Blog: Marketing and Social Media

3 Ways to Approach Ad Planning

Especially in hard economic times, setting an advertising budget is enormously important. Many companies cut advertising when revenues shrink, or expenses creep up.

Reducing your ad spend could be an expensive mistake, further escalating the problem. If you’re not consistently in front of your customers – in the media – your sales may take an additional hit.

Before You Set Your Ad Budget

Step back and take a moment to think about a few factors before you start. How much you spend on advertising depends on your position in the market, the competition you face, and other factors.

You should:

• know and understand your competition and THEIR advertising strategies,
• analyze your performance compared to last month and last year,
• note the length of the selling season compared to last year, and
• watch for selling trends, such as shifts in demographics that may affect buying trends.

3 Ways to Plan Your Ad Budget

No matter how you budget, there never seems to be enough marketing money to go around. But using one or a combination of these budgeting methods will help you implement your marketing plan.

1. Budgeting a percentage of sales: Provides a good budget starting point, but when sales decline, you have less money to solve your marketing problems. It’s also not a good approach if you’re trying to expand into a new area.

2. Budgeting according to the tasks you want to accomplish. Ties the amount you spend to the marketing mix activities you have developed. If good marketing objectives have been chosen, this plan offers the best chance of reaching them, but it doesn’t take affordability into account.

3. Budgeting based on what your competition spends. Should enable you to stay competitive in the market and allows you to respond rapidly to a competitor’s marketing campaign. However, basing your activities on those of others may restrict your own company’s growth potential.

Have you found effective ways to plan your advertising budget?

(Thanks to Realtor.org for the 3 Ways to Plan.)

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ABOUT Lisa M. Chapman:

Ms. Chapman’s new book, How to Make Money Online With Social Media: A Step-by-Step Guide for Entrepreneurs will be available very soon. With offices in Nashville Tennessee, but working virtually with international clients, Lisa M. Chapman serves her clients as a business and marketing coach, business planning consultant and social media consultant. As a Founder of iBrand Masters, a social media consulting firm, Lisa Chapman helps clients to establish and enhance their online brand, attract their target market, engage them in meaningful social media conversations, and convert online traffic into revenues. Email: Lisa @ LisaChapman.com