the sales potential of referral and repeat business. In order to get referrals, you must first satisfy your existing customers. The best way to do so is to institute a relationship-marketing program. For example, keep a database of all existing customers, follow-up with them on a regular basis, and consider offering incentives to repeat customers. Remember, although it’s important to increase business with new customers, it’s equally important to retain existing customers. Without them, you’re dead.

For more information about retailer advertising and media, check out the following web sites.

TOP ADVERTISING INFORMATION WEB SITES http://www.advo.com/
For retailers looking to use direct mail, this site is a must. Advo is the nation’s largest full-service targeted direct mail marketing services company. Over 20,000 retailers use their services each year. They are the company behind the Missing Child Program.

http://www.1to1.com/
The best site for relationship marketing ideas. The site offers a free weekly email newsletter, news and articles, and even a spreadsheet that allows you to calculate the value of a lifetime customer. Don Peppers and Martha Rodgers are recognized leaders in the field of marketing. They offer plenty of great ideas for small businesses on how to increase sales and cultivate lifetime relationships with customers.

http://www.adage.com/
Site for Advertising Age magazine. Although this site focuses mainly on large agency and corporate advertising, it is also a great resource for the small business. This site allows you to keep in touch with the latest advertising and marketing trends. Also, the site offers statistical information on topics such as national media spending, the top 300 magazines, and the top 100 market research companies.

http://www.naa.org/
Newspaper Association of America's online site. Anyone thinking about newspaper advertising should check out this site. Includes a comprehensive analysis of the retail industry in its MarketScope section as well as national statistics on newspaper advertising trends and costs.