Advertising and Promotions
Written by Carter McNamara, MBA, PhD, Authenticity Consulting, LLC. Copyright 1997-2008.
Adapted from the Field
Guide to Nonprofit Program Design, Marketing and Evaluation.
(The book includes more comprehensive and detailed information about advertising
and promotions, along with the broader activities of marketing.
Although the publication addresses nonprofits, the marketing
information pertains to for-profits, as well.)
Before you learn more about advertising, you should get a basic impression of what advertising is. See What's "Advertising, Marketing, Promotion, Public Relations and Publicity, and Sales?". Advertising is a major "phase" of overall product or service development and management. Advertising is specifically part of the "outbound" marketing activities, or activities geared to communicate to the market, eg, advertising, promotions, public relations, etc. ("Inbound" marketing activities are geared to communicate from the market, and include, eg, market research about the market.) Therefore, after reviewing this topic "Advertising and Promoting", you might also benefit from scanning the topic Product/Service Management to get more perspective on the role of advertising. Later, you might scan some of the related topics referenced in the section to get an even larger perspective on advertising and promotions. In particular, be sure to look at information in the closely related topics Marketing and Public and Media Relations.
Table of Contents
Basics of Advertising and Promotions
Advertising Law (take a quick look to see what you should avoid)Basics and Planning (always start with a basic plan -- goals, methods, etc.)
Preparing for Advertising and Promotions
Positioning (including writing your positioning statement)Writing Your Ad
Various Methods of Advertising and Promotions
Major Methods of Advertising and PromotionUsing Direct Mail (this includes mailings directly to your customer)
- - -Mailing Lists (it's useful to have lists of people who are likely to buy your product)
Signs and Displays
Classifieds of Newspapers and Magazines
Advertising on Radio and T.V.
Telemarketing
Online Advertising and Promotions
Evaluating Advertising and Promotions
Measuring Results of Advertising
General Resources
An Advertising GlossaryAdvertising Myths
A Primer on Advertising
Advertising Blueprint-Drawing the Blueprint
Better Bullets Make Better Copy
BASICS OF ADVERTISING AND PROMOTIONS
Advertising Law
Advertising / Marketing LawsBasics and Planning
Introduction
Advertising and promotions is bringing a service to the attention of potential and current customers. Advertising and promotions are best carried out by implementing an advertising and promotions plan. The goals of the plan should depend very much on the overall goals and strategies of the organization, and the results of the marketing analysis, including the positioning statement.The plan usually includes what target markets you want to reach, what features and benefits you want to convey to them, how you will convey it to them (this is often called your advertising campaign), who is responsible to carry the various activities in the plan and how much money is budgeted for this effort. Successful advertising depends very much on knowing the preferred methods and styles of communications of the target markets that you want to reach with your ads. A media plan and calendar can be very useful, which specifies what advertising methods are used and when.
For each service, carefully consider:
What target markets are you trying to reach with your ads? What
would you like them to think and perceive about your products
(this should be in terms of benefits to them, not you)? How can
you get them to think and perceive that? What communications media
do they see or prefer the most? Consider TV, radio, newsletters,
classifieds, displays/signs, posters, word of mouth, press releases,
direct mail, special events, brochures, neighborhood newsletters,
etc.
What media is most practical for you to use in terms
of access and affordability (the amount
spent on advertising is often based on the revenue expected from
the product or service, that is, the sales forecast)?
You can often find out a lot about your
customers preferences just by conducting some basic market research
methods. The following closely related links might be useful in
preparation for your planning.
Basic Methods to
Get Customer Feedback
Major Methods of Advertising
and Promotion
Also consider
Basics of Marketing
PREPARATION FOR ADVERTISING AND PROMOTIONS
Writing Your Ad
Before you write your ad, you should know what you want to say.Positioning: Deciding and Conveying Your Unique Selling Position
Naming and Branding
MAJOR METHODS OF ADVERTISING AND PROMOTIONS
Overview of Major Methods of Advertising and PromotionUsing Direct Mail
Nonprofits: Mailing lists, using bulk mail, etc.10 Tips for Writing Better Sales Letters
Thirteen Reasons We Love Direct Marketing
Direct Mail Articles
Mailing Lists
Using Direct Mail to Generate LeadsUsing Signs and Displays
Wikipedia -- about BillboardsBillboard Advertising
Using Classified Ads in Newspapers and Magazines
How to write classified adsUsing Classified Ads To Maximize Your Web Marketing Efforts
Soliciting Classified Ads
Advertising on Radio and T.V.
Television Advertising Pros and ConsRadio Advertising Articles
Online Advertising and Promotion
Promoting
Your Business Website
Articles on Web
Marketing - Wilson Internet Services
International
Business Resources on the WWW
Classified
Ads on the Web - Web Marketing Today Info Center
Social Networking (Online) for Marketing, Advertising and Promotions
Social neworking involves a variety of online tools that can be used by people and
organizations to quickly share a great deal of information at very little
cost. Many people are now hearing of some of those tools, e.g., Facebook, Twitter,
MySpace and Youtube. Experts are asserting that social networking is a must for people and
organizations wanting to share information with others -- after all, that's what marketing
is all about! For more information, see
Social Networking (Online)
Measuring Results of Advertising
Articles related to measuring advertising resultsWays to Evaluate Your Marketing Program
Do You Know the Results of Your Advertising?
For the Category of Marketing:
Related Library Topics
Recommended Books
Basics, Planning and General Information
Basics, Planning and General Information
The following books are recommended because of their highly practical nature and often because they include a wide range of information about this Library topic. To get more information about each book, just hover your cursor over the image of the book. A "bubble" of information will be displayed. You can click on the title of the book in that bubble to get more information, too.
Market Research and Trends
The following books are recommended because of their highly practical nature and often because they include a wide range of information about this Library topic. To get more information about each book, just hover your cursor over the image of the book. A "bubble" of information will be displayed. You can click on the title of the book in that bubble to get more information, too.
Competitive Intelligence
The following books are recommended because of their highly practical nature and often because they include a wide range of information about this Library topic. To get more information about each book, just hover your cursor over the image of the book. A "bubble" of information will be displayed. You can click on the title of the book in that bubble to get more information, too.
Note to nonprofits: Nonprofits "compete" with other nonprofits, too. They compete for funding, attention from their communities and for staff. Also, funders often want to see if their grantees have closely considered whether other nonprofits are already offering the same services in the same areas. So nonprofits should use competitive intelligence, too.
Nonprofit
Field
Guide to Nonprofit Program Design, Marketing and Evaluation
- by Carter McNamara, published by Authenticity Consulting, LLC. There are few books, if any, that explain how to carefully plan, organize, develop and market a nonprofit program. Also, too many books completely separate the highly integrated activities of planning, marketing and evaluating programs. This book integrates all three into a comprehensive, straightforward approach that anyone can follow in order to provide high-quality programs with strong appeal to funders. Includes many online forms that can be downloaded. Many materials in this Library topic are adapted from this book.
The following books are recommended because of their highly practical nature and often because they include a wide range of information about this Library topic. To get more information about each book, just hover your cursor over the image of the book. A "bubble" of information will be displayed. You can click on the title of the book in that bubble to get more information, too.
Also See
Public Relations -- Recommended Books
Sales -- Recommended Books
